Where: Bambara

What: A large glass map of Boston and Cambridge toward the back of the Cambridge restaurant’s dining room.

Whose Idea: The house restaurant at the Hotel Marlowe got a makeover in 2014, complete with the 16-foot glass map, which lights up at night. “We wanted the restaurant to focus on Cambridge relationships and history,’’ says general manager Amanda McBride. Being inside a hotel, there’s heavy tourist traffic, and many people wander into the restaurant to strategize an agenda for the day. “It helps people travel around the city; they have breakfast with us, plot out how far it is to the Back Bay, and look for bike paths and the river,’’ she says. They can also do some light reading: Adjacent to the maps are several only-in-Boston tomes, including vintage MIT textbooks (complete with students’ names inscribed on the first page) and Henry David Thoreau’s “Walden.’’

Bambara, Hotel Marlowe, 25 Edwin H. Land Blvd., Cambridge, 617-868-4444, www.bambara-cambridge.com

KARA BASKIN

Kara Baskin can be reached at kcbaskin@gmail.com. Follow her on Twitter @kcbaskin.