Art Quote by Mimi Sheraton

Swirls, blazes, forests, waterfalls: Mimi Sheraton builds this room the way a great restaurant builds desire, by making abundance feel inevitable. The sentence doesn’t just describe an interior; it stages a sensory pileup that turns decor into weather. “Antique stained glass” brings pedigree, “brass” flashes money, carved wood suggests old-world craft, and “crystal” gives the whole thing that paid-for sparkle. You can almost hear the clink of glasses and the soft coercion of luxury: stay, spend, indulge.

Sheraton’s intent is classic critic craft. She’s not cataloging objects for their own sake; she’s telling you how the place performs. The accumulating nouns and kinetic metaphors (“forests,” “waterfalls”) imply immersion, even surrender. It’s festive, yes, but also strategic. A “fabulously festive interior” isn’t only about holidays or cheer; it’s a brand promise that your night will be bigger than your everyday life.

The subtext is a wink at excess without quite condemning it. Sheraton loved precision, but she also understood the pleasure of spectacle in dining culture: the room as appetizer, the decor as persuasion. Written in the context of late-20th-century urban restaurant-going (and the kind of city landmark spaces that compete for status as much as customers), her imagery elevates the interior to a civic attraction. You’re not simply eating there; you’re consuming a piece of the city’s mythology, engineered in glass and glow.