By Pat Lindsey

If you’re looking for a good night’s sleep and a lot of

pampering, Southmoreland on the Plaza is the bed & breakfast

for you.  Located just two blocks from Kansas City’s famed

County Club Plaza, the century-old 12-bedroom colonial mansion

with a renovated carriage house suite is a stately neighbor for two

impressive art museums—the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art and

the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art (countryclubplaza.com).

Southmoreland proprietors, Mark Reichle and Nancy Miller Reichle, bought the property 14 years ago and are clearly the key to the inn’s success.  Hospitality reigns supreme with this couple as they and their friendly staff make every guest feel welcomed and appreciated.  Their home is truly yours for the duration of your stay.  As a bonus, they provide amenities such as free local calls, fax, and Wi-Fi, often found in small hotels.

No two rooms in the B&B are alike.  Each one bears the name of a famous Kansas City resident.  Our’s happened to be William Rockhill Nelson, former founder of the Kansas City Star, who donated his estate for the establishment of the neighboring museum of contemporary art.  It had a queen-size canopy bed, wood-burning fireplace all set up and waiting for a match, and a large bathroom with a Jacuzzi bathtub.  Two thick, fluffy robes hung in the closet and chocolate mints were on our pillows each night

Happy hour begins at 4 p.m. with wine and hors

d’oeuvres.  It’s usually then that one of the house staff will read the next morning’s breakfast menu and take your seating time.  Rest assured, the 3 –course breakfast is worth whatever it takes to get you out of that comfy bed and dressed.

Daytime and evening entertainment is on your own, and B & B guests should never have difficulty finding things to do in Kansas City.  If you don’t want to drive you can find plenty to do on foot with Country Club Plaza two blocks away.  Among the incentives coming back to Southmoreland early is being greeted with warm, freshly baked cookies between 8 and 11 p.m.

Southmoreland is a member of the Select Registry Distinguished Inns, an elite collection of 325 top inns and B&Bs in North America that were able to pass a rigorous inspection to gain admission.

       Julian is Feel-Good Dining

Our weekend trips—or any trips are

always so packed with things to do that we barely have time to eat.  On this trip, however, we enjoyed a relaxing lunch at a trendy casual bistro at Brookside Plaza called Julian.  Julian is the first restaurant of James Beard-award winning chef, Celina Tio, and we were happy to find her working in the bistro when we arrived.  Its menu features fresh, seasonal comfort foods with Tio’s special twist and presentation.  For lunch, offerings range from yesterday’s soup to seared trout or pheasant pot pie.  There are choices in serving sizes  and desserts are capped at 400 calories.

There are no iceberg lettuce salads at

Julian.  Only the greenest greens are used.  I had a baby arugala salad dressed with red wine vinaigrette that tasted as crisp and fresh as if it was mid-summer.  My husband and I decided to share the Pork Bigwich, a pulled pork sandwich with slaw on a toasted egg bun, so that he would have room for the chocolate pudding dessert.

Chef Tio recently made her second

appearance on the TV show, “Iron Chef,” a few weeks after our visit to her restaurant.  We tuned in the night it aired and watched her compete against Chef Michael Symon, who beat her out once before.  The secret ingredient for that episode was plum, so every dish they prepared had to have plums incorporated into it in some way.  Although she didn’t win, she made a respectable showing. For menus and more information, visit juliankc.com.