Toilets at Montparnasse 1900 Evoke Classic Spirit of Art Nouveau Era

Montparnasse 1900
59 Boulevard du Montparnasse
Paris, France

Where is it?

This is a long, slightly slender place, with the kitchen in the very back, a bar and greeting area/coat-check area up front and a dining room in the center. (Supposedly, there's also a banquet hall and cigar bar, though I didn't see them.)

To get to the toilets, head through the bar and dining room, towards the back of the place. In between the kitchen and dining room is a small enclave containing a sitting area, some displayed art (both paintings and a few items held in a glass case) and the toilets, which are behind some darkly stained wooden doors. The men's room has a little bronze boy hanging on the door; the women's has a little bronze girl on it.

What's it like?

This unassuming eatery is located just a block or so away from Tour Montparnasse, Paris' tallest skyscraper building. While walking the streets here, you may have trouble locating the place because its facade and awning are very modest and from the outside it looks very similar to the other eateries around it. (To find, just look for the awning with "Montparnasse 1900" written on it.")

Still, this is definitely a place to seek out, as it provided me with the best dining experience I've ever had in Paris, at least for a bistro-type experience. The affordable menu comes filled with classic French dishes, like steake frites, endive and Roquefort salad, freshly shucked Normandy-caught oysters and much more, and each dish I had was expertly prepared and outrageously delicious. (The price fixed menu offered three courses, plus dessert and cheese and white for about 35 euro, which isn't that bad, really.) The big surprise here was the use of rump steak for the steak frites -- I thought it would be chewy, considering the cut, but it ended up being moist, tender and very flavorful -- one of the best I've ever had, to be honest.

The decor here is decidedly art nouveau in spirit. The place is covered in stain glass and metalworks, along with fanciful sculptures and paintings. The high point is the ceiling, which is a sprawling single glass mural portraying a view of autumn trees and leaves.

The toilets appropriately extend the art nouveau feel of the dining room. The room has two sections. The main area contains the urinals and sinks, both white porcelain. The walls here are dark mahogany wood, the mirrors and fixtures made of bronze, the lighting dim but not too dim. It's a lot like stepping into a turn-of-the-century boudoir, only without the seedy undertones. Similar in look and feel to La Cave, but without the modernist touches.

The back half of the bathroom has two toilet stalls, each one a single chamber that -- thanks to a full-sized door -- is separated completely from the rest of the place, which in turn means lots of privacy to the user. Those stalls are covered floor to ceiling with shiny white tiles and feature a classy white porcelain toilet in them with a dark wooden seat. The only ornamentation found inside is the stainless steel toilet paper roll holder hanging (albeit a bit too high) on the wall.

Marks out of 10:

8. Very classy art nouveau setting in a fantastic art-nouveau-inspired restaurant.

Comments to the Management:

Not much to suggest here. It's a great place, from the dining room on back. If anything, I would suggest adding a little more light in the bathroom stalls, which weren't dim but weren't that bright either. Also, if possible, lower the toilet paper holders a little to accommodate us shorter people some.

Big Surprise: Toilets at Paris Hotel and Casino Cleaner Than Most Actual Parisian Toilets

Paris Las Vegas Hotel and Casino
3655 Las Vegas Blvd South
Las Vegas, NV USA
www.parislasvegas.com

Where is it?

This casino is large, though it's not nearly as large as some of the other mammoth complexes on the Strip, like the Venetian, Wynn and Caesar's Palace, to name a few. As such, getting to the bathroom from the main entrance here doesn't take nearly as long as it would at those other places.

In fact, here you just step inside, walk past the table games of the casino and head south (to the right) towards the hotel's buffet. Once past the casino, look for the "Théâtre des Arts" (or Theater of the Arts, where the Anthony Cools hypnotist show is playing). Once you find the theater, head past the ticket office to the hallway just beyond it. Go down that hallway and you'll find the restrooms.

What's it like?

As with many other Vegas bathrooms, the ones here evoke the theme of their host casino -- except whereas the Venetian and Caesar's Palace toilets stopped short of fully wowing visitors with their thematic decor, the one here goes that extra mile in bringing the thematic vision into reality.

This place has art nouveau written all over it, best seen in the elegant white tile work on the walls, which proves instantly reminiscent of the tile you'll find in the Paris Metro stations, and the intricately designed sinks, which look like they were stripped directly from the imagination of Antonio Gaudi.

Other art nouveau highlights include the dark wood stall tools at the front of the toilet stalls and the overall cavernous feel of the place, which may just be the truest mimicry of what actual mass-market Parisian toilets are like. (Notice that I say "mass market," not "all," because I've been to some wonderful toilets inside Parisian cafes.)

Except, of course, that this place is about 10 times as clean as those mass market toilets. And it has a shoe shine guy at the entrance, as a sort of impulse buy when you're leaving. (He was busy when I passed, so certainly the tactic is working.)

The setup, as stated, is cavernous. You enter and to your immediate left are the sink stations and vanities. These sinks are beautiful -- pedestal sinks that have chic blues, whites and greens worked into their porcelain design. And with automatic soap and water faucets built into them -- which sounds like it would look awkward but somehow just works fine.

Decorative tile work lines the walls behind the sink pedestals -- white tile with highlight lines of blue patterned tile separating each sink area. Gold-framed personalized mirrors hang above each sink.

Further in, you'll find a urinal chamber with about 15 units here, each white porcelain and in true European fashion they have no privacy barriers between them. Oddly enough, the baby changing station is at the very back of this area -- seems like it should go elsewhere.

The back wall is lined with toilet stalls, also about 10 to 15 in all. They have heavy wood doors with frosted glass before them, which kind of makes them feel like you're looking at individualized train compartment doors (or doors to bordello rooms?) -- something I liked. Tiled walls form the sides of the stalls, and both the walls and door go to the floor, offering maximum privacy. The toilets are white porcelain and nothing remarkable, however.

Of course, this is a busy bathroom -- especially when the nearby show lets out -- and the tile work also serves to accentuate the noise factor some, so it's not necessarily the quietest place to make a pit stop.

But the spot is clean and avoids the heavy urine stink that tends to fill most of the mass-market Parisian bathrooms I've been in (I'm looking at you, Museum l'Orangie). But if you can look past that, the wonderful decor will more than make up for those misgivings.

Marks out of 10:

9. Almost a 10, were it not for the noise factor -- the Wynn, our current Vegas leader, manages to cover up the noise in its wonderful toilet, so why not here?

Comments to the Management:

Hard to make the place quieter since it's a very busy toilet, so I'm not sure what else to recommend here outside of moving that baby changing station elsewhere. Otherwise, keep up the great work -- you've got an excellent toilet here.

Po-Mo Design Touches Make Toilets at Musée de l’Orangerie Unpleasant and Prison-Like

Musée de l’Orangerie
Jardin des Tuileries
Paris, France
www.musee-orangerie.fr

Where is it?

You enter the museum on the top floor. After going inside, walk past the ticket and coat/item check counter and into the belly of the building. Once there, you'll see stairways leading downwards and a bridge taking you to the back half of the museum, where Monet's mammoth "Waterlilies" are exhibited.

Go downstairs using the stairs on your right (while facing the the Monet exhibit entrance). Go down two floors (the museum gift shop is at the bottom of the first flight). At the bottom of the stairs, taken an immediate u-turn into the enclave there, which is where the toilets are. (Signs will be posted at the bottom of the stairs.)

What's it like?

This modern-looking museum, home to Monet's famed "Waterlilies" murals for more than 100 years, is a modest art house compared to most Paris museums. That doesn't mean its small, though. It's just not as large as, say, the Louvre of the D'Orsay.

The focus here is on Monet's masterpiece and the other impressionistic works from the same period (mid-to-late 1800s and early 1900s). So visitors here can explore a dozen or so galleries dedicated to masters like Renoir, Picasso, Matisse, Rousseau, Utrillo, Soutine and Derain, among others. The galleries are large but modest in design, allowing you to get up close and personal with these masterpieces and take your time viewing the art without fear of going to slow.

The centerpiece, of course, is Monet's enormous murals, which comprise two entire gallery halls of the museum, both of which are lit exclusively by natural light, making the experience that much more organic. For fans of the era's art, this museum can't be beat in terms of collection, experience and quality. Coupled it with an afternoon at the nearby Musee D'Orsay for a modern art experience of heavenly proportions.

Though the works here are of rooted in the golden age of Impressionism, the design of the building and the bathrooms are decidedly post-modern. Concrete is the main building block used here, and its implementation gives the place a cool, slick look and feel (which is quickly warmed by the matted colors found in the various galleries).

The toilets here make the most of these constructs, but not always to good effect. Visitors experience a dimly lit environment with little wall decoration (just concrete, really) and plenty of po-mo touches.

The central area of the men's room is large and cave-like at the same time, and despite the apparent roominess of the place it still feels very claustrophobic, even prison-like.

A set of three urinals stand along the front wall, looking like art installation pieces (a technique that reminded me a lot of the toilets experienced at Sensi and Okada in Las Vegas.)

The stalls along the back wall are separated by floor-to-ceiling doors, which are triggered to turn on a stall light whenever you open, close and step inside. Thus, when you first open the door, the light above the toilet is off, making you think you're about to enter a stall that will have you doing your business in near-pitch blackness. However, after you close the door, the light turns on, easing those sudden fears.

Of course, the light is very sharp and at first makes you think you're sitting under a heat lamp, which doesn't necessarily make you feel any more comfortable than you would you feel by sitting in the darkness, come to think of it.

If that weren't bad enough, the stall doors (because they are floor-to-ceiling and require some thicker material to compensate for the wiring switch inside them) keep odors in the stall with amazing skill. Thus, when you first open that door and see a small toilet in a dark stall, you get a nasty whiff of the previous inhabitant's business and it makes you think you're about to enter the deepest gate of hell..... Yes, very bad.

On the plus side, the stalls are covered with beige tile and the toilet is fixed to the wall in an ornamental fashion that again reminded me of the toilets at Sensi and Okada in Las Vegas, which employed a similar effect.

The flush mechanism here is foot-pedal based, however instead of having a standard pedal to step on, the designers have chosen to use a rubber push pedal thingamajig, which (no doubt because it's gotten worn down over the years) requires a good deal of pin-point pressure to initiate (you really have to press down on it), which in turn strains your foot and leg some because you thought it would be easier than it was.

A similar rubber push pedal mechanism is used by the vanity, to start the flow of water at the sinks. The sinks here are stainless metallic troughs built into a concrete slab. When you approach them, you think the water will come on automatically (the sleek design gives you that impression, as does the fact that the urinals have sensor-driven automatic flush mechanisms attached to them) but it doesn't, and as a result you start scrambling, looking for a way to turn the water on. Not very fun after you've soaped up your hands with a basic push-pump dispenser, I should add.

Anyway, it took me a while to figure out that to push on these rubber dots on the floor with your foot to get the water to start. And really, had I not visited the toilet moments earlier, I still might be there, trying to figure it out. And like in the toilet the pedal is hard to push, making it hard to keep the water on while you wash up. This is easily the most confusing and most difficult-to-use water faucet I've ever experienced -- even the O2 gave us directions, you know?

Given all these po-mo additions, you would expect to find an automatic hand drier. But no, there isn't one there either -- like the soap dispenser, the hand towels are kept in those primitive European models that essentially keep a long towel bound up inside a container. You pull the towel down to find a dry spot and dry your hands. Like all those old contraptions, the towels always jam and you have to dry your hands on a wet towel. Fun.

Also worth noting: The towels are at the opposite end of the room from the sinks, and as a result water gets dribbled everywhere after you wash your hands and those drops literally liter the floor, thanks to the concrete tile here, which highlights the water spots all too well. This is the furthest I've seen a towel dispenser put from a sink since my visit to Famous Phil's in Orlando.

Marks out of 10:

5. The po-mo touches are interesting at first, but the lack of functionality here, as well as the cave-like/prison-like feel and harsh, looming smells, ultimately make this a foul toilet-going experience.

Comments to the Management:

I appreciate you wanted to do something different, if not fitting, to the environment. However, you still need to remember the basics, which it seems are not a consideration. For one, increase the ventilation here so the smells aren't so sharp, especially in the toilet stalls. Second, move the towels closer to the sinks. Third, put some direction sheets on the walls so people know how to use the foot pedals. Fourth: Consider piping in some house music here to make the place a little friendlier. Fifth: Make those foot pedals easier to use, either by installing new levers or making them sensor driven. While it may feel trendy on the surface, a public toilet shouldn't be so purposefully off-putting.

Le Roi du Pot au Feu Toilet Features Soap on a Stick, Crusty Rag

Le Roi du Pot au Feu
34, Rue Vignon
Paris, France

Where is it?

This is a small place.

Just head to the very back, passing through the cozy dining room and keeping the bar to your right. You'll see a doorway at the very back, leading to a small hallway. Enter that hallway and the toilet will be on your right.

What's it like?

From the outside, this humble eatery looks like your standard Parisian restaurant, with its nondescript front awning and barely noticeable facade.

Inside, it feels much like a neighborhood brasserie, nothing more. The dining room is filled with cafe tables, many jammed together to make the most of the space allowed, and a small wooden bar takes up the right side of the area (with your back to the entrance).

That humble setting provides the backdrop for a truly stunning dining experience. The specialty here is Pot au Feu, a traditional French dish that involves the slow simmering of beef with various aromatic and root vegetables in a savory broth. In less capable hands, the dish becomes a one-dimensional boiled dinner, nothing more. In the skilled kitchen of this wonderful place, the dish takes on complexities and succulence you never thought possible in such a dish.

The dinner begins with a bowl of beef consomme, which comes straight from the pot where the rest of your dinner is being cooked. It's rich and delicate at the same time and it primes your palate for what's to come.

The main dish comes in a sprawling platter-sized bowl: On it, you get several hunks of perfectly stewed meat and plenty of veggies, like cabbage, parsnips, potatoes, carrots, onion, garlic and more. Again, it sounds like a bland meal, but the stock is so rich and flavorful it manages to work both as a soup and as a sauce that enhances the flavors of the veggies and meat. This is the ultimate beef dinner, if you think about it. I've never had it better.

The place also offers some outstanding desserts, including one of the best Tart Tatins I've ever had and an outstanding chocolate mousse. Free bottles of house wine are offered, and it's a wine that compliments the meal (food like this deserves to be coupled with wine) though at the same time it's nothing exceptional. (Upon leaving, I noticed that the house wine comes from boxes, not bottles, which are placed in faux wine barrels behind the bar to make it look like you're getting wine right from the cask. Very sneaky.) On the whole, this is a stupendous dining experience and one not to be missed while in Paris (unless you're a vegetarian, that is).

The bathroom experience here doesn't t equal the quality of the food (and I guess it shouldn't), but they certainly extend the old-fashioned vibe found in the dining room. Perhaps a little too much, that is.

This is a single chamber bathroom, suiting both sexes. It's a small place, nearing such tiny spaces as the Petro Palace lobby or the SkyBar in St. Petersburg, or even Monsoon in London. The room itself is thin and has an odd shape -- like a narrow trapezoid instead of a square or rectangular space. The toilet is in the thinner area, the sink sits opposite it, in the fatter area.

The toilet itself is clean enough, though nothing remarkable, and I didn't see much wear and tear here, though there was a slight foul air to it. The walls are covered in a beige-white tile pattern, and the floors are covered in a blander beige tile. The toilet has a beige tank and bowl and a white plastic seat cover. The sink is also made of beige porcelain. A soap dispenser hangs above the sink to the right. A hand drier hands to the immediate left of the sink (it's a narrow place). A piece of Flemish-inspired art - very well worn -- hangs above the toilet. In all, the toilet reminded me a lot of the one visited at Monsoon, in that its compact, small and nothing flashy but clean and humble enough. Only this didn't have the pink toilet paper.

There were two unique oddities here. The first is a bar of soap that hangs out of the wall near the sink via a metal spoke, which has been rammed through its center of it to support it and fix it to the wall. Not really sure why it's there, since a soft soap dispenser is just a few inches away, yet it's unique. I'm thinking that you wet your hands and then rub your wetted palms over the soap to lather up. Definitely unique, though I'm not quite sure how practical it is.

The second is a very old, crusty-looking gray rag hanging on a coat hanger just above the hand drier. I'm guessing this is here so people who don't like hand driers can dry their hands on it. But it looks like it hasn't been washed in ages, and as a result I'm not sure it's the most sanitary of options. Again, very peculiar.

Marks out of 10:

6. It's a tight fit and clean, but nothing luxurious, that's for sure. Plus, the soap on a stick and the crusty rag add some mystery to the experience, but not exactly in a good way.

Comments to the Management:

To be honest, the food is so good here, it almost forgives the misgivings of the bathroom. On the other hand, making the place a little roomier (if possible) would be nice, and perhaps include some visual instructions on how to use the soap on a stick properly, because I'm still a little confused over it. Also -- and this is an obvious point -- put a clean rag in there.

Too Much Style Keeps J. Alexander's Toilet From Perfection

J. Alexander's
7335 W Sand Lake Rd
Orlando, FL USA
www.jalexanders.com

Where is it?

On the exact opposite end of the place from the entrance.

So to get there, you enter, cross the large dining room, passing the semi-open kitchen on the far left wall and the glass-walled wine room on the far right.

Once you reach the very back corner, you'll see a waiter station on your left (this is where the dishes coming fresh out the kitchen get their last bit of dressing for table presentation). Veer right then, walking backward even further, until you see a small cutout in the hall, very dimly lit. Once there, you'll see some ornate wooden doors, one leading to the men's room, one to the women's.

What's it like?

Style is definitely the focus at this upper-class semi-class gourmet chain. The dining room is dimly lit and filled with dark woods, dark carpet, bits of modernist art, sleek metal highlights and a hip vibe. Tables are wide and offer plenty of elbow room, and sitting here reminded me some of the warmth one feels while sitting in a ski lodge's main room (you know, with the fireplace) -- yes, it that's cozy -- only it's not as common feeling as that. Rather's it's like a sophisticated fireplace den. Pretty nice.

The menu works a similar charm, albeit at times it works a bit too hard to achieve that effect. Both the in-house smoked salmon appetizer and house chili (the soup of the day on my visit) proved to be stellar starters -- very good versions of these traditional dishes. Also impressive-looking were the onion rings, which came in a foot-tall tower; sadly, I didn't get to try those.

Sandwiches were good but at times got a little too complicated for their own good. The ahi tuna burger, for example, made a strong first impression, with its Asian marinade and toppings of pickled cabbage and carrot, among other things, but those toppings and sauces eventually gave way to pretty bland fish. The same could be said of the Hyde Park, essentially a club sandwich; it started strong (with its freshly baked bread and abundance of toppings) but again ended up revealing some bland basics.

Mains were not sampled because we were there for lunch, though I will say the house mac and cheese was very good, though entirely too rich for any one person to eat -- and if one person can eat that as a side dish, then that person needs to see his/her cardiologist soon after, since the thing was more gooey cheese than anything else in it; very good but very wrong, if you catch my drift.

Prices are medium to high, but then again this is what one would call an affordable fine dining restaurant. You can come in shorts and a T-shirt but you can also come for special occasions.

What's a real shame here is that for all the work put forth in the food, decor and service (which is also very good, with waiters hitting you from all angles at times), none of it feels very memorable. Once I was out the door, I had a hard time remembering what I'd eaten. It's all style, if you think about it, and not much substance past the immediate. Some might make the case that this is OK with them, since not all meals need to create memories, but I sense that the place is trying to reach beyond that basic connection with its customers, only that it was coming up short.

The bathrooms, of course, are very similarly minded to that. They offer plenty of sleek design touches and a few things that make you pause and smile, but at the same time they are all style and little else. And in the case of the men's room, some of that style gets in the way of practicality and proves detrimental.

This is a small, multi-person chamber. Once inside, you'll see a tightly packed multi-station sink station to your immediate left. In the back right corner are two toilet stalls, and across from them are two urinals.

The toilet stalls are in fixed-wall chambers (not the standard separator-wall-created stalls), with floor-to-ceiling doors -- very similar in spirit, but much smaller in scale, to what was seen at the wonderful Paris Las Vegas Hotel and Casino bathrooms. Only, of course, this place has more contemporary design on the door, whereas that place has art nouveau doors.

The toilets are white porcelain and the chambers are very private, though at the same time they are a bit dark -- reminiscent of what was seen at the stalls of the at the Musee de l'Orangie in Paris.

The urinals, also white porcelain, aren't anything special -- a standard area for those, with a nice dark wood divider between the two.

The sink is the highlight of the place. It's a trough sink made of stainless steel, with two faucets in place but only with enough room for one person to stand there comfortably. Standalone metallic soap dispenser sit alongside, with containers for heavy-duty paper towels in the corners. A large single-pane stretch mirror, which accentuates the metallic sheen on the vanity all the more, hangs behind it all.

But as said it's a tight fit here, almost uncomfortably so, and it gets even tighter when you're washing your hands there and the door opens and someone practically runs into you because the door is situated too closely to the sink.

Also, while the faucets are automatic, their progression of flow is too far back on the sink trough. As we saw in the Wynn Las Vegas bathrooms, which have set the standard for trough-styled sinks, the water sprays down against the back end of the trough, which in turn sprays waters everywhere. Something this clean-looking needs to be clean on all accounts, and all that spilled water ruins the facade. Really, if you extend the faucet out from so the water hits the back of the trough, this problem can be solved easily.

Marks out of 10:

8.

Comments to the Management:

Stylish, sleek and sophisticated, but also a bit clumsy in parts. Not sure if you can add more space to the sink area (perhaps fitting it into another part of the bathroom, like to the right of the urinals) but something needs to be done to make it feel less tight-fitting. Even if you're alone there, it's tight. Also, extend those faucets out so the splash from them is lessened.

Beautiful Bathroom at Bartolotta Ristorante di Mare in Wynn Las Vegas

Bartolotta Ristorante di Mare
3131 S. Las Vegas Blvd.
Wynn Las Vegas
Las Vegas, NV USA
www.wynnlasvegas.com/#dining/bartolotta/

Where is it?

Located in the Wynn Las Vegas shopping mall (which in itself has some outstanding public restrooms of their own), this beautiful restaurant flows over two distinct dining levels. To get to the bathroom, head down the main staircase to the lower-level dining room.

Once at the bottom, resist the urge to go left (towards the waiter stations there) and spin rightward around the staircase and head towards the right side (with your back to the end of the stairs), heading all the time towards the hallway tucked into the corner there. (The set up is very similar to the Daniel Boulud Brasserie, located in the same hotel.)

Go down that hallway, which like Daniel Boulud Brasserie is a bit on the dark side, and you'll come to an enclave containing the entrances to the bathrooms.

What's it like?

This is one of the best fish restaurants I've ever eaten at -- unbelievably good. And the whole experience made for one of the most memorable meals of my life.

The place itself is a decorative wonder. The top level, where you enter, is like an upscale tavern filled with dark woods and a sprawling mahogany bar on the far left. A circular staircase fills the center of the establishment. Taking it downstairs, you find yourself in a roomy, semi-circular main dining room filled with modernist seafaring decor: Shells on monotone painted walls. Elegant chandeliers. Large windows overlooking a man-made pond set in the center of the Wynn Las Vegas, which in itself has outdoor dining cabanas and circular orbs sitting in the water.

In a way, it's all a little overwhelming on the senses, and most people who have never been here before will feel a little disjointed when they sit down at the table. The service style is that of "in the know," as in those who have been here before know how it works and those new to the place must get their feet wet before proceeding. The menu isn't as self-explanatory as one would expect: There is an abundance of service options, from price fixe menus to fish ala carte to traditional pasta and meat dishes to specialty meals created specifically for you by the head waiter and chef. And each of those items can be broken down into sub-segments as well, if needed.

Really, like Las Vegas itself, the idea here is that the customer is in control -- but that the customer doesn't realize it at first. The sooner you come to that conclusion, the sooner your meal can begin.

So naturally, having never been here before, it took nearly 45 minutes for myself and my companion to sort through our options, get advice from our waiter, chef and sommelier, and begin our dining experience. We are glad we took the time, because next time we come here we know how to get things started quicker.

We opted for a price fixe menu consisting partly of menu-suggested items and partly of items created specifically for us. The menu consisted of a first course that was an assortment of grilled shellfish, including scallops, head-on prawns and octopus. The second course was a plate of pillow soft ricotta ravioli covered in seasonal white truffles from Alba. The third was a spaghetti in red sauce with spiny lobster. The fourth was a seafood risotto. The fifth was a whole roasted sea bream covered in a spicy red tomato and garlic sauce. The sixth was a dessert assortment consisting of various house-made chocolates, tarts, ice creams and more. We were very full when we left -- four hours later.

Now, I should say that I'm a major seafood fan and I know that freshness is key to great seafood. The seafood here, according to what we were told, all comes flown in directly from Italy itself, because the executive chef (Paul Bartolotta) insists that great seafood dishes cannot be made from fish from American waters. Not sure if that is true, but given the quality of the dishes served to us and pride in which they were prepared and served, I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.

The grilled first course was filled with briny goodness, as well as a solid grill flavor, with hints of lemon and garlic to accentuate those flavors. The spiny lobster was soft and succulent -- yet meaty enough to be distinct within the strong tomato base. The risotto was the type I'd heard about all my life but never experienced firsthand -- a risotto where the fish flavor was blended so well into the rice that it captured the essence of its ingredients without the need to show them off; no large chunks of fish and shellfish here because ultimately that would have been cloying. The bream was delicate, soft, supple -- the best fish I've ever tasted.

And the raviolis, filled with a semi-sweet sheep's milk ricotta made in house and covered with an abundance of truffles, was other-worldly. A dish so rich and refined that it left we speechless. After eating it, I could absorb nothing more than the flavors it left lingering on my tongue -- the sort of dish that tells you, "All right, you can stop eating now, there's no reason to try anything else because nothing else will get better than that."

The desserts were outstanding too, I should add, but by the time they arrived I was so full (and drunk from the wonderful wines the sommelier selected to accompany our meal) that I could barely shovel them down. Note to self: Pace yourself better next time.

Given that, you can imagine how wonderful the bathrooms are. And like the meal itself they are tops -- one of the best I've been to.

Once going down that semi-dark hallway leading to them, I thought (as said earlier) that I might be stepping into an environment similar to Daniel Boulud Brasserie. But then once I got in I was reminded of where I was -- in the glorious Wynn Las Vegas, home to some of the best bathroom's I've visited -- and realized that these toilets were more than up to par with the rest of this establishment's fine toilets. In fact, I would go so far as to say that the bathrooms are more the creation of Wynn Las Vegas than Bartolotta.

Like the dining room, these toilets work in a modern tropical feel, one that is both decorative but understated. The room itself is not large but never feels small. After entering, you'll see a two-sink vanity in the far right corner. Opposite them, to the left of the door, are two white porcelain urinals, and opposite them, against the back left wall, are two toilet stalls, both with floor to ceiling full-wall dividers (like what was seen recently at J. Alexander's in Orlando) and full wooden stall doors (a modernist spin on what was seen at Paris Las Vegas Hotel and Casino).

The floor is covered with tiles of that look like a mix of marble pattern and pool patio surfaces -- and with thin grout lines in between to give the allusion that the entire floor is one surface. The walls have a sheer marble tile on the lower parts and brown-maroon paint on the upper parts. Combined, it gives the place a stately yet homey feel -- like a pool bath if it were in a museum, so to speak.

The urinals are standard but have elegant marble dividers between them and framed mosaics of butterflies overhead (further proof of the Wynn's influence, I think, since the hotel is filled with butterflies). The urinals themselves have a thick mesh within them, that absorbs pee and ensures there's no splatter.

The stalls are reminiscent to the look and feel of the stalls at Wynn Las Vegas and the aforementioned Paris Las Vegas Hotel and Casino, in that they are completely isolating and provide much privacy and good lighting.

The vanity is something special. The sinks are square shaped and short (similar to what was seen at Whole Foods South Orlando) and have automatic spigot-shaped faucets. There are two intricately framed mirrors (with frames made of medium-stained wood and colorful mosaics) hanging over each sink, with some modern metallic box-shaped lanterns in between. Paper towels and soap dispensers sit between the two.

The tile work merits special mention, as it forms both the dividing trim around the perimeter of the bathroom as well as in between the sink stations. It's festive, intricate -- almost like a modern spin on Tiffany glass, if you will. Because much of the tile work around the bathroom is stately and monotonous, the highlights here extend much personality to the place. Classy yet playful -- capturing the spirit of the restaurant outside -- yet because it forms the boundaries of the bathroom it's also functional.

As you can imagine, the place was spotless and odor free. Lighting was soft but also bright -- thanks to the chandelier overhead and those box lights. If I had to quibble about anything, it would be that the trash hole in the vanity was too full -- but I came by later for a second stop before leaving for the evening and that problem was fixed. What a place!

Marks out of 10:

11. Clearly better than perfect.

Comments to the Management:

This is heavenly -- what more can I say than that?

Hermitage Museum Toilets Hold Many Less-Than-Regal Surprises

The State Hermitage Museum
Dvortsovaya Naberezhnaya, 34
190000 St Petersburg, Russia
www.hermitagemuseum.org

Where is it?

This mammoth museum, the second largest in the world behind the Louvre in Paris, spreads itself across five ridiculously large and ornate buildings. There are more then 350 rooms of art and design work collectively here, and ironically only a handful of public toilets.

The ones visited here are at the bottom of the Council Staircase -- which, given the complex layout of the place, you will most likely need a map or guide to find. (Most of the attendants don't speak English, and while they're eager to help understanding their directions can be difficult.)

What's it like?

Visitors here literally can step into the shoes of the Tsars and easily imagine what life was like for the rulers who once lived within these walls. Walk up and down the many grand staircases in the palace. Marvel at elaborate stucco work surrounding many of the passageways and doorways, much of it encased in gold leaf. Stroll through rooms of intricate granite and marble work. Saunter down hallways that stretch for hundreds of yards, many of them covered with ornate murals and frescos. This is regal living at its finest, an experience as opulent as Versailles, but without all intentional ostentatiousness.

On top of this splendor is the museum’s art collection, which was started by Catherine the Great in the 1700s and now consists of more than 3 million items, 150,000 of which are displayed at one time inside the museum. Here, you’ll find rooms devoted to the works of Gaugin, Titian, Picasso, Rubens, Van Dyck, British art, French Impressionism, Egyptian and Greek artifacts and much more.

Given that, you would expect to find some seriously impressive toilets here, something along the lines of the Bellagio or Wynn Las Vegas, which have become benchmarks now for high-end toilet design and comfort. Sadly, you don't even get something as straightforward as the toilets found at the nearby Grand Hotel Europe.

The entrance is impressive enough, at the bottom of the Council Staircase, which is a mammoth staircase that has been built to look like it has no supports -- almost like it's being held up by some sort of magic (the secret, you learn later, is that the support beams have been built into the structure instead of underneath or over it).

The entrance chamber comes filled with beautiful marble tile on the walls and floor. The sink vanity, found in this area, contains two sink stations set into a marzite-like counter. A stretch mirror hangs over the counter, with soap dispensers and towel dispensers to each side. The sinks are both stainless and have stainless faucets over them with automatic flow control.

A nice beginning, yes, but step in further and it turns into a place fitted solely for function -- and a gross one at that. The two urinals here, found on the back wall, are made of stainless steel and look more like those water fountains that you used to drink out of back in grade school than actual urinals. They hold no urinal cakes in them, making the smell of urine emanating from them quite sharp as a result.

More surprisingly are the commodes. they sit behind these monolithic stall doors, which make you think you're in for a major surprise when you open them.

Boy, is that right! The commodes here are some of the worst I've ever seen. Like the urinals, they are also made out of stainless steel. They are small, tiny bowls with a couple of black plastic strips nailed to them, which apparently stand in for a proper toilet seat. I can't say I felt tempted to sit on those two strips -- they looked more like a place to plop your shoe so you could tie your laces than to rest your bottom.

If that weren't enough, there was no paper in the stalls, only a wastebasket and a toilet brush. And of course the toilets came filled with much rank human deposit -- I didn't see a flush option on the toilet, and apparently neither did the other people who visited before me. The odor was pretty horrific. The site of all that excrement was far worse!

Marks out of 10:

3. Not very regal at all.

Comments to the Management:

Several million people visit this museum each year, so you'd expect the cleaning crew to be on these bathrooms the minute a mess was made. So that definitely needs to be fixed. Also, the addition of some toilet paper in the stalls would be nice. And a clearcut way on how to flush! Finally, how about a proper toilet, not a stainless steel one with two plastic bars taped to it. I'd prefer a hole in the ground to using this, I must admit. Ick.