The Roosevelt hotel in New Orleans opens Café Alice: a blue latte and a dish for a pet snake

Since Monday 26 October 2026, the lobby of The Roosevelt New Orleans has been home to a new European-style café and bar, open from 6am to 8pm. Café Alice pays tribute to Alice Roosevelt, the eldest and famously unconventional daughter of President Theodore Roosevelt, after whom the hotel is named. Her pet snake and her signature colour even find their way onto the plate and into the cup.

☰Contents

1. Alice Roosevelt, muse of the new café
2. A green trellis ceiling by ForrestPerkins
3. A White House snake and a $30 breakfast dish
4. What to order at lunch, from 11am to 4pm?
5. Six $14 pastries and a cookie for the zoo
6. Four draught cocktails at $18-22
7. The Roosevelt, a grand hotel since 1893

Alice Roosevelt, muse of the new café

Café Alice replaces the former Teddy’s Cafe, the lobby’s coffee and pastry lounge. Having honoured the father, the hotel now celebrates the daughter: Alice Roosevelt, later Alice Roosevelt Longworth, known for her daring and her taste for shaking up convention. For Sebastian Stutz, the hotel’s general manager, the café extends The Roosevelt’s story and joins the Sazerac Bar among the spots open to guests and locals alike.

A green trellis ceiling by ForrestPerkins

The design firm ForrestPerkins created the interiors: climbing botanical wallpaper framed by mouldings, arched niches trimmed in brass and, overhead, a green trellis ceiling. Cream and terracotta tones set off marble tables and velvet banquettes.

A White House snake and a $30 breakfast dish

The menu is by executive chef Daniel Mills and the pastries by chef Kareena Dennis, with support from StiR Creative Collective, Hilton’s food and beverage consultancy. At breakfast, Alice’s “Emily Spinach” Benedict ($30) honours Emily Spinach, the garter snake Alice kept at the White House: applewood-smoked Canadian bacon, sourdough English muffin, poached egg, spinach hollandaise, crispy shallots and bowfin caviar, from a North American freshwater fish.

In the cup, the $8 Alice Blue Latte blends coconut, spirulina, vanilla and espresso. Its pale blue shade recalls “Alice blue”, the colour forever tied to the president’s daughter.

What to order at lunch, from 11am to 4pm?

The “All Day” menu then takes over until closing at 8pm. The signature dish is the $39 Black Tie Chicken: crispy chicken bites, shaved black truffle, caviar, crème fraîche and Cajun fries. There is also a $45 steak frites, the $26 Café Alice Burger and chicken and sausage gumbo, the Louisiana stew, at $16 a cup or $26 a bowl.

Six $14 pastries and a cookie for the zoo

Kareena Dennis has created six pastries at $14: matcha-yuzu éclair, Basque cheesecake with ube (purple yam), an apple tatin entremets inspired by the Sazerac, the city’s cocktail, fig and honey mille-feuille, cherry blossom cake and chai-poached pear mousse. A croissant costs $5.

For a limited time, the café is teaming up with the Audubon Nature Institute on the Critter Sable Cookie Sandwich, a nod to the classic animal-shaped biscuit. Buying one earns a discount on entry to Audubon Zoo, and part of the proceeds supports the Marine Mammal Rescue programme and sea turtle releases.

Four draught cocktails at $18-22

The bar pours its cocktails on draught. The $22 Espresso Beignet combines Altamura vodka, beignet liqueur, Caffè Lucano and espresso; the Alice’s Margarita is also $22. The Wild Child ($20) mixes Bombay Sapphire gin, orgeat, matcha, coconut, cream and citrus, while the $18 Doctor’s Bellini brings together Juliette peach liqueur, Peychaud’s bitters and prosecco.

The Roosevelt, a grand hotel since 1893

Opened in 1893, The Roosevelt is part of the Waldorf Astoria collection by Hilton. Alongside Café Alice and the Sazerac Bar, it has the Fountain Lounge, the Italian restaurant Domenica and a seasonal Rooftop Bar, closed from November to March like the rooftop pool. Room service runs around the clock again, and the Waldorf Astoria Spa has added recovery lounges with infrared saunas and a cold plunge. The city keeps drawing new addresses: see the opening of The Warbler hotel in the Garden District and the return of the Fairmont brand to New Orleans or, within Waldorf Astoria, the new hotel in Rabat-Salé.