The Savoy Grand Restaurant

The Savoy is the most historic luxury hotel in Mussoorie - an 1902 colonial-era grand hotel set on a sprawling Mall Road estate with the original ballroom, the heritage drawing rooms, the carved-wood library, and the formal grand restaurant that has anchored the hill station's dining for over a century. The hotel's literary credentials are unusual - Agatha Christie is reputed to have stayed here in the 1920s and the building has appeared in colonial-era hill-station novels for generations.

The cooking is heritage Anglo-Indian at its most architecturally serious. The grand-restaurant menu runs the older British colonial hill-station programme - mulligatawny soup, the Anglo-Indian curry, slow-roasted lamb with mint sauce, the Sunday-roast beef tradition, the older Indian tandoor section, plus a careful international main-course list. The breakfast service - the Anglo-Indian colonial breakfast programme - is among the most considered in any Indian heritage hotel.

The wine and Champagne programme is among the most serious on the ridge - approximately 90 references with a confident French, Italian and Australian spine, a focused Champagne selection, plus a useful Indian wine programme. The bar runs the heritage colonial-era cocktail programme - the Pimm's Cup, the gin and tonic, the older Negroni - at the right register for a Mussoorie summer evening.

Service is the heritage grand-hotel register, polished and multilingual at the principal posts, with long-tenured staff who know the hotel's literary history intimately. For a Mussoorie weekend with a senior client - or for a deliberately heritage-themed proposal in the hill station - the Savoy is the most architecturally complete single booking.

The Savoy is the heritage grand-hotel dinner in Mussoorie. The 1902 colonial-mansion address, the Beverly Nichols ballroom, the Agatha Christie literary heritage (the hotel inspired part of The Mysterious Affair at Styles) and the polished multi-cuisine programme combine into the most architecturally serious grand-hotel dinner on the ridge. For a senior client weekend in the hills, the booking is unambiguous.