Fused glass corset by Susan Taylor Glasgow

Tacoma’s Hotel Murano houses a phenomenal glass art collection. It’s worth a trip to wander around the lobby and shop in Creative Forces Gifts & Sundries, the hotel gift shop stuffed with local art. Even better, rent a room so you can explore the featured glass artist on each of the hotel’s 26 floors.

Glass art on display at Bite

The hotel also has quite a good restaurant. Bite is chic and airy and also houses glass art. I stayed at the hotel for two nights and breakfasted at Bite both mornings. The gingerbread French toast, chocolate chip pancakes, and especially the “giant German pancake served with lemon, powdered sugar and syrup” were enough to make me question veganism for about 30 seconds. But Bite features several vegan-suitable dishes, so I didn’t cave.

Warm apple cider quinoa cereal

The first morning I ordered warm apple cider quinoa cereal. It qualifies as a heart-healthy option, which the aforementioned giant German pancake does not. The server told me the cook sautés the quinoa in apple cider. It came topped with chopped pecans, blueberries and raspberries. Sweet and light.

The next morning I ordered the house-made granola and a dish of melon and pineapple.  The hotel stocks vanilla soy milk, so non-dairy folks can use that with their cereal.

I didn’t have any other meals at Bite, but noticed that dinner included several vegetarian and at least one vegan option, a grilled tofu with miso vinaigrette, peanut curry soba noodles, squash, spinach and peppers. And I noticed a house-made veggie burger on the room service menu. While most places will make veg dishes on request, it always cheers me to see hotel restaurants remembering us veg folks right on the menu. So thank you, Hotel Murano!