Thursday, 4:30 PM
Ritz rolls out new moniker -- and more
By Michael Levenson, GLOBE STAFF
The doorman who greeted Winston Churchill during his stay after World War II will retire his blue coat and blue cap Wednesday and don a new uniform, black with lamb’s-wool lapels and black fur hat.
The Ritz Fizz -- the signature cocktail of blue Curaçao, Amaretto, champagne, and a splash of sour mix, which has been served at the bar since 1930 -- will disappear from the menu.
Finally, workers will remove the distinctive brass lion’s head from the dark, wood-paneled entrance to the bar. And outside, they will hoist a new flag, emblazoned with the words, Taj Boston.
As the Ritz-Carlton falls under new ownership, it is not only getting a new name, it is gaining a new identity. Many details that made the hotel an enduring emblem of Brahmin elegance for 80 years will disappear like so many petits fours set before a hungry diner at afternoon tea.
The changes are bittersweet for this grande dame that, like many of its patrons, prided itself on blithe indifference to trends and fads.
It was only a decade ago that the hotel finally relaxed its insistence that men wear jackets in the dining room, and that was only after Mayor Raymond L. Flynn was summarily booted from a table for daring to sup in a Red Sox cap and golf shirt.
Reaction among the faithful has been swift.
"I’m in mourning," said Karl Smith , 71, a retired Merrill Lynch executive who has been visiting the Ritz with his wife, Margaret, for 30 years. "I will not be able to call it the Taj. It will always be the Ritz-Carlton. There’s so much history, if the walls could talk you could write an incredible book, on the people, the guests, and the events that have happened here."
