Pillow talk: who has the fluffiest of the fluffy superbeds? Our intrepid editor lies down on the job.

A career in journalism often brings with it hairy assignments in hairy places. I've been crushed by protesters fleeing water cannons. Shoved down steps while chasing beleaguered politicians in foreign countries. Eyed by cops wearing more riot gear than is physically possible for most ordinary people to carry (while shielded by only a steno pad and foolish naivete, which seems to protect me). I've eaten strange foods at strange hours with strange people. All so that you can crack open a newspaper or a magazine and learn something.

So it was with some trepidation that I entered the world of the super-deluxe hotels, ostensibly to report on high-thread-count sheets and down-feather pillows and duvets. Absolutely no one I tell about this assignment feels sorry for me. Some are even disgusted. Awww, poor baby! You have to write about luxury beds? Awwww! But this is serious stuff: The hotels are spending big money to convince the road-weary business traveler who has seen it all, the spectacular views, the posh dining, endless pools and spas, to choose them first. In the end, it's a night's sleep. If you spend 12 hours in a hotel--and on many a business trip that can be squeezed down to less than eight--then you will likely spend up to 99% of that time prone and snoring.

Always looking for a multitude of opinions, and because I'd be divorced in a minute if I left behind my family on this most serious of missions, I took along my wife and toddler-age son. He put just the right spin on matters by running headlong into each queen-sized snowdrift of down and silky-soft cotton, often yelling like a miniature Tarzan as he flopped down. She's a connoisseur, of course, of mattresses, far more than I could be, and quick with opinions on any sleeping surface we encounter.

I usually have plenty of trouble sleeping in new places, and my initial good news is that if you are picky about your sleep surroundings, these beds really are different. I have a pretty good mattress at home, about as expensive a mattress as you can buy in a normal store, but these beds beat it to pieces. As you can imagine, they beat most people's home mattresses, a situation the hotels are only to happy to remedy by selling and installing their signature bed in your home for a fee.

The thing about real five-star hotels--not just the nicest hotel in town but the truly competitive top-end luxury digs--is that being inside them as a guest is like getting a backstage tour at a zoo. The regular guests are truly an exotic species: billionaires, or children of billionaires, people who seem to move through the room with their own personal field of gravity, wearing clothing branded with insignia you've never seen, toting suitcases made in Switzerland, wearing demure-yet-sexy sunglasses, drinking bottled water you've never heard of. They are polite, multilingual, almost-normal folks, but at the same time they live in a bizarre bubble where money is utterly fictional and everyone is happy to see them, serve them, and cater to their every whim. I can see where you might get used to it.

Basics. Not surprisingly, the beds in these kinds of hotels more or less match the surroundings. Italian marble bath. Italian sheets. Italian water in the carafe. Most of the hotels I stayed in through the course of reporting had a very similarly high-level feel, and since I told the hotels I was there to specifically write about beds, enough about that. On to the beds! One thing they had in common, in most cases, was a pretty standard way of presenting the basics. White sheets top and bottom, often a down duvet, some kind of pillow-top mattress pad, then a normal, if generous mattress and box spring, and heavily quilted bed skirt below.

Once you get past the fact that a bed is a bed, however, differences begin to appear. At the Ritz-Carlton in Miami's Coconut Grove, for instance, the pillows were medium-filled with goose down from a company called Pacific Coast (their logo is a friendly looking goose, although I wonder how friendly they are when the plucking begins). The sheets were by Fili D'Oro, an Italian firm. In order, the sheets were a wrapped duvet, then an undersheet, a second undersheet--one sleeps between these things--then a kind of mini-mattress of goose down wrapped in a cotton duvet bag, then a manufactured pillowtop mattress. The effect of the goose-down mini-mattress is a bit like wrapping fruit in tissue paper before shipping: You end up not moving. I fell asleep and woke up in the same position. I'm sure a camera would have caught me moving around normally, but it's hard to say. Maybe I didn't move all night. I certainly don't remember I fell fast asleep on the spot.

A few nights later we stayed over at the Four Seasons in Miami. This was just a few days after Hurricane Wilma walloped the area, but the Four Seasons held up fine and kept the reservation. Having lost power (and hot water) due to the storm, we were plenty ready for a shower and a rest. The Four Seasons did not disappoint in the least, but the differences were immediate. If you like a fuller pillow--and you can buy one from the chain--this is your place. It was also a fastidiously detailed arrangement, with the pillows expertly wrapped so that the tail of the pillowcase doubles back into the case. We had to search for a few moments to even open the pillow to inspect inside. What we found for our trouble was a 75% feather/25% down bag--just enough fluff without going too soft, which can happen over time with any down pillow.

The sheets were made by Frette in Italy and had a nice, tiny Art Deco stitch pattern, an echo of the artworks framed on the walls but no distraction from the sheets themselves, silky and soft and light as air. The duvet cover also was immaculately folded; for a moment, we assumed it was stitched shut. The sheet order was duvet, sheet, then a sheet covering the mattress, then a mattress cover, a standard pillowtop mattress and so on. In all, a firmer bed as well as a firmer pillow. That said, the sheets were like whipped butter, and the initial stiffness of so much support--prized by some--did not detract from the experience. "I didn't sink into the bed, which is nice," said the wife.

A few nights later, we stayed at the Mandarin Oriental. Although I promised the various hotels that agreed to take part in this feature I would talk only about beds, let me interrupt slightly to say one word about the Mandarins bath: wow. That said, the bed was a challenge. If you find all mattresses to be too, too soft, if you think a board under your bed at home is a good idea, then the Mandarin is your place. Where most luxury hotels go overboard on soft (and create bedding that looks more like a pile of pillows than a place to sleep), the Mandarin sticks to its Asian clean-and-simple design aesthetic, even down to the mattress and pillows. Frankly, I had a hard time with this, and it wasn't until I discovered a way to use the super-long neck roll as a prop could I fall asleep. It was a simple presentation with quality Frette linens, and certainly up to the hotel's standards, but as a luxury bed this leans more toward the disciplinarian side of luxury: support first and foremost.

Back to Western decadence, the JW Marriott is a British-Colonial riot of flower-strewn duvets and silky neck-rolls compared to the white-on-white simplicity of the Mandarin. The pillows were much smaller than on most beds, but what they lacked in size was made up in sheer number. If lots of flotsam and jetsam around the room bothers you, it's probably best to relocate most of the decorative upper materials before trying to actually sleep. Like the Four Seasons, the JW inserts a mini-mattress of down feathers in between the top sheet and the standard mattress below. The mini-mattress below was flatter than the others--a manufacturer's issue, I suppose--but it wasn't bad, just more supportive. A good sleep, after all, too.

Snoozing. The most coherent of bed presentations was probably the bed at the Biltmore Hotel in Coral Gables, just south of Miami. Where most hotels made the bed the focal point of the room, you could nearly forget the bed in a Biltmore room. But they haven't, of course. The medium-weight pillows were just about perfect, in both supportiveness and size. A typical duvet, top-sheet, bottom-sheet meets a mini-mattress in its own duvet-style bag (to reduce allergy issues) and a kind of stain pad, which had the effect of reduced sheet-to-sheet friction. Despite high thread counts and the slipperiness that ensues from silk-like surfaces, the bed feels almost normal. Almost, of course.

All this high-end snoozing led me to a pretty big awakening in the end. Close to deadline, the InterContinental's Crowne Plaza chain signed on for a night. Known much more as a business hotel than an outright luxury chain (although in some Latin American cities Crowne Plaza is comparable), the hotel is nevertheless charging straight ahead into the superbed space. What's fascinating--besides all the overt marketing through things like lavender spray for the sheets, earplugs and an eye mask in a satchel, and a "relaxation" CD upon which a voice intones hypnotically over soothing soundscapes--is that the Crowne Plaza does nothing like the other hotels. The sheets are nice, of course, but the mini-mattress is filled with a synthetic material called Conformance Supreme, a kind of engineered polyester that mimics down but is machine-washable and hypoallergenic. Same for the pillows.

One might think this would lead to a predictably down-market decline in the experience, but it's just not true. I didn't dismantle the beds until morning, and the absence of goose down was a total surprise. Had I turned into a bed snob? That night was among the most comfortable of all--if not the most comfortable--which is no small thing considering a room rate anywhere from the cost of a good meal to a first-class plane ticket cheaper than the most expensive of the lot.

RELAXING BUSINESS

Cuernavaca's Camino Real Sumiya, 15 minutes from downtown and 10 minutes from the city's Ciudad Industrial del Valle complex, is an elaborate Asian-themed retreat built from the former residence of U.S. department store heiress Barbara Hutton Woolworth. Pagados and traditional Japanese gardens abound, but the hotel nevertheless has 157 luxury rooms with garden views, as well as four junior suites and two master suites. The main restaurant, Sumiya, focuses on Japanese fare, while La Arboleda combines dining amidst gardens and waterfalls with an afternoon Italian buffet. A ninety-minute drive from the Mexico City airport, the hotel provides meeting space for up to 600, tennis courts on the property and an 18-hole golf course nearby, as well as a business center with high-speed Internet.

The Fiesta Americana flagship hotel, the Fiesta Americana Grand Los Cabos, sits on the Sea of Cortes in Mexico's trendy Los Cabos resort area and offers a highly rated, 18-hole Jack Nickiaus-designed golf course, whale watching and, of course, business infrastucture including nine meeting rooms and several levels of suites. After the meeting, the hotel's leisure side is ready and waiting, including a spa, masseurs, and, of course, pools and beaches galore.

--Greg Brown</p> <pre> BEST HOTELS MEXICO Camino Real Sumiya

9.87 Fiesta Americana Grand Los Cabos

9.63 W Hotel 9.47 JW Marriott Hotel Mexico City 9.33 Sheraton Suites Santa Fe  9.32 Sheraton Maria Isahel Hotel & Towers 9.26 Camino Real Guadalajara 9.13 Quinta Real Monterrey 9.10 Fiesta Americana Guadalajara 9.00 Sheraton Cancun Resort & Towers

9.00 </pre> <p>HAVE STOMACH, WILL TRAVEL

Reminiscent of a century-ago hacienda, the interior of Las Pampas is distinguished by its soft lighting and wooden-beam ceilings. Indecision sets in from the start: the wine list includes a selection of whites from Spain, Chile and Germany; sparkling wines, champagnes and reds from Mexico, Argentina, Australia, Chile, Spain, Italy, South Africa and Uruguay.

In business since 1960, Las Pampas is best-known for its steaks but also for a notable variety of Argentine specialties, such as cheese-filled empanadas, cheese with corn, chorizo blanco, chinchulines (sausages made from kidneys, liver and the like), and matambre, a kind of beef roll with herbs and eggs, served cold.

The menu includes five regional dishes, five soups and bisques, four salads, seven steaks, 10 Argentine-style barbecue dishes and, for those less interested in beef, nine offerings of chicken, fish and shellfish. Among these, a good choice is the crema poblana served with bread and cheese, although the standard Argentine platters are very tempting. Waiters bring appetizers of tomatoes with peppers, barbecued jalapenos, Mexican salsa and Argentine chimichurri sauce. Among the entrees, the skirt steak is the easiest choice, served with guacamole and refried beans. The camarones alemana, a shrimp dish, is an excellent option ff you are seeking lighter fare. For dessert, try the strawberry pie with cream cheese or the chocolate-almond pie. Las Pampas is on Avenida Eugenio Garza Sada on the south side of Monterrey. It's open every day and on Fridays and Saturdays a couple sings tango, while Thursday through Sunday a pianist plays both Mexican and Argentine music.

In the heart of Mexico City, El Cardenal is a kind of culinary travelogue of Mexican fine dining. A beautifully decorated spot, its best-known art works include those of Mexican muralist Diego Rivers, including a reproduction of his Sueno de una tarde dominical en la Alameda Central, while soft tones of piano and violin provide a delightful backdrop. The menu includes classic pre-Columbian dishes, from maguey worms with guacamole and tortillas on the side to selections from the time of the viceroys, such as chicken with mole poblano--a sauce made from a variety of chili peppers mixed with cinnamon and almonds. For the more cautious, there's plenty of grilled and fried meats.

The obligatory main course is escamoles al apazote--red ant eggs--a rare delicacy and a must. Chef Jaime Reyes' menu is jammed with you-can't-go-wrong items. For the indecisive, go for the lamb in salsa borracha (drunken sauce), which is served over a bed of beans with tortillas. You might want to try the the grilled fish marinated in anxiote--a sauce typical of southern Mexico. Also tempting is the chicken breast stuffed with goat cheese covered with mole coloradito. National and international wines are available by the glass or by the bottle, as well as a wide selection of Mexican tequilas. To top off the evening, try the cheese crepes with blackberry and mango sauce or go for pie de elote, a corn dish served with cream. El Cardenal is in the Hotel Sheraton Centro Historico. Reservations are recommended for lunch and dinner.

--Yenisey Varies, Marisol Rueda

BEST RESTAURANTS MEXICO

Las Pampas (Monterrey)                9.48
El Cardenal (D.F.)                    9.47
El Santo Coyote (Guadalajara)         9.40
Hacienda de los Morales (D.F.)        9.40
Four Seasons (D.F.)                   9.29
San Angel Inn (D.F.)                  9.24
Los Almendros (D.F.)                  9.22
El Lago (D.F.)                        9.18
La Destileria (Cancun)                9.13
Cambalache (D.F.)                     9.12