RAMADA TOWERS

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33655, 3 October 1974, Page 10

RAMADA TOWERS

Eating at the Ramada Inn is to enter a world of luxury and comfort. This hotel, the newest and brightest in Christchurch, has dining facilities to match its attractiveness. Diners taking the lift to the first floor at the Ramada step out into surroundings of gold and purple and red that positively glow. The whole effect is most welcoming and calculated to signal to the juices that a tremendous treat is in. store.

In the foyer to the Towers Restaurant are quiet comers with deep, black couches where guests can take a drink first; a cocktail bar with tables as well as high stools lies between the restaurant and the grill room. Everywhere the lighting is discreet and always interesting. Not every restaurant can look out over a fountain; the Towers Restaurant at the Ramada looks out over two fountains—and, as the old and treasured Bowker with its coloured jets and the new and brilliantheaded Ferrier at the Town Hall, these happen to be also the best sights of their kind in the city. The Ramada is unique in another important way—it offers double eating facilities, and between them

these facilities are available for something like 15 hours a day for every day in the week. What is offered is the restaurant itself — the Towers Restaurant—which provides for customers in a leisured, and even elaborate, style. Separate, but adjacent, is the grill, which caters for those who must be on their way quickly. -

The Towers Restaurant provides breakfast, a smorgasbord lunch, and dinner. It seats 90. The grill, seating 40, is open continuously from 10 a.m. to 11.30 p.m., with a change of menu about 5 p.m. Presiding over all these arrangements is Peter Wise, the note! manager; Ron Parker, a French-Canadian, the restaurant manager; and Kevin O’Donohue, the head chef.

The kitchen itself is a revelation, stainless steel gleaming in every direction and tall, white hats bobbing about.

The Radama Inn, where business has been better than expected since the opening last Christmas, caters strongly for overseas businessmen —in fact, the ordinary holiday tourist would not make up more than 20 per cent of the clientele, said Mr Wise. He said that the restaurant had the aim of introducing the visitors to good New Zealand foods, and he named, in particular, scallops, venison and pheasants.

Mr O’Donohue said that he was often complimented on his venison dish—the secret for its success being, he added, the marinating of the venison for three days in a dry. red wine before the cooking processes started. It goes almost without saying that all meals at the hotel may include choices from the wine list. The grill under its “eye openers” in the morning includes Tried eggs and bacon at $1.50. Lunch runs up to $3 for a sirloin steak, or $3.45 for a 12oz T-bone steak.