The Palm Court

The Ritz's most widely known facility is the Palm Court, an opulently decorated cream-coloured Louis XVI setting. It is decorated with lavish furnishings, including gilded Louis XVI armchairs with oval backs, which the architects had designed based on research into French neo-classical furniture design of the 1760s and 1770s, which were made by Waring and Gillow. The room, with its, "panelled mirrors of bevelled glass in gilt bronze frames and "high coving ornamented with gilded trellis-work", according to Montgomery-Massingberd and Watkin "epitomizes the elegantly frivolous comfort of Edwardian high life".^[99]
There were originally large windows at either end of the court, then known as the Winter Garden, and were replaced with twenty panels of mirrors after 1972.^[101] The fountain of the court, known as "La Source", is made of Echaillon marble and is extravagantly sculpted.^[102] A nymph, gold in colour, is featured in a lair.^[103] A wrought-iron and glass roof of the Palm Court contains two gilded wrought-iron lanterns, and the ceiling contains lion skin motifs. ^[104]The room is done in soft apricot and has remained so since 1906. César Ritz chose the colour to flatter the complexions of women after weeks of experimentation with various hues.^[105]
The Palm Court is the setting for the world-famous institution that is "Tea at the Ritz",^[o] once frequented by King Edward VII, Sir Winston Churchill, Noël Edmonds, Judy Garland, Evelyn Waugh and Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother. It acquired its reputation as " the place for tea" in London after World War I.^[99] In the 1920s a small orchestra would play regularly on the court; film producer John Sutro for instance recalled that Hermione Baddeley once requested the violinist to "play something hot ". Between the Winter Garden and the central Grand Gallery is a screen featuring two Ionic columns.^[106]

Dining

The Ritz restaurant

Exterior of the restaurant on Piccadilly

The hotel has six private dining rooms, the Marie Antoinette Suite, with its boiserie, and the rooms within the Grade II* listed William Kent House.^[107] Marcus Binney states that the restaurant is "not only one of the most beautiful interiors in London, it can be claimed as the most beautiful restaurant in the world".^[108]
César Ritz once commented that the room was so heavily designed in bronze that it was fortunate that the hotel was built from steel, or the "walls would collapse with the weight of all that bronze".^[108] Flanking the entrance to the main restaurant are two life-sized figures set in "bronze vert after Clodion, holding gilded bronze lustres with six lights each, mounted on pedestals of polished Echaillon marble ornamented with bronze".^[99] The restaurant and adjacent guest room were designed by P. H. Remon and Sons of Paris. The ceiling is a described by Montgomery-Massingberd and Watkin as a "painted trompe-l'oeil ceiling on which pinkish clouds drift across the blue sky encircled by a garlanded balustrade". Bronze chandeliers are also a feature, influenced by an 18th-century Augustin de Saint-Aubin engraving known as Le Bal Pare et Masque,^[109] and Le Festin by Moreau le Jeune, which was given by the City of Paris to the King and Queen on 21 January 1782.^[108]
On the northern end against the Piccadilly arcade are floor-to-ceiling mirrors, divided into panes, which give the room a spacious effect, especially when the lights are on all day during the winter.^[110] At the south end of the restaurant is a watercolour by Davis and gilded figures known as "The Thames and the Ocean", with a buffet made from Norwegian pink marble below it, believed to be inspired by Louis Seize's "Buffet of Mansart".^[111]

Dining service at the Ritz

During the 1977 major renovation of the hotel, the scaffolding used in the project was hidden by a clean cloth during mealtimes in the Louis XVI restaurant so as not to upset diners with a possibly disturbing sight. During the renovation, the columns in the hotel's lobbies were stripped of many coats of cream-coloured paint to display their original pink marble.^[44] Most of the work done in the renovation was done to restore and clean while keeping the original 1906 colour scheme. Much of the furniture from the original opening was still in use; new items were faithful copies styled after the originals.^[112] The hotel retained its nightstand call buttons for maid, waiter, valet and servant, refusing to make its patrons dial a telephone for services.^[113]
From its inception, the kitchen was run mainly by French chefs, and it had a specialist in Russian soups and Viennese pastry; its cakes became so famous that King Edward made regular orders from Buckingham Palace.^[114] M. Malley, who had been saucier at the Paris Ritz was appointed Chef des Cuisines, and invented dishes such as Saumon Marquise de Sevignre (Salmon with a crayfish mousse), Filet de Sole Romanoff (served with mussels, small slices of apple and artichokes), and Poulet en Chaudfroid (chicken accompanied by a curry-flavoured pinkish mousse) at the hotel.^[114] The Ritz is renowned for its supreme catering service, as well as using its fine rooms for conferencing between executives and directors of multi-national firms. A table at the restaurant still needs to be booked weeks in advance. The Rivoli Bar, built in the Art Deco style, was designed in 2001 by interior designer Tessa Kennedy, to look like a bar on the Orient Express. The lounge was decorated by Marcel Boulanger in the Louis VIV style, the clubroom was by Lenygon and Morant, who were influenced by the Palladian design of Cumberland House in Brettingham, and other rooms were decorated with clear William Chambers and Robert Adam influences.^[115] Meals can be served on Nanking china in the Trafalgar Suite.^[116] The banquet and catering services received a Royal warrant from HRH the Prince of Wales in 2005.^[117]