Aureole, Mandalay bay, the peerless Adam tihany designed it with a swan pond at one end and a 42 foot high steel and glass tower at the other. The tower holds 10,000 bottles of wine which are fetched by black clad wine angels who fly up, like peter pan, to get them. The German and [...]
Bellagio, 3600 las vegas boulevard south, this is the epicenter of the strip and hence of Las Vegas. The 3,005 rooms are furnished in subdued tones of beige. The lobby ceiling is an explosion of dale chihuly glass. And nothing equals the eight acre lake and its captivating water cannon fountains, which shoot spray into [...]
Au pied De cochon, 536Rue dultuth, when the continents’ cooking professionals convened in Montreal a few years back. Martin Picard’s new place was their haunt of choice. During the winter, pig is king, from crisp cracklings served in a paper cone to andouillettes and pigs feet. Good use is made of an old wood fired [...]
Bonaventure Hilton, the hotel sits atop a soulless exhibition complex in the city center, but once you take the express elevator to the three top floors, that seem irrelevant. There a lobby decorated with Japanese screens and bonsai awaits you, plus an outdoor pool you can enter from indoors in winter and a two acre [...]
Bona terra which is situated on the main street of Sharpsburg, douglass dick searches out seasonal produce at local farmers markets for his fledging bistro near the Allegheny river north east of town, and he adds seafood flown in daily from north Carolina. Intriguing combinations abound: osso buco with pureed chestnuts, shrimp and grilled peaches [...]
This is Canada city. In Paris, the familiar eight sided red street signs say stop and the academia franchise, guardian of linguistic purity, utters not a peep of complaint. But in Montreal, where these matters are deemed crucial to cultural identity, the signs say arret. The proud old queen Elizabeth hotel, which dates from Canada’s [...]
Pittsburgh Hilton, gateway center, in a city that woefully lacks a top drawer hotel, the Hilton is blessed with the three cardinal virtues: location, location, and location. Overlooking the junction of the Allegheny and Monongahela, with 711 modern rooms, it is a convention hotel par excellence, with all the pluses and minuses that go with [...]
Cultural institutions were pummeled as well. In seven years beginning in 1997 under the exciting, Latvian born mariss jansons one of the many young conductors who has emerged recently from the Baltic countries, the country old Pittsburgh symphony orchestra led in the past by such notables as fritz Reiner, William Steinberg and lorin maazel has [...]
One fine day in 1999, wreckers toppled six smokestacks along the Monongahela River. Once part of a huge coke works but long idle, they were the last vestiges of big steel left within the Pittsburgh city limits. Mills that once employed tens of thousands of workers and produced a third of the world’s steel had [...]
Equinox, after long stints in local kitchens, Todd gray set up shop on his own a block from the white house and quickly emerged as the city’s most assiduous forager for ingredients. You can count on him for the fattest chickens, the ripest tomatoes the most delicate spring lamb and the sweetest corn from the [...]
