Cafe Alice Roosevelt is the new all-day dining move at The Roosevelt New Orleans, A Waldorf Astoria Hotel, reworking the former Teddy’s Cafe as a European-style cafe and bar. Book it for a Roosevelt hotel meal that can be as quick as coffee and pastries or as drawn out as cocktails and small plates.
Executive Chef Daniel Mills and Pastry Chef Kareena Dennis now have a daytime-to-evening room built around Alice Roosevelt, daughter of President Theodore Roosevelt, with a menu that moves from breakfast dishes and house-made pastries to small plates and cocktails. Use Cafe Alice before the Sazerac Bar or Domenica. Cafe Alice Roosevelt gives locals a reason to enter the hotel before dinner hour, when many historic hotel dining rooms lose relevance.
Cafe Alice Roosevelt Opens at The Roosevelt New Orleans
Cafe Alice sits inside The Roosevelt New Orleans in New Orleans, Louisiana, and takes over the former Teddy’s Cafe space. For guests staying at The Roosevelt, Cafe Alice is the building’s most flexible dining decision.
Cafe Alice is a European-style cafe and bar at The Roosevelt New Orleans. The day can start with espresso and pastry, then move into small plates and cocktails without a wardrobe change or a three-course commitment. Cafe Alice is better than Domenica for a quick Roosevelt meal. The Sazerac Bar is the property’s landmark drinking room. Cafe Alice connects breakfast and cocktails between The Sazerac Bar and Domenica.
The hotel already has several food and drink addresses under one roof, including the relaunched Fountain Lounge, Sazerac Bar, Domenica, Rooftop Bar, and 24-hour in-room dining. Cafe Alice gives the hotel an all-day cafe for solo pastry stops, casual client coffee, and hotel-guest lunches.
What to Order at Cafe Alice Roosevelt
Cafe Alice’s menu mixes French-brasserie reference points and New Orleans cooking. Daniel Mills frames the kitchen around Alice Roosevelt’s personality while keeping the food connected to the city: “The menu is inspired by Alice’s out-of-the-box personality and the relaxed style of French brasseries while remaining true to our roots and providing guests with authentic Southern cuisine,” said Daniel Mills.1 Order here when you want the Roosevelt setting without committing to Domenica or a full Sazerac Bar evening.
Alice’s Emily Spinach Benedict and the Alice Blue Latte carry the Alice Roosevelt theme most clearly. Alice’s Emily Spinach Benedict refers to Emily Spinach, Alice Roosevelt’s pet garter snake, and her White House menagerie. The Alice Blue Latte uses spirulina for the pale blue shade associated with Alice Roosevelt’s wardrobe, with coconut, vanilla, espresso, and coconut milk.
Lunch and dinner center on richer dishes like the Black Tie Chicken and cocktails such as The Wild Child, the Espresso Beignet, and Doctor’s Bellini. The Black Tie Chicken brings crispy chicken bites with shaved black truffle, caviar, and crème fraîche. The cocktail list keeps the naming tight: The Wild Child uses Bombay Sapphire Gin and matcha, the Espresso Beignet combines Altamura Vodka, Beignet Liqueur, Caffè Lucano, and espresso, and Doctor’s Bellini uses Juliette Heirloom Peach Liqueur and Peychaud’s Bitters.
Kareena Dennis’s pastry program includes the Matcha-Yuzu Éclair, Sazerac Apple Tatin Entremet, and Ube Basque Cheesecake. The Sazerac Apple Tatin Entremet pulls the hotel’s bar identity into the pastry case. The Ube Basque Cheesecake is less tied to New Orleans reference points, so choose it if flavor matters more than the Roosevelt reference.
How Alice Roosevelt Shapes the Cafe
Alice Lee Roosevelt Longworth was born on February 12, 1884, the eldest child of President Theodore Roosevelt and his only child with Alice Hathaway Roosevelt. She later became an American writer, political activist, and socialite, and she played a visible role during Theodore Roosevelt’s presidency from 1901 to 1909 (Wikipedia3).
Alice made her White House debut in 1901, accompanied congressmen to Asia in 1905 as a goodwill ambassador for the administration, and became the first First Daughter to act in that role. On February 17, 1906, she married Republican Representative Nicholas Longworth of Ohio at the White House (Theodorerooseveltcenter4).
Alice Roosevelt Longworth wrote Crowded Hours in 1933, co-edited The Desk-Drawer Anthology: Poems for the American People with her brother Ted in 1938, criticized Franklin Delano Roosevelt during his presidency from 1933 to 1945, and hosted a salon at her Dupont Circle home for six decades. That life gives the cafe better raw material than vague local nostalgia (Theodorerooseveltcenter4).
Emily Spinach becomes a Benedict and Alice Blue becomes a latte. Those references make the menu easy to read and easy to order from, especially for guests who want something that feels specific to The Roosevelt.
ForrestPerkins Gives Cafe Alice a Clear Room
ForrestPerkins designed the interiors, and the details matter because hotel cafes often fail when they feel like pass-through space. Cafe Alice has climbing botanicals on the walls, architectural moldings, arched brass niches, a green latticed ceiling, warm cream and sun-washed terracotta tones, marble-topped tables, and velvet banquettes.
The design also helps separate Cafe Alice from the rest of The Roosevelt’s food and drink lineup. Sazerac Bar carries the hotel’s cocktail identity. Domenica gives it an Italian restaurant. Fountain Lounge and Rooftop Bar fill other moods. Cafe Alice needs to handle daylight, solo dining, and casual meetings, so marble tables and banquettes are practical. The green lattice and botanicals tie back to the Alice Roosevelt theme.
Cafe Alice should work well for affluent travelers who want a quick coffee, a pastry break, or a longer lunch. A hotel breakfast room has to make sense at multiple speeds: 20 minutes with coffee, 45 minutes with a pastry and emails, or a longer lunch if plans shift. Cafe Alice’s room is built for those use cases rather than just a breakfast rush.
How Cafe Alice Fits The Roosevelt New Orleans
Cafe Alice gives The Roosevelt New Orleans a smarter spread across the day. Sebastian Stutz, general manager of The Roosevelt New Orleans, tied the opening directly to the hotel’s existing anchors: “Through thoughtful storytelling, culinary creativity, and a playful character all its own, it joins celebrated destinations such as the Sazerac Bar in offering guests and locals another memorable way to experience the hotel.”2
Cafe Alice is separate from the hotel’s other rooms. Sazerac Bar carries the hotel’s drinking history. Domenica carries the hotel’s Italian cooking. Cafe Alice is the hotel’s Roosevelt-branded option for morning service, the pastry case, lunch, or cocktails before another reservation.
StiR Creative Collective, Hilton’s in-house global food and beverage consultancy arm, collaborated with Executive Chef Daniel Mills and The Roosevelt team on the concept’s culinary direction, storytelling, and guest experience. The result is a hotel-led dining product built for a wide guest mix, which is exactly what an all-day cafe at The Roosevelt needs to be.
Cafe Alice also has an Audubon Nature Institute partnership around the Critter Sable Cookie Sandwich, a twist on the animal cracker. Guests who buy it receive a limited-time zoo admission discount, and a portion of proceeds supports the Audubon Nature Institute’s Marine Mammal Rescue program and turtle release efforts. The Critter Sable Cookie Sandwich is the obvious pastry order for families staying at The Roosevelt. It also shows the cafe is not aimed only at business travelers and cocktail-hour regulars.
Who Should Book Cafe Alice Roosevelt
Cafe Alice is suited to guests staying at The Roosevelt New Orleans who want a high-convenience meal that still feels specific to the hotel. Use it for breakfast, pastry, lunch, pre-drink snacking, or a casual meeting with the address and atmosphere of The Roosevelt without the formality of a full restaurant meal.
Cafe Alice is not the strongest choice for a New Orleans trip with room for only one major restaurant reservation. Its value comes from timing, setting, and Roosevelt references: Emily Spinach Benedict, Alice Blue Latte, Black Tie Chicken, Dennis’s pastries, and cocktails such as the Wild Child and Espresso Beignet.
The best strategy is to pair Cafe Alice with another Roosevelt venue. Start with coffee and a pastry here, then move later to the Sazerac Bar or the hotel’s Italian-inspired option at Domenica. Whether the pastry case, cocktails, and Alice Roosevelt references keep pulling people in outside the breakfast rush will decide whether The Roosevelt has turned a former cafe into a stronger all-day reason to enter the hotel.
