We all love to return to favorites. One of mine is the comfortably-stylish, bistro of the Hotel du Vin in Bristol UK. Like my own bed after a long trip, I feel at home, here to enjoy simple baguette and Sicilian Planeta oil, and such dishes as chargrilled ribeye with pommes frites and an arugula salad. Here, below, I have chosen some of the outstandingly innovative own-run restaurants in mainstream hotels (note, no outside operators allowed!) 

MUMBAI, INDIA
WG's Kebabs & Kurries, at the four month-old ITC Grand Central Sheraton Hotel & Towers, is the latest culinary success in the f&b stable of the Welcomgroup - still best known worldwide for Bukhara. The fort-like restaurant, with big glass-sided display kitchen, has a menu with vertical listings of ingredients (vegetarian, seafood, chicken, lamb) and, set horizontally across the menu, type of kebab (say tandoori, or griddled tama) and type of curry.

ORLANDO, FL, USA
Jiko - The Cooking Place, at Disney's Animal Kingdom Lodge, was inspired by The Lion King. Designer Jeffrey Beers has made the focus the twin wood-burning ovens at The Cooking Place, the onstage culinary theater. Here, chef Anette Grecchi Gray offers African cuisine, a blend of European, Mediterranean and Indian: best-sellers are maize-crusted pan-roasted monkfish, and oak-grilled beef filet with Mac n' Cheese.

KUALA LUMPUR, MALAYSIA
Adam Tihany designed the eclectic and fun 375-seat Lemon Garden at the Shangri-La, which is busy from 6 a.m. through to 1 a.m. Choose to sit in an area that is day-glo green and white, or dull tomato and camel - you take plates from fluorescent-lit alcoves below buffet stations, and go around to choose your speciality. Chinese, Indian, Italian and Malay, and pasta and dessert kitchens, all cook to order. Bustling servers wear brightly-colored uniforms by the Japanese designer Mineosan.

MALDIVES, INDIAN OCEAN
Raw, at Huvafen Fushi on Male Atoll, shows how attractive a health restaurant can be. On stilts high above the turquoise waters, the open-sided restaurant has places set with Vietnamese celadon plates and bamboo-wrapped chopsticks. Cold towels are brought wrapped around a length of lemongrass, and excellent breads come with olive oil, balsamic and butter. The display kitchen offers such dishes as Maldivian seasalt tomato and passion fruit-leaf salad - and olive polenta with seasonal mushrooms and rice crackers. Yes, you can eat meat, and you can drink wine here.

VENICE, ITALY
The Cipriani's trend CIPs restaurant was designed by architect Pier Franco Fabris. There is a pizza oven, and the peach-colored walls are hung with fabulous watercolors and sketches of Venice, by such artists as Sara Schulte and Pietro Rusconi, son of the resort's legendary md, Dr Natale Rusconi.. Favorite dishes include ravioli with ricotta, borage and a walnut sauce, or a zucchini pasta, and hot Majani chocolate - and from June to September, try what many say are the world's best bellinis, invented here in 1943 (in summer, too, sit out on the terrace, and look across at San Marco). 

DUBAI, UAE
One&Only Royal Mirage has a palette of restaurants, but none is more eclectic than Nina - no, not from Argentina but a sensuous exotic harem of spices, draped curtains, ceiling-hung chandeliers and action. Indian waiters, sporting saffron shirts, earrings and crazy bleached haircuts, guide you to tables set with glass beaded mats, vine-look cutlery. The bread menu alone offers something different every day of the week, and the main menu includes lamb loin tandoori with potato masala and coriander, and seared tuna salad with sweet and sour
eggplant and rocket.

BEIJING, CHINA
The Grand Hyatt's Made In China is one of those restaurants that foodies worldwide started talking about (I first heard of it in Chile). The room is an artistic combination of all-Chinese artefacts. The maximum-108 lucky diners all eat in close view of at least one of the four glass-walled kitchens, manned by specialists long skilled in just one thing, say cutting a roasted duck into 88 slices, versus the industry norm of 108 slices. One kitchen houses the apricot wood-fired duck oven, where 35 ducks (three kilos each, 38 days old) are cooked daily.

BANGKOK, THAILAND
Thiptara, which means magic water, is a traditional two-floor teak Thai house, literally built around trees between The Peninsula and the Chao Phraya River - the opening was attended by 99 monks in saffron robes. Dine upstairs, among the treetops, or at ground level in one of the exquisite outside salas. Khun Sumalee's best-seller include Pomelo salad with fried river prawns, roasted coconut and shallots, Spicy prawn soup with lemongrass and lime juice and Deep-fried soft shell crab with garlic and pepper.

AUCKLAND, NEW ZEALAND
White, at the ship-like Hilton Auckland, is just that - a white symphony cantilevered, it seems, over Auckland Harbor. Centerpiece is a giant buffet table shaped like a boat sculpture: the view is of real ships, and North Auckland afar off (no wonder at least two weddings are held here each week). I loved chef Geoff Scott's gazpacho, a tall tower surrounded by leaves that included pico pico, tree fern tips. Other best-sellers include Manauka-smoked Grilled Hapuka fillet on rataouille, and New Zealand seafood hotpot a crayfish and citrus bisque.

TOKYO, JAPAN
Park Hyatt Tokyo, immortalized as the location of Lost in Translation (Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson) has many other USPs, including the tall-tall 52nd floor New York Grill. Walls are hung with Valerio Adami abstracts of Carnegie Hall, the New York Yankees, Radio City Music Hall and the Rockefeller Center and best tables are windowside, for the view. Chef Jay Wetzel's best-sellers include a New York Grill mezze platter (including babaghannouj and hummus) and Maesawa sirloin.

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