Meals for both families were prepared in the extensive basement with its large kitchen; the Ladiges' maid carried their meals up to the upper floor, while the Brooks received theirs via the dumb-waiter lift to the splendid dining room on the ground floor.
"Here was the splendid dining chamber, all decorated and aglow, where the wealthy ate," Carrie observes on entering a fine restaurant for the first time.
The high quality of seasonal ingredients, an innovative culinary approach and the splendid ambience make dining here not only a pleasure but also a bargain.
It used to be, so far as I was concerned, the Grand Hotel Clément in Ardres, where you found a splendid old dining room with framed menus showing that André Simon's Wine and Food Society had also found it a convenient stop on the journey into real or imagined France.
For him, the building was an "unimaginable boon", redefining what had been a rather dour and inscrutable enterprise: "For a time, editors and journalists from all over Australia would do almost anything to be invited on a personal tour of inspection, accompanied by lunch in the splendid private dining room".
VERY GOOD ATMOSPHERE Formal dining in a splendid castle with manicured grounds and views of the Hudson River.
But it is often reserved by Mr. Melius himself on Sunday nights, when he invites close friends to help him test new menu items while dining in the splendid setting overlooking the Island.
The upstairs and downstairs intricacies of dining and entertaining on a splendid English estate will be the subject of "The Art of Dining: The Table at Downton Abbey," a lecture by Francine Segan, a food historian.
At the same time, not all sacred images got so reverential a treatment: some turned up in dining rooms and offices; a splendid Tang-period marble bodhisattva, one of the show's centerpieces, once stood in a music room window.
Considering the splendid service, high-quality ingredients and integrity of preparation, dining here is a delicious bargain.
Around Winfield Houses dining table, as well as in its splendid salons, the elite of Britain have gathered for more than half a century.
