<table border="0" align="left" width="210"><tr><td><img src="http://www.louisvillehotbytes.com/rivueleo.jpg" border="1" align="left"></td></tr><tr><td>On the 25th floor of the Galt House, the hotel's former idiosyncrasies have yielded to the elegant furnishings of Rivue, a brand new upscale restaurant with an amazing 360-degree view of the city. LEO Photo by Nicole Pullen</td></tr></table>LEO's Eat 'n' Blog with Louisville HotBytes
(Rivue preview; Caffe Classico's new pizza)
The late developer Al J. Schneider, never a man to pay much attention to negative counsel, pretty much went it alone when he built the Galt House on Louisville's then-moribund waterfront in 1973.
Schneider lived long enough to enjoy vindication as a vibrant redeveloped downtown scene rose around his venture, which bore the name of a historic 19th century hostelry where Charles Dickens once stayed.
But if the truth be told, a lot of people are still chuckling at the combination of hard-headedness and wacky design sense that inspired him to create the place in a style that can only be described as "idiosyncratic."
Shocking pink met pukey green, and plaid introduced itself to paisley in an odd high-rise that used to boast the simple letters "H-O-T-E-L" running vertically down its river facade, surmounted by a pair of oversize, revolving view restaurants that from the outside resembled nothing so much as bulging bullfrog eyes.
Within, the old Flagship Room restaurant shared its fustian decor with the rest of the building, boasting the look and feel of an old Spanish galleon that had been decorated by interior design students on a very bad drug trip, ameliorated somewhat by the best restaurant views available in the region. Food quality varied over the years, but more often than not it stood in mute testimony to Calvin Trillin's famous wisdom about the quality of restaurant fare being inversely proportional to the building-top view.
But that was then. This is now. Schneider's heirs are yanking the hotel into the 21st century; and the Flagship Room, closed for renovation since early this year, reopened this week as the swanky <b>Rivue</b> - "River" plus "View," get it? In the early going, it's earning rave reviews for food and mood that erase all memories of the "old" Galt House.
We sent Eat 'N' Blog correspondent PAIGE MOORE-HEAVIN to a Rivue privue, er, preview, and she came back with this glowing report.
Full reports in LEO and on LouisvilleHotBytes.
