Beginning January 4, 2015, and continuing through March 1, 2015, Lex 18 hosts a weekly vintage banquet celebrating the fifth season of Downton Abbey.

Fans of America’s favorite BBC series Downton Abbey are being invited to an intimate interactive vintage dinner banquet recreating the flavors, style and traditions of 1920s aristocracy. Each Sunday, sixteen lucky guests will be served by butlers, footmen and feted to a five course repast on fine china, silver and the expected luxury mimicking the Downton Abbey table settings.

Lex 18 boasts an interior design style elegantly duplicating a 1920s upscale speakeasy and supper club. “We all watch Downton Abbey, as it celebrates the Gatsby and Vanderbilt era of innovation and elegance. Our restaurant was designed to recreate Asheville’s own elegant prohibition era boom and it just seemed natural to have a party focused around our favorite show,” says Georgia Malki, partner and general manager of Lex 18. Reservations are limited to a total of 16 guests for each Sunday’s vintage banquet and Downton Abbey live showing. The experience spans from 6:30 p.m. to 10:30 p.m. Sundays, beginning January 4 and ending on March 1, 2015

“The idea of going to a party and dressing up like Lady Cybill, being served a feast by footmen and catered to by butlers, is a once in a lifetime experience. Our establishment attempts to curate this part of history by bringing Appalachian life of the 1920s alive.” Since its opening, Lex 18 has received high praise for its food, spirits, nightly live jazz and romantic ambiance.

Entertainment manager and partner Alan van de Kamp Grau who will also be playing the head butler explains, “Just like the advent of sports bars, Lex 18 is pioneering a new way to watch television. It’s like reality TV backwards, where the viewer is immersed in an actual epicurean and tangible reality while indulging in the visual or virtual spectacle of Masterpiece Theater’s finest show. We encourage our guests to get into the spirit of things and imbibe in a bit of theatre themselves.” He adds, “For downtown Asheville restaurants especially, Sunday evening is a special night and we hope our vintage banquets will really bump-up the class factor.”

In true Asheville spirit, everyone can be treated like a Lord or Lady or at least a Vanderbilt. And yes, period costumes are encouraged.” Van de Kamp Grau suggests folks check out Vintage Moon, a block down on North Lexington Avenue. “They have an amazing collection of 1920s dresses. Gentlemen can simply wear a tux or suit and bow tie.”

Lex 18’s historic late 1920s dining room will be set in a resplendent post-Edwardian era style, complete with all the finery inspired from this popular historic era. Centered under the main dining room’s golden ceiling, a 16-foot long banquet table will be lavishly dressed with period china and crystal. Footmen in tails and a head butler will serve guests a five-course banquet with cocktails, wines and champagne (spirits and wine are optional additions).

This banquet is made all the more fabulous by an interactive cast of actors portraying Asheville’s version of the Crawley family members, guests and their gossipy servants.

The evening will begin at 6:30 p.m. with a vintage period cocktail hour. During the cocktail hour guests will be treated to a 15-minute presentation by WCQS comparing 1920s music, arts, fashion and culture of Asheville and England.

At 7:30 p.m. the butler will announce dinner and guests will be escorted to the dining room to find Downton Abbey footmen at the ready to serve an exquisite five-course meal resplendent with fine wines and champagne. This dinner affair includes tableside butler service, beautiful china, silver platters, crystal and the leisurely feast classic of a grand manor.

During dinner, guests will interactively experience the characteristic wit and sarcasm of Asheville’s version of the Crawley family. Guests will witness and be drawn into petty jealousies, titillating conversations and scheming ambitions while overhearing secrets among the family and the servants – all delicious and dangerous, set against the backdrop of the aristocratic farms, quaint villages and the large estates of post WWI Yorkshire, England and Asheville.

At 9 p.m. champagne and dessert will be served and the curtains will part for the live broadcast of a Season 5 episode of Downton Abbey on Lex 18’s theatre screen. A short intermission will allow for a Downton Abbey classic coffee and tea service along with a digestive liqueur selection including sherry, port, cognac, curacao, or brandy.

The Lex 18 team is producing these ticketed events in cooperation with Western North Carolina’s public radio station WCQS. Membership Director Michelle Keenen acknowledged that, “Our classical and jazz musical programming has a wonderful intersection with fans of Downton Abbey.”

WCQS representatives will be also be on hand at the banquets to present brief stories about the parallels between Asheville and England’s cultural and social post WWI history at the beginning of each banquet.

The Vintage Banquet begins at 6:30 p.m. All inclusive dinner theatre seats, which include cocktails, wine, champagne and liqueur are $83. Dinner and theatre only seats are $56. Tickets are available at www.Lex18avl.com via Brown Paper Bag Tickets.

Lex 18, 18 North Lexington Ave., downtown Asheville
www.Lex18avl.com