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PrintTrula at the Mayo Hotel
The Mayo Hotel is enjoying a renaissance in downtown Tulsa, along with its new hotel restaurant.
TulsaPeople focuses on local businesses, and one can’t get more local — at least in Tulsa — than the recently renovated Mayo Hotel and Residences.
Renovations have been under way for years — a failed renovation attempt in the early 1980s left the building unoccupied, resulting in the pilferage of many of its original fixtures and interior ornamentation.
After being abandoned for 20 years, the Mayo seemed destined for destruction until June 2001 when the Snyder family purchased it and a new round of renovations began.
The Mayo’s new restaurant, Trula, is named for a local socialite, Trula Austin, who lived in the original hotel for about 25 years and operated Mrs. DeHaven’s Flower Shop.
In the spirit of the historic Mayo Hotel (originally built in 1925 and listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1980), the true art deco interior was recreated in the restaurant space — the original black-and-white tile floor remains. Deco chandeliers grace the ceiling alongside metal air ducts, mixing old with new. 
Raised in Vancouver, British Columbia, chef Neall Bailey was formerly cooking at the Willard InterContinental Hotel in Washington, D.C., but he is all Tulsa now.
His menu features locally driven dishes, including salmon that Bailey smokes himself. Bailey also cures his own bacon, and the bread is baked in-house.
Glancing at the menu, the first dish caught our eye: lobster mac and cheese. Served with baby greens, the dish was tasty, but I was expecting a bit more. A fancier noodle than plain ole elbow macaroni, perhaps, but mainly, more lobster. Other appetizers include fried calamari ($10), pan-roasted diver scallops ($15) and an assortment of pizzas ($12).
We also shared the Trula salad ($11), with frisée and butter lettuces, house-cured bacon, cubes of potato and comté cheese and a poached free-range egg. This is my favorite French bistro salad, and this version didn’t disappoint, although it took quite a long time for us to receive it — our server hinted that maybe the kitchen was having trouble poaching our eggs perfectly. On a good note, the salad did come divided onto two serving plates, with us each receiving our own egg, poached perfectly. Other salads include Caesar ($10) and local mixed greens ($9). Soups feature Trula’s popular potato and leek ($8) and a soup of the day, carrot-ginger on the night we visited. 
For entrées, we enjoyed the crispy seared seabass ($22) on a bed of fava bean and wild mushroom succotash. I could have eaten a bowl of the succotash by itself. The fish was delicious but maybe a tad undercooked, for it lacked the flakiness of perfectly cooked seabass. We also tried the Chef’s Favorite ($18), a generous serving of pork belly that had been slow cooked for 24 hours and came served with creamy mashed potatoes and mixed greens.
Other entrées include a roasted free- range chicken with roasted root vegetables ($19); an all-natural beef burger with applewood-smoked bacon and white cheddar ($11); and a 12-ounce all-natural rib eye with crispy shallots, mashed potatoes and your choice of horseradish butter or bordelaise sauce ($32).
Desserts are made by pastry chef Mark Mazany and are delicious. The chocolate dobash cake (all desserts are $8) was amazing and the perfect size for the two of us to share.
On another note, the hotel lobby also boasts the only Topéca coffee shop in town — Topéca coffee is served at Trula as well. Topéca coffee is the only local seed-to-cup coffee company around. It is a family-owned roasting company, and the family also owns the farm in El Salvador where the beans are grown. In addition to coffee drinks, Topéca offers a limited breakfast and lunch menu.
For more information, visit www.topecacoffee.com.
Trula
115 W. Fifth St., Mayo Hotel
895-8403
Cuisine — New American
Setting — Mayo Hotel, downtown Tulsa
Owner — Neall Bailey
Prices — Dinner menu: small plates, $10-$15; soup and salad, $8-$11;
entrées, $11-$32
Credit cards — All major accepted
Hours — Breakfast: 6:30-10 a.m.; lunch: 11:30 a.m.-2:30 p.m.; dinner: 5:30-10 p.m.
Dress — Business casual
Noise level — Moderate
Handicapped access — Yes
Smoking — No
Parking — Street or hotel valet
