A Grand Night Out at Tellers in Oklahoma City

At Tellers, dinner begins with the room. The restaurant occupies the second floor of a former bank, where the Art Deco treatment runs from floor to ceiling and gives a plate of ravioli or a cocktail a considerably grander backdrop than usual.

The building has not been scrubbed into a generic restaurant setting. Vaults and safes remain among the historic bank features to look for, and old cars and other nostalgic objects add further points of interest as you move through the hotel’s preserved interior.

A host or server may offer a short bit of building history along the way. It is a pleasant extra, especially for diners who enjoy knowing why a room has such a sense of occasion before the first drink arrives.

Tellers works as comfortably for a full dinner as it does for a round of appetizers and drinks at the bar. Bar seating can accommodate guests who want to order from the restaurant menu, making it a useful option for an unhurried cocktail and a few things to share.

The drink list includes cocktails, wine and mocktails. Old Fashioneds are a familiar choice here, while the Bramble offers another named cocktail to consider when you are in the mood to try something beyond the standard classics.

Bartenders and servers are notably helpful with recommendations, which comes in handy with a menu that ranges from small plates to larger entrées. The overall mood is classy and generally easy for conversation, though busy evenings and festive periods can bring more energy to the room.

The eggplant dip is a particularly appealing way into the menu: a creamy yogurt-based preparation accented with sumac and mint. It has enough character to stand up beside a cocktail, and it gives the appetizer course a fresher direction than the usual fried starters.

Beef carpaccio appears regularly among appetizer choices, along with meatballs, arancini, burrata, tomato bisque and focaccia. That mix makes it easy to build a table around several smaller plates before committing to an entrée.

Lobster ravioli is one of the restaurant’s recurring dinner favorites. Other substantial choices have included brick chicken with sauce, pork Milanese and strip steak; the pork Milanese is a notably generous portion.

Pizza has a place on the menu, too, in a wood-fired style. Sausage pizza and the Diavolo pizza provide a more relaxed counterpoint to the pastas and plated meat dishes, useful when a group’s dinner preferences are heading in different directions.

Morning and midday visits have their own rhythm at Tellers. Brunch offerings include eggs Benedict, and the restaurant has also hosted jazz brunches with food and drinks, giving a daytime meal some of the same social energy as an evening visit.

Coffee is available for a breakfast-oriented stop, while stuffed cannoli brings a more celebratory finish to the meal. It is a small detail, but a cannoli in an old bank building has a certain old-school rightness to it.

Tellers also steps outside the usual lunch-and-dinner pattern with tea-time events. A Nutcracker ballerina-themed tea has been among the offerings, bringing a theatrical seasonal note to the already decorative setting.

These events are distinct from regular restaurant service, and formats and pricing may vary. The appealing constant is the setting: a formal tea gains plenty of atmosphere from Art Deco surroundings, historic details and a room built for lingering.

Christmas is an especially visual time to visit. The historic interior receives extensive holiday decoration, with displays carried throughout the building rather than limited to a single dining-room corner.

That seasonal treatment suits the architecture well and helps explain why the restaurant is used for anniversary dinners, family brunches, group meals and return visits from travelers passing through Oklahoma City. A holiday meal here can be as much about looking around as looking down at the menu.

The restaurant is on the building’s second floor, so the visit begins with the hotel’s historic architecture before you settle in for dinner, brunch or drinks. Indoor dining and bar-area seating provide two different ways to approach the room.

Downtown parking can be variable. Valet service, paid street parking, garages and paid lots are among the available possibilities, depending on the time of visit.

Reservations are a sensible consideration for dinner, particularly when the restaurant is serving as the setting for a celebration or a busy seasonal outing.