Best Café Ambiance '96

Best Café For Ambiance

Café Magritte
254 E. Congress St.

READERS' PICK: Whether you wander in during Downtown Saturday Night, take a stylish, high-powered client to lunch, or make a reservation for dinner with a date you want to impress, the ambiance at Café Magritte can't be beat. The high-ceiling, post-industrial chic dining rooms and Bowler Room bar area could easily be in a trendy eatery in SoHo, Greenwich Village or the Rive Gauche, but you only have to drive downtown to enjoy an atmosphere that's pleasant, artsy, and comfortable. Best of all it has big-city style without a trace of big-city pretentiousness.

READERS' POLL RUNNER-UP: With its huge windows and a mixture of avant garde and thrift store art on the walls, you can rely on The Cup Café, 308 E. 10th St., to provide your daily refill of Southwestern hipness. Located downtown in the historic Congress Hotel, The Cup not only has the best in cowboy-era architecture, but a steady stream of European tourists and young patrons with advanced hair make for excellent people watching, too. All this and a brisk, attractive staff who bring to mind other cafés in New York, Amsterdam and San Francisco, where being a waiter is considered the first step in a long artistic, literary or musical career. Check out the oil-on-velvet painting of Snowball, the Alaskan Husky, behind the toilet.

STAFF PICK: A combination of urban-waifish staff, jocular owner, and pleasantly eclectic customers makes the Epic Café, 745 N. Fourth Ave., a favorite neighborhood haunt for those in the university area--which means it's sometimes hard to find a seat. The occasional wait is worth it, for the Epic, even at its most crowded, has few peers in providing just the right mix of good food, caffeine, and atmosphere.

1998 Winner: Tie: Cup Café + Cuppuccinos Coffee House
1995 Winner: Milagro Fine Coffees