主持及打理下，楼外楼经过一轮装修，建筑装潢的风格更加清丽和谐，内涵更加丰富隽永。特别值得一提的是，陆大师专门为楼外楼设计创作了一帧大型壁雕：《东坡浚湖图》，这帧壁雕有50平方米画面，85个人物，5个连成一气的场景，真实生动地记录和反映了九百多年前苏东坡率众疏浚西湖的过程。《东坡浚湖图》装点在一楼到二楼旋转楼梯旁的墙壁上，分外醒目，令每一个到楼外楼的宾客，都眼睛一亮。
楼外楼不仅是提供美食的场所，同时也是一个展示民族风俗文化内涵的场所，使人享受美味时又能体验一种文化情调。
以文兴楼 楼以文名
富有历史文化底蕴的中华老字号楼外楼，它在创建之时，就浸润在浓郁的文化氛围中。取自宋代林昇诗句“山外青山楼外楼”而富有诗情画意的店名，使她与中国传统文化融合在一起。多少年来，无数政要名流、文人墨客登楼把盏，感受历史名店的文脉，留下珍贵的墨宝。
楼外楼在环境设置中始终珍视名楼的文化传统和人文、自然资源，悉心增添文化氛围。楼外楼特意将60多个包厢取出有文化内涵的名字，刻成匾额，要求服务员能讲出该匾额的含意。餐厅及包厢里，悬挂了周总理在楼外楼接待外国元首的历史照片和社会名流为楼外楼创作的诗词书画，突出了百年老店的文化历史。
近几年来，楼外楼每年都要举办“春秋书画创作笔会”活动，邀请大江南北的书画名家相聚一堂，吟诗作画。现在楼外楼已收藏名家书画数百幅。楼外楼人深谙“楼以文兴”之道，他们把这些书画作品视作文化艺术的瑰宝，精心收藏保护。在营业场所十分紧张的情况下，还专门设立面积约250平方米的楼外楼书画陈列室，长年展出收藏的名家书画作品，观者踊跃，满堂生辉，尽显名楼风采。□
Louwailou Adds Art to Taste
In celebration of the newly acquired World Heritage status of the West Lake in June 2011, the lakeside Louwailou Restaurant has launched a menu of 20 some dishes of decades ago. Over the past 163 years, the restaurant has been famed for providing a wide range of traditional dishes of Hangzhou cuisine. The restaurant is nothing if it is not traditional: many dishes that were on the menu decades ago still play a big part of the restaurant business today: in 2010 alone, diners placed more than 200,000 orders for West Lake Fish in Vinegar Gravy; the restaurant sold 160,000 Beggar’s Chickens and 500 tons of Dongpo Pork; the best known five traditional dishes accounted for 55.8% of the total annual revenue.
The traditional restaurant is also a sharp innovator. That explains why it has been around for so many years whereas its counterparts in the city have largely faded or even disappeared. It knows how to cater to local residents and visitors from the outside world. Finding the recipes of some traditional dishes and launching them again shortly after the West Lake was inscribed on the UNESCO’s list of world cultural heritage testifies to the restaurant’s fast response to market opportunities. The old recipes have brought a sense of nostalgia to local residents and travelers. The young chefs at the restaurant did not know how to best prepare old dishes. They had only recipes. The restaurant invited retired chefs back and taught the young ones.
As the only large restaurant situated inside the West Lake, Louwailou boasts a large collection of precious artworks such as calligraphic inscriptions and paintings, gifts left over by cultural celebrities over 163 years. In the restaurant lobby hang four inscriptions of the name of the restaurant in the handwritings of Zhao Puchu (1907-2000), Sha Menghai(1900-1992), Qigong (1912-2005) and Shen Peng (b.1931), all preeminent calligraphers of the twenty-century China. The interesting collection tells a unique story about the ties of these cultural celebrities and the restaurant.
The hardware of the restaurant reflects the cultural charm and history of the restaurant. Over the years, the restaurant has undergone various rounds of reconstruction and face-lifting. Now the 1,300 seats three-story restaurant looks like an art venue within and without.
The restaurant has been artistically touched up in a face-lifting project before the application for the UNESCO world heritage status. It now presents bronze tiles on the roof, carved windows, and upturned eaves, all being the traditional Chinese architectural features.
Some artworks from the collection are on display in the corridors and rooms of the restaurants. The most eye-catching artwork on display is a long 50-square-meter wood sculpture. The five separate pieces, connected together, present a total of 85 figures and portray a large-scale lake dredging project by Su Dongpo more than 900 years ago in Hangzhou. All the sixty private rooms are graced by artworks by celebrities and photographs and each has a poetic name. The service people at the restaurant know relevant anecdotes and cultural who’s who and the meanings of the names of the private rooms.
The restaurant has a 255-m2 showroom where visitors can view paintings and calligraphies from the restaurant’s collection. Masterpieces are on display on a rotational basis. □
相关热词搜索： 殿堂 天堂 美食 艺术下一篇：碛口,一个古镇的前世今生