Stand back Scarlett! The Mansion Café, a new 24-hour restaurant with a `Gone with the Wind' Southern mansion theme, is now open at Showboat. The Mansion Café is part of $17 million investment by Showboat in two new restaurants this year, featuring New Orleans/Louisiana decor. When visiting the Mansion Café, diners bask in an atmosphere of delicious food and Southern hospitality. Guests will feel as if they've walked into a Southern plantation home, entering the restaurant by way of the front porch. The Front Porch greets guests, with its carved antebellum woodwork and outdoorsy look. Polished wood floorboards are illuminated by ornate 19th century lighting fixtures. But its what is inside that is absolutely jaw-dropping-a scene straight out of Gone With The Wind. A stunning lobby with a perfect movie-set blend of polished wood, fine rugs, soft lighting and antique furnishings. The furniture and various decor items accenting the rooms provide a story in themselves. A decorator chose all authentic antiques, many from Sotheby's and Christie's and other international dealers, to decorate The Mansion Café, shopping as if buying for a `true' mansion. Upon entering, guests are greeted by a waiting area, decorated like a mansions den, complete with large couches, finely embroidered pillows, a cozy fireplace with period books, antique urns, vases and statuary gracing the mantle. Even the cashiering station looks like the concierge desk of a luxury hotel. The artwork and interior design of the Mansion Café has been inspired by the gracious residences of the South, the kind of courtyard-centered dwelling one might find in the historic French Quarter sector of New Orleans. Although The Mansion Café seats 360 guests, visitors will never know it. The interior was designed as a series of three formal rooms surrounding a central courtyard. Each area is strikingly decorated and amazing in its intricacy of detail, using lavish silks and embroidered fabrics, as well as period antique furnishings, to complete the effect. "The Courtyard" features real stone tables with wrought iron chairs surrounded by preserved trees under a faux sky, illuminated at one end to create the effect of a Georgia sunset. Building facades surround the Courtyard for a true outdoor feeling. The `Library," is a posh, den-like room, replete in rich darkwoods against deep red faux leather walls. A large window reveals a pastoral scene. Tables and booths are nestled beneath shelves overflowing with real books from the 19th century, along with antique clocks, statuary, artwork and unique items like an antique telescope that looks as if it was lifted from Thomas Jefferson's house at Monticello. The "Gold Room" offers a more formal dining setting, with gold leather seats, fine wood tables and elegant antique mirrors. The "Blue Room" is more casual, although still quite elegant with a beautiful blue and gold design, and antique cobalt blue and white china pieces gracing the gold-painted walls. No portion of the Mansion Café escapes the theme. Even the exit is designed to appear as a stairway to the mansion's upper floors. The artwork, in particular, has been chosen as if it were a great private collection, acquired over a period of time, and featuring major pieces from several centuries. For example, there are several extraordinary prints from the John James Audubon "Elephant Folio" of his masterpiece, "Birds of America", which hang alongside a number of other antique prints of birds in the Library. Other antique prints by Thomas Cole and numerous other artists from the l8th and 19th centuries are grouped throughout, with contemporary watercolors by noted San Francisco artist, Margaret Lazzari, New York artist Robert Zakanitch, British artist and sculptor Henry Moore, to name but a few. There are 18th and l9th century terra cotta and bronze sculptures, a fabulous embroidered Victorian table tapestry and antique English porcelain, huge 19th century English china cabinets and serving buffets, and accessories from the full time span of the last two hundred years. The food quality lives up to the quality of the facility. Entrees are moderately priced, ranging from $14 to $22, and includes traditional fare as well as some themed versions of standard dishes such as Creole Rubbed New York Steak and Dixie Fried Chicken. There are three separate menus, including a lunch/dinner menu available from 11:30am to 11pm; a late night menu from 11pm to 5:30am; and a breakfast menu served from 5:30am to 11:30am. Located on the Hotel's second floor, The Mansion Café replaces the Sun Deck Coffee Shop as Showboat's 24-hour restaurant.
From
patriotic themed accommodations to European styled hotels, Washington D.C.
offers a host of lodging options. For instance, the Crowne Plaza is a four-star, deluxe hotel
located in Franklin Square, just a few blocks from the White House. Downtown Washington D.C. offers a wide
range of hotels to choose from. ....more
Hilton Casino Atlantic City Hotel compares well with the 39 hotels in the city.
In Atlantic City, Boardwalk Hilton Casino Atlantic City can be found at Boston
& Pacific Avenue. Hilton Casino Atlantic City contains Indoor Pool, Lounge,
and Hotel Parking. The hotel is minutes to fine dining, shopping and
entertainment .... more
