Exit Crosstown Boulevard off I-40 into Oklahoma City and the initial impression isn't great—boarded up businesses, abandoned warehouses and deserted streets. Venture a couple more miles in, however, and everything changes. Sophisticated restaurants pop into view and a juice bar and Pilates studio show signs of prosperity. Anchoring this new landscape is a handsome seven-story brick structure, reading “Osler Building” above the entrance.
This is the now the Ambassador Hotel, part of the Autograph Collection, whose sister hotels include St Ermin's in London and the Algonquin in New York. We had just driven more than four hours from Amarillo, Texas, and this was quickly our proverbial oasis. The hotel, in the Bricktown area of Oklahoma City, was formerly a condemned building, not unlike many other properties in this once run-down part of town. At the turn of the century, Bricktown was a commercial hub, but began decaying in the 1960s. These days, however, Bricktown has a new, hip façade.
The Osler Building was acquired a couple of years ago, gutted, and then reopened as one of the city's newest and most acclaimed boutique hotels. It features an intimate lobby where guests are welcomed with a glass of lemonade and freshly-baked cookies, plush seating, low lighting and soft music. The spacious, luxurious rooms are done in a modern Art-Deco design. There is a saltwater pool downstairs and a rooftop bar for cocktails.
My family and I were four days into a two-week, 5,000-mile journey across the country from our Los Angeles home. Our final destination was Malvern, a tiny town in Ohio, and we decided to spend each night in a different state. We read that Oklahoma City was one of the country's most underrated cities. After a couple of days there, we discovered that it shouldn't be.
For that afternoon, we abandoned the guide books. Anyone will tell you that the Oklahoma City National Memorial is a must-visit, and they're not wrong. The expansive outdoor memorial is a tribute to those who perished in the 1995 bombing. At night, the 168 chairs, each one engraved with a name of a victim, in the Field of Empty Chairs are lit up. They are set along one side of a reflecting pool and there is an inherent beauty to the space that deflects the melancholy.
A few minutes down the road is the Bricktown canal. During the day, water taxis run up and down its length. There are wine-and-paint bars, artisanal food shops, cute gift boutiques, and horse-and-carriage rides. Shopping is quite the attraction in the city in an area called Automobile Alley. Once a length of car dealerships, it now houses cute stores, farm-to-table eateries and moonshine-based cocktail bars. At Sara Kate Studios, where guests can find delicate Murano glass pendant lights, elaborate chandeliers and malachite stools. Urbane, a hip and upscale furniture store, carries the Jonathan Adler line and hard-to-find, one-off pieces from around the world.
The city is in the midst of something of a dining renaissance, while retaining its culinary roots (this is the Midwest after all). Steak, chicken fried and otherwise, is still on a lot of menus, alongside biscuits, gravy and waffles. That nod to history is everywhere. Still, what's so appealing about this city is how it likes to hang onto its buildings, instead of razing them to the ground. The recently-opened Red PrimeSteak, within the restored 1911 Buick Building, offers soaring 18-foot ceilings and delicious grass-fed ribeye steaks. Cheever's Café, housed in a building that's been around for at least a century, is a great lunch spot. In front it holds a flower case from which the original homeowner used to sell flowers in the 1930s. The menu is hearty, but rendered in a contemporary way. The chicken fried steak comes with a jalapeno cream gravy and red-skinned mashed potatoes.
Also in the neighborhood is the acclaimed Vast, a fine dining eatery featuring New American cuisine, 49 floors above the city. About ten steps from the front entrance of The Ambassador is the hugely popular Waffle Champion with its lines out the door on weekends for its signature waffle sandwiches (thick cut bacon, free range egg and Tillamook cheddar) and updated classic waffles (cinnamon baked apple waffles with vanilla bean ice cream and bourbon caramel).
En route back to The Ambassador, we drove through Heritage Hills—streets of fine, historic homes, standing proud amongst all the modernizing happening around them. And it's that homage to the past that is one of the most compelling reasons to visit this city.
