Located in the former lobby of the grand Hilton Cincinnati Netherland Plaza, which opened in 1931 and has hosted everyone from Winston Churchill to Elvis Presley, Orchids at Palm Court is like some sort of crazy F. Scott Fitzgerald fever dream, with its ornate French Art Deco architecture, Brazilian rosewood walls, French silver metalwork, frescoes, and ceiling murals. While you might think a place so locked in the past would serve up a predictable if not dated menu, that couldn’t be further from the truth. Despite the opulence that surrounds you, what you’ll experience at Orchids is fresh, locally sourced comfort food of the highest order, served by a professional, Downton Abbey–style staff of 170 (if you include the hotel’s cocktail bar and adjacent grill) that will make you realize fine dining, with its bone china, white tablecloths, crisp linens, and all, is still alive and well and living in Cincinnati.

Executive Chef Todd Kelly, a New York native and veteran of San Francisco’s Rubicon restaurant, earned Orchids a coveted AAA Five Diamond award last year, placing it in the ranks of The French Laundry in Napa and Le Bernardin in New York. It’s easy to see how. Kelly runs this enormous operation more like a farm than a luxury hotel restaurant. He keeps an herb garden and beehives on the hotel's roof, and cooks with fruits and vegetables sourced from his own small farm in nearby Batavia, Ohio. He also makes his own cultured butter, as well as a luscious local goat’s milk cheese. One current offering is a winter wonderland of a dish: New Zealand venison, which Kelly brines for four hours in gin, juniper berries, bay leaves, and other spices. It’s seared until rare and served with a purée of buttery winter squash, a gelée of winter spices and agar-agar, and a port wine jus. While everything is perfectly executed, what I love most about this dish is that Kelly tops the venison with a dollop of whipped sorghum, which melts into the meat, sweetening it with warm, earthy, molasses-like flavors.

If Kelly has a culinary soulmate, it’s Orchid’s pastry chef, Megan Ketover, a Top Chef Just Desserts alum who serves some of the most beautiful, carefully arranged desserts I’ve ever tasted. If you’re lucky enough to find her sweet and spicy cardamom Basque cake on the menu, be sure to order it. It’s served with fresh Ohio sweet corn ice cream that melds the essence of corn with the flavors of brown butter, sugar, and blackberries. Once the dessert course is over, slip into the hotel bar, order an Old Fashioned, and beat on, ceaselessly, into the past.

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