Thursday, April 18, 7:00 P.M.
Members $85, guests $110

You'll find plenty of rustlers and wranglers in the lobby of Houston's St. Regis, but don't be fooled: at this elegant oasis (complete with in-house butler), your experience will be as far removed from longhorns and cowpokes as cowboy coffee in a chipped mug is from illy caffe in Flora Danica. The cowboys are bronzes (by that celebrated recorder of the American West, Frederic Remington) that evoke the hotel's original incarnation as the Remington Hotel. And while sleeping under the stars sounds blissful, in reality we prefer a soft, downy bed to the damp, hard earth, thank you very much, not to mention the complimentary Champagne and fine chocolates that St. Regis guests receive after check-in.

Visitors are "treated…like royalty," according to Nancy Sont of the Toronto Globe and Mail, and naturally, the food is everything you would expect from a hotel of this caliber: chef Toby Joseph presents American food in the European tradition, evoking the grand hotel dining rooms of yesteryear with a raw bar, a caviar trolley, and an encyclopedic selection of single-malt Scotches and fine cigars. Sont loved the tenderloin of pheasant, and summed up her dining experience: "Chef Toby Joseph's expertise using quality ingredients satisfies the most discerning guest." If you're lucky, you'll meet Joseph during your meal; he likes to work the dining room, chatting with guests about their dinner and the provenance of his ingredients, which he knows down to the smallest sprig of thyme. His marriage of technique and ingredients produces tempting classics like wood-grilled, dry-aged beef rib-eye with garlic-roasted Yukon Gold potatoes, caramelized asparagus, and tomato hollandaise; or veal T-bone with crispy sweetbreads and brandy-red peppercorn sauce.

Joseph, a Massachusetts native, started out as a dishwasher in his father's delicatessen. After graduating at the top of his class from Johnson & Wales in Providence, he moved to the Sunshine State for a position at Café Li' Europe in Palm Beach. He next worked at the Maritana Grill at the Don Caesar Hotel and the Belleview Biltmore Resort and Spa before moving to the St. Regis, which has been named to the Condé Nast Traveler Gold List three years in a row. No surprise there.