Oasis of tranquility

The American Colony Hotel goes all out for the holiday season, including its excellent weekly buffet.

By SETH J. FRANTZMAN
The American Colony Hotel (photo credit: MIKAELA BURSTOW)
The American Colony Hotel
(photo credit: MIKAELA BURSTOW)
Lawrence of Arabia. General Edmund Allenby. Tony Blair. And you? The American Colony Hotel in Jerusalem has always had an air of exquisite and quietly stated grandeur to it. Inside a walled compound, the hotel presents itself from the moment of entrance to the parking lot as something from the early part of the last century. That’s no surprise – the hotel was founded by Baron Plato Von Ustinov in 1902. Yes, the name Ustinov rings a bell, he was the grandfather of renowned English actor and writer Peter Ustinov.
This year the American Colony is hosting its annual Christmas and holiday treats: a special six-course dinner for Christmas Eve and a unique seven-course New Year’s Eve dinner, and there is much more on offer according to the staff.
Sitting in a side room of the lobby, banquet manager and assistant maître d’hotel Jihad Barakat, who has worked there for 13 years, says the hotel has always been an especially interesting place to work, with famous people, diplomats, NGOs and others making up the regular guest list. “In the summer we have a summer bar and garden, with a very nice atmosphere.” Open from April to October on a patio near one of the hotel’s four buildings, the summer bar boasts fired focaccia and pizzas.
In the winter the joy and fun are brought inside.
There is a crackling fire, where chestnuts should be roasting, warming patrons in plush chairs. Down a hallway is the “cellar bar” open nightly, with cocktails, drinks and wine in carafes.
The American Colony Hotel.(photo credit: MIKAELA BURSTOW)
The American Colony Hotel.(photo credit: MIKAELA BURSTOW)
“People can find peace and privacy in this place,” says Barakat, as he provides a tour. There are two restaurants.
Val’s Brasserie, overlooking the pool with a lot of light from a row of windows on one side, offers afternoon tea, sandwiches and local dishes. In the other restaurant, called Arabesque, a traditional “Mediterranean and Arabic cuisine” is on offer. There’s an ample wine list with Tulip, Pelter and Amphorae local wines, as well as internationals such as Côtes du Rhône.
“One month ago we did an Italian food special event for two days that we brought two chefs from Italy to – one doing pasta and one doing dessert. We did a special Italian menu. About a year ago we had French chefs who came and had them a few days. They did a special French menu,” Barakat says. He hopes that next year they will try to continue the tradition of bringing in foreign chefs.
We wander the maze of hallways of the hotel, which are lined with history. The hotel was originally called the “American Colony” because it consisted of American Christians who came to the Holy Land in 1881 hoping to experience the return of Jesus. They initially lived in the Old City, in a kind of commune, praying and working. Joined by Swedish supporters, they eventually moved from the Old City to the current property. The house they bought in 1895, now the hotel, was owned by Rabbah Daoud Amin el-Husseini of the famous Husseini family in Jerusalem. It still borders properties, schools and sites connected to the Husseinis and Nashashibis in Sheikh Jarrah. According to the hotel’s brochure, Husseini’s bedroom is still Room 1, and Rooms 3, 4 and 5 were for his multiple wives.
The “Pasha” room, where events are hosted, was a receiving room. Its ornate ceiling was constructed in 1871. On the walls are old clippings from the 19th and 20th centuries, along with photographs of famous hotel visitors, such as Edmund Allenby, the British general and conquerer of Jerusalem.
“Modernizing women in the Holy Land,” reads one headline. “Cooperative communities emancipate them from economic burdens,” the article claimed. However there was much work to be done to “throw off the yoke” of male domination.
Tony Blair lived in the hotel as the head of the Office of the Quartet Representative for five years, occupying the fourth and part of the third floor. Barakat has fond memories of the former British prime minister and proudly shows us his former room. On one wall is a small photo of T.E. Lawrence, who also was here, and atop a wooden desk is a map of the battle for Jerusalem 99 years ago. Allenby entered Jerusalem on December 11, 1917. The hotel still has Allenby’s cane on display and a letter he sent the hotel owners.
After surveying the rooms, whose prices range from $325 for a single to $955 for a suite depending on the season, we wandered down for the Saturday buffet. For NIS 195, visitors can enjoy this oasis of tranquility and the ambiance of old Europe, a kind of staycation.
The buffet is a truly masterful spread of plates of locally- made gravlax and heaps of smoked salmon. Small shot-glasses are filled with pâté and garnish. There are shrimps as well. There is a bevy of salads, including many local favorites such as hummus, baba ghanoush and potato salad. A green bean salad comes with sundried tomatoes.
Executive chef David Diedes is the master of the kitchen. For the buffet he prepared roast beef with a side of cream-pepper sauce. There is roasted duck, cooked to an almost brownish purple.
Other stations have salmon steaks, kebab and a whole leg of lamb.
Diedes takes pride in his local chicken shwarma, rotating on a spit in the open kitchen, where guests are invited during the buffet to select their favorites. He says he marinates the chicken for 48 hours to add flavor. Wrapping it in local bread, he adds onion and tomato.
Shwarma may not sound fancy, but here they’ve done it right.
For vegetarians there is penne, stuffed artichoke, fennel gratin, spinach and chickpea, barley soup, couscous and stuffed pepper.
Visitors will not go away hungry and unlike some buffets, there is a feeling of attention to detail and quality products. Everything is prepared with warmth and devotion.
After stuffing oneself with meat, more meat and salmon, desserts beckon: pumpkin pie, cheesecake, something called “Lebanese Nights” served with a tiny spoon, and other local and international desserts. We ordered a glass of wine and espresso to top it off.
Outside on the patio, away from the Christmas decorations that give one the warm feeling of being in New England more than Jerusalem, there is a well-known local bookstore that is probably the best of any in Israel or the Palestinian territories for finding books on the Middle East. New books about the 1929 riots, and Pakistani human rights activist Malala Yousafzai line the walls. The American Colony assembled a large archive of photos from the 19th and early 20th century of Jerusalem and the region, and a book of the photos can be purchased as well. Here one may find “modern Jericho,” when it still consisted of mud huts and other fascinating views of the area 100 years ago.
Beware, though. When you’ve entered the American Colony it has a Hotel California spell – you can come in, but you may never want to leave.
The writer was a guest of the hotel.