Corduroy: Elegant simplicity

Corduroy is the kind of restaurant that sneaks up on you.

Located on the second floor of a Sheraton Hotel on the nether edge of downtown, in a busy construction zone surrounding the gargantuan new Washington Convention Center, it’s rather hard to find and easy to overlook. But once you wend your way through arriving business executives, tourists and luggage-lugging bellhops, and climb the stairs or take the elevator to the restaurant, you’re likely to encounter some of the best hotel-restaurant food the Washington area has to offer. Would that the service matched the quality of Chef-owner Tom Power’s cooking.

But don’t take my word for it. Washington Post food critic Tom Sietsema, whom I interviewed over lunch there last month, praised chef-owner Tom Power’s cooking in his 2002 annual dining guide but was less impressed with the d