Archived Article By Tom Fitzmorris Originally published March 1, 2007 Lunch Returns To Windsor Court Grill Room The Windsor Court Hotel had a hard time breaking the buffet habit it got into (for good and obvious reasons) in the aftermath of the storm. The steam tables disappeared from breakfast and dinner some time ago, but for some reason the lunch version lingered on--perhaps because it was in force before the big blow. The lunch buffet was launched in early 2005 with a lot of fanfare, and it had caught on pretty well, particularly with the ladies' lunch crowd. The post-K buffet never regained that panache. Or popularity. So now the Grill Room is returning to a much more appropriate a la carte menu. If you read it (here it is), you may arrive at the same conclusion that I did: this is a pretty conventional hotel lunch menu, with only a few sparkles of the innovation for which the Windsor Court has long been known. But even those sound misdirected to me. They're making fish and chips with pompano, in a beer batter yet. I haven't had it, but that sounds like a) a waste of pompano and b) a lost opportunity to use something like wild-caught catfish, which would be 1) fantastic and 2) even more unusual than pompano. The problem may be that the hotel finds itself again between chefs. There hasn't been much consistent inspiration here in awhile. Meanwhile, the prices remain right up there. (A la carte lunch entrees hover around $20.) Bad combination, at least from the perspective of a local diner. It's time for them to bring a new genius in and let him get something done. How about a local guy this time? Windsor Court Grill Room. 300 Gravier, 522-1994. © 2007 Tom Fitzmorris. All rights reserved. news@nomenu.com