aving 110 restaurants within a 10-minute walk of the front door posed a defining challenge for the food and beverage team at Doubletree Hotel & Executive Meeting Center in Bethesda, Maryland. A back-to-basics look at their customers—and what they might want to eat—prompted an anything-but-basic hotel overhaul.

General Manager Michael McMahon shares the background story. “The Great Room concept came about in 2005 when we bought the old Holiday Inn Select. The hotel competes with Marriott, Hyatt, and Embassy Suites—often with conventional lobbies and traditional hotel food and beverage. We looked at our customers, who nearly all had something to do with the healthcare industry: pharmaceutical, medical, and healthcare sales to the government.

“Next, we looked at the buying patterns of these customers, who tend to be frugal, welleducated, health-conscious, and carry Blackberries and laptops. We knew our food and beverage offerings had to encompass those needs. We wanted something unique in the marketplace, holistic to match our clientele, and with a Zen flair for meetings.”

The result? A suite of four food and beverage concepts designed within a sprawling lobby Great Room: the Cup coffee bar, Umi sushi bar, the Wine Bar, and OZ restaurant. Walls were knocked down to net 9,000 square feet of space, allowing food and beverage seating for 288.

Banks of windows to the street let in plenty of natural light. The many windows also entice passersby with the hotel’s daily candle-lighting event at dusk. “We light 600 candles at once,” says Timothy Jones, executive chef. “It’s a tradition people come to see, like the march of the Peabody ducks and the dancing waters at Opryland and Vegas. It lasts two minutes, and the room lights up like a bag of gemstones. It makes a big impression on the street.”

The Great Room is designed to create three different environments throughout the day. “Morning is bright and airy,” says McMahon, “with classical music playing and an organic breakfast buffet featuring organic eggs, whole grain breads, action stations for grilling, and an open kitchen.” Conference center dining allows attendees to come and go as they please, with breakfast served between 6:30 and 9:00 a.m. The coffee bar, sushi bar, and wine bar form a horseshoe that can be used as counter space for guest seating at breakfast with electrical outlets built in every eight feet for laptops.

At lunch, the lights go down and music turns to light jazz. “As an executive meeting center, we need to be able to feed 200 people at once for lunch. A lunch buffet is wheeled in. It’s actionstation oriented, serving healthy food choices alongside traditionally sauced options.” At 4 p.m., the lights lower again. “We built the main dining area with translucent sheers. The lights get low, the music gets edgy, the sushi bar and wine bar open, and the restaurant becomes the OZ.”

That’s OZ (pronounced oh-zee), as in the abbreviation for “ounce,” for the restaurant provides calorie-counted meals that can be plumped up by the ounce. “The menu Chef Jones has created is healthy and nutritionally balanced, with each menu offering having less than 490 calories,” says McMahon.

It’s a calculated strategy to appeal to the medical clientele they serve. Chef Jones explains, “In the medical community, they don’t want to waste, and they don’t want to be tempted to eat the huge fillet. My focus is on organic, naturally farmed, and local ingredients. If I can’t get a product here, I import it from the best place. I purchase free-range meat from a company in Texas. I call Thursday or Friday and have venison butchered and sent. Fish is the same way. I use hydroponic arugula, fennel from a co-op in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and allnatural Maryland crabs. We have one of the best crab cakes. Made from potato crust, crab, and seasonings, it’s very pure.”

Chef Jones also serves what he calls “the fish of the moment.” “I call a fishmonger for the latest, greatest fish of the moment. One day he might have 10 red snapper from Florida; the next day, he’ll have something else. The fish of the moment changes as we go through them, depending how popular it is during the night.” And if a guest wants to attack a monster steak? Pay by the ounce to beef up the protein on the plate beyond carefully counted calories.

Food and Beverage Director David Brower offers this perspective: “It’s kind of healthy in disguise. Guests often don’t realize their dish is ‘healthy’ since it’s so flavorful and wellpresented. We’re inspired by the slow food movement from the ’90’s and, therefore, change the menu seasonally.” The kitchen looks forward to developing more partnerships with local farmers and purveyors to bring the freshest possible product to the table. “And we’re contemplating a fish tank in the kitchen with crabs and our fish of the moment.” The hotel also has a second-floor banquet kitchen and a kosher kitchen that is used 30 to 40 times a year.

“We have a great bar menu,” says Chef Jones, “with small samples of things offered in the restaurant: regional cheese menus, wood-roasted asparagus, crispy flatbreads, and a signature item at the bar—tempura haricot verts with soy ginger mayonnaise.”

Signature desserts are presented by the spoon on large, custom spoons to be eaten in one or two bites. Priced at $4 to $5 per spoon, guests can have a little nibble or go for a flight of spoons like chocolate nirvana and passion fruit tapioca crème brûlée. “The flight comes on a custom tray, and everyone loves them,” says Chef Jones. “I use a Pacojet to create our ‘ice cream of the moment.’ Start with vanilla, chocolate, or strawberry, and then choose a custom blend. We make one batch, mix, and present something literally custom blended for the guest. Our most popular flavors are probably crystallized ginger and fresh strawberry and our dark chocolate with cocoa nibs and chocolate-covered almonds.” For an additional $18, guests can even buy the spoon.

For after-dinner decompressing, the Wine Bar offers 60 different wines by the glass, a generous 6.25-ounce pour priced from $4.95 to $22 for value. The Great Room also features the Lava Room. With seven huge plasma screens run by a control panel, as well as lava lamps, free Xbox®, and Wi-Fi, it’s the ultimate man cave. “The zoned sound system in the ceiling directs sound right over the person playing the box, so it doesn’t interfere with the ambiance in other areas,” says McMahon. “Four different types of natural wood and $250K worth of light fixtures with different capabilities give it an ‘East meets West’ feel.”

The unique idea is starting to attract a local clientele, and McMahon says a recently purchased Palm Beach Gardens property in Florida may well house an OZ-like concept soon. “We recently had a Nobel Peace Prize winner staying with us who would not eat anywhere else. He said we need to put up a neon sign: ‘Gourmet food good for you.’”

John Paul Boukis is a frequent contributor to HOTEL F&B.