the rib room

Later, as ye innkeeper shot some of his guests to the summit of London’s
newest hotel at 500 feet a minute, he explained that it would be wrong
to describe The Carlton Tower as an American hotel. In London today
your hotel had to be an international one if it was to survive. But, he
added, the Carlton was traditional as well as international.
Trying hard to find some tradition, we went behind the scenes where a
dishwasher was slowly ploughing its way through the dishes of 3,000
meals. A buzzer sounded in ye innkeeper’s breast pocket. He pulled out
a miniature radio transmitted and explained that every executive was
centrally connected in this way.
but the proof of the Yorkshire pudding was in the eating. During the galloping
inflation of the 1970s, the hotel put up its prices rather than compromise on quality
or portion size. Diners recognised that they had to pay for the best. as the Catering
Times reported in 1977, ‘the policy has meant a 45 per cent increase in prices over
the past two years but so far there has been little customer resistance.’
Right: In 2006, four men who had been enjoying the hospitality of the hotel bars were seen
manhandling the Rib Room’s beloved bull statue into the back of a white Phantom Rolls-
Royce. The police traced the number plate to Yorkshire, but became reluctant to enter the
owner’s house when a woman appeared at the door with a Bengal tiger on a lead. However,
the sculpture soon found made its return to the hotel – having been mysteriously left outside
the back entrance.
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