Wednesday, April 17, 7:00 P.M.
Members $85, guests $110

Omni- is a prefix that means "all" or "every," and when it is attached to the name of a hotel, it means they have taken every aspect of a guest's pleasure into consideration. Omni Hotels deliver on all accounts: comfort, service, amenities, and, more to our point here, food. In addition, many of the company's hotels are steeped in history. From the original Parker House in Boston to the Pump Room in Chicago to the Mont-Royal in Montréal, Omni's roster reads like a "greatest hits" of North American hospitality.

Before Michael Gaspard began cooking at the Pump Room in Chicago's Omni Ambassador East, it had been a favorite hangout for the likes of Bette Davis, Humphrey Bogart, Natalie Wood, Liza Minnelli, Mel Brooks, Robert Redford, Muhammad Ali, Michael Jordan, Beverly Sills, and too many other A-list regulars to record here. That's a big kitchen to step into, but not for Gaspard, whose résumé proves he's been training for the top for some time now. Among his places of work before he took over the Pump Room was the four-star Le Français in Wheeling, Illinois, under Roland Liccioni; the celebrated Dining Room in the Ritz-Carlton, Chicago under Sarah Stegner; and Michigan favorite Tribute, where he served as chef de cuisine to Takashi Yagihashi.

At Boston's Parker House, chef Gerard Tice had a roll to live up to—the buttery, pull-apart rolls served at the Parker House practically since the hotel opened in 1855. But Tice, having cooked alongside Jacques Pépin and served the likes of former president George Bush, Sr., former secretary of state Henry Kissinger, and Prince Albert of Monaco, was up to the task. Tice graduated from Johnson & Wales and cooked at many fine hotels before settling into the Parker House's historic kitchens.

Swiss-born chef Urs Gasser of the Hôtel Omni Mont-Royal worked in Lausanne and Lucerne before coming to North America in 1974, when he took a job in Vancouver as chef of the Hyatt Regency Vancouver. In 2000 he donned the top toque at Montreal's Mont-Royal, home to the fine-dining restaurant Opus II, a DiRoNA recipient last year.

Mercer Mohr graduated from the CIA in 1985 and cooked at hotels in Lake Tahoe, Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, and San Francisco before becoming executive chef of J. Bildner and Sons in Boston. In 1994 he returned to San Francisco, this time as executive chef of the Four Seasons Clift Hotel. Mohr is now at Houston's Omni Hotel, where he is in charge of the renowned La Réserve restaurant, the top-scoring dining room in the city's most recent Zagat Survey. He was recently named National Hotel Chef of the Year by the American Culinary Institute.