What's New in San Francisco Area Hotels

San Francisco hotels have been popular with travelers since frontier days, but the rough and ready hostelries of 150 years ago didn't offer crushed Zinfandel body polish, restaurant dishes of baby calamari, poached egg and pancetta dusted with parmesan cheese, bedside iPod docking stations or kiosks for printing airline boarding passes.

But today, high-end San Francisco area hotels are rolling out such luxurious -- and sometimes quirky -- amenities, even in a dodgy economy.

The baby calamari and poached egg are featured on the dinner menu at Luce, a showcase Californian-Italian restaurant in the newly opened InterContinental San Francisco, the first major, built-from-scratch hotel in the city in five years. ...