- New York City
- Finger Lakes
- Florida – Orlando and Cocoa Beach area
- Florida – Tampa Bay area
- Florida – Palm Beach area
New York City
Per Se, Time Warner Building, 10 Columbus Circle. Tel: 212/823.9335
Per Se is the urban alter ego of Tom Keller’s French Laundry in California, though conceived on a much grander scale. It’s a soaring, opulent space within the showy Time Warner complex at the southwest corner of Central Park. I last visited in 2010 and had a fabulous meal. Nine years on, the experience was a little less satisfying, despite the best efforts of Maitre’d, Sam Lucas, a Lancashire lad who arrived from London’s Ledbury. He brings an entirely unexpected informality to the Per Se experience, chatting away in his broad Accrington accent. That goes a long way to off-set what, for some people, might be a slightly intimidating environment with one of the most expensive menus in the world.
Is it worth it? Well that’s a huge question and in many ways, it is all about context. Seated at your table in the glamorous dining room with its glittering views over Manhattan, if you can afford the ticket price and appreciate precise, nuanced and refined cooking you will not be disappointed with the extravagent 12-course experience. Many French Laundry favourites appear, including the always delightful Oysters and pearls – buttery, sweet tapioca cream, salty Regiis Ova caviar and lightly cooked Island Creek oysters. Hen egg custard with black truffles is perhaps the ultimate soul food while of the main courses (slightly more substantial portions), langoustine cooked on the griddle came with melted bok choy and a ‘soubise’ onion sauce, a Szechuan peppercorn mignonette adding lots of piquant flavour. Snake River Farms Calotte de Boeuf, grilled and served with pain perdu and morels, was an absolute highlight, the steak charry on the outside, with just enough bite to the succulent meat.
Somehow, the pacing of the meal, the small portions, and the relaxed atmosphere is enough to keep the appetite alive and well, even when faced with several desserts and cheese courses. My favourite was probably another signature dish of ‘Coffee and doughnuts’ (little cinnamon-dusted doughnuts with a cappuccino semifreddo) that brought a real smile to my face. Make no mistake: this is a brilliant dining experience, and the massive wine list, mostly French, American and Italian, includes a very good half bottle selection. Mark-ups are fairly painful as you might expect, with by the glass reds starting at $26 for an Oregon Pinot Noir.
It would be dishonest to end this review without expressing a niggling doubt. Our aperitif glasses of Dom Perignon were a surprise gift, arranged by a friend, but even then, with two relatively modest half bottles and two glasses of dessert wine, the bill for two came to over $1200 – about £1,000 at current exchange rates. I have absolutely no issue with that – you know what you are in for if you sign-up for an experience like this – but for the first time I felt a sense of over-familiarity with the food, and the formula. I’ve been lucky enough to eat here or in the French Laundry eight or nine times over the years, and in many ways the experience feels frozen in time. Some of my favourite high-end restaurants have now abandoned so many of these trappings to serve entirely season- and ingredient-led menus that change by the week, if not by the day. Make no mistake: Per Se remains an absolutely class act, but perhaps it’s time for some fresh ideas? (2019). Open seven days, but dinner only Monday to Thursday.
The River Café, One Water Street, Brooklyn. Tel: 718/522.5200
The River Café has one Michelin star, and I have eaten here on every visit to New York since the 1990s. It has an absolutely magical setting, tucked beneath the Brooklyn bridge with views back to Manhattan. The restaurant has been here since the 1970s, when it shared this part of the Brooklyn waterfront with warehouses and working wharfs. Today it is a little more chic around here, but the building and its extensive gardens looked exactly the same as on my previous visit. We were seated by the window, and the welcome was so warm and friendly.
I kicked off with Foie Gras Duet, an outstandingly good pressed terrine of La Belle Farms foie from New York State, and a little jar of parfait, served with a spicy Hudson Valley farm cider sauce and warm brioche toasts. For my main, pan-roasted organic Amish chicken breast came with shards of crisply fried Trumpet Royale mushrooms, chestnut and caramelized onion agnolotti (little, over-stuffed raviolis), and a Madeira jus. I finished with good espresso served with petit fours and thoroughly enjoyed every single morsel and moment of this meal. Yes, it is firmly on the tourist trail, but The River Café delivers an excellent product at a fair price. Winner of numerous awards for its wine list, we drank Alfred Gratien’s Brut Champagne throughout the meal at $50 per half bottle. With a two course Saturday lunch at $54 per person, the total bill came to less than $300 including service. (2019)
The Modern, MOMA, 9 West 53rd St. Tel: 212/333.1220
A two-Michelin star fine dining restaurant within the Museum of Modern Art, The Modern lives up to its name with its stylish minimalist interior looking on to the internal garden, and thoroughly contemporary cuisine blending many cultural influences to a base of classic European cooking. The evening offers a seven-course menu, where the diner has a choice between a couple of dishes for four of the courses, and the restaurant surprises with the rest. It’s a fairly epic wine list again, with some surprises: after a half bottle of Gosset ‘Excellence’ Brut ($85) we enjoyed a bottle of South African estate Boekenhoutskloof’s 2013 Semillon ($95), a rarity on a US wine list surely?
The food was excellent here, my favourite course probably ‘Eggs on eggs on eggs’, a playful porcelain Ostrich egg, which when opened revealed a beautiful bowl of savoury eggy custard, topped with a yolk, generous spoon of caviar, and with a thick slab of brioche studded with little slices of shallot to dip. Other highlights included grilled asparagus with Vin Jaune and summer truffles, and a heavenly roasted lobster, served with toasted fennel and crispy squash blossoms. The Modern offers this menu at $228 per person and it is a ‘no tipping’ restaurant, so the wine drinker gets a break without 20% being added to their bottles. The Modern also offers a bustling bar and casual dining space adjacent to the main dining room, with a less expensive menu, however our whole meal including water and coffees came out at a reasonable $730. (2019)
Marea, 240 Central Park South. Tel: 212/582.5100
A real institution, and frequented by plenty of celebrities and high business people, Marea has two Michelin stars and a reputation for some of the best Italian food in New York. Seeing Robert de Nero (or maybe Tony Soprano) in a booth would not come as any surprise. It’s huge and fairly rumbustious, and we waited somewhat impatiently in the entrance for almost 20 minutes until our table was ready, despite arriving on time, but from then on, the meal was excellent and the service friendly and very good. A four-course menu, with plenty of choices at each course, is offered at $122 per person, where you choose one dish each from the antipasto, pasta, pesce or carne and dolce sections.
In fairness it was all terrific, but I’d single out the grilled amberjack, served with tempura spring garlic, roasted polenta and a tangy and lemony salmoriglio sauce, then a real highlight: fusilli pasta with a red wine-braised octopus and bone marrow sauce as a soulful, earthy and delicious dish. Another was seared sea scallops (three, fat, golden-fried, melt-in-the-mouth shellfish), which came in a stew of mussels, marcona almonds, nebrodini mushrooms (related to trumpet) and freshening slivers of cucumber. Marea is a crowded, informal place, far from the hushed atmosphere of Per Se for example, with brisk service and little ceremony, and the evening was a delight from (just after the) start to finish. We drank a half bottle of Krug at $150 and a bottle of superb Kumeu River Chardonnay at $80, and a bill of under $550 really was good value for a 2* dinner in New York. (2019)
The Breslin, 16 West 29th St. Tel: 212/679.1939
The Breslin styles itself as a ‘gastropub’ and indeed you enter through a noisy and crowded bar (where you can also eat without reservations) with two levels of dining room towards the back. We sat upstairs which was slightly less noisy and afforded a view over the open kitchen. Adorned with lots of vintage memorabilia in its wooden-beamed space, there’s a bit of a ‘nose-to-tail’ style here with plenty of meaty choices and hearty fare. We started with burrata, served with marinated artichokes, spring greens and garlic toast. A huge mound of creamy cheese was plenty for two to share. After that, I chose the char-grilled lamb burger, a seriously meaty and delicious burger, cooked medium as requested with good flavour, and topped with slices of feta cheese, a cumin mayo, and triple cooked fries. To finish, never – ever – miss the warm blueberry pie with cornmeal crust. Just fantastic. This was our first evening having made the long journey via London, so we kept it simple and drank carafes of the house Grüner Veltliner from Weinviertel in Austria and Cabernet Sauvignon from the Alexander Valley, the bill coming to $265 including service. Not so cheap for a ‘pub’, but this is New York. (2019)
The Standard Grill, 848 Washington St. Tel: 212/645.4100
Very handy if you walk the High Line and get off at 13th St, as this is just next door off 14th Street. We ate in the more casual café rather than restaurant proper, with a very nice sidewalk table on a hot June day, affording plenty of people-watching given the parade of colourful characters in this trendy district. We shared a really nice beet salad to start, interwoven with toasted buckwheat and crispy shallots to give crunch, rocket and a lovely brown butter and yoghurt dressing, that was more of a sauce, in which the salad sat. For mains, the lobster roll was irresistible: a whole 1 and ¼ pound Maine lobster, served with the best shoestring fries in New York, surely, and a delightfully sharp Fuji apple slaw. Everything was really very good indeed. It’s an interesting, quite hipster wine list here, with plenty of organic and natural wines and reaching into some unexpected places – like the rosé sparkling wine we drank by the glass, from Filipa Pato in Bairrada, and the superb trocken Riesling Von der Fels from Keller in Rheinhessen. With coffees, a bill of $281 (including tip) was again, not cheap for a shared starter and lobster sandwich (plus wine) but the quality was top notch. (2019)
Olio e Piú, 3 Greenwich Ave. Tel: 212/243.6546
This was an unplanned lunch, stumbling across Olio e Piú as we strolled through Washington Square and around Greenwich village on a sunny day, and spying its outdoor terrace and lots of happy looking diners already at lunch. “Inspired by the simplicity of Neapolitan cuisine,” a long counter and both indoor and outdoor spaces are served by a wood-fired oven turning out pizzas, along with other Italian or Italian-inspired dishes. Our shared starter of a beet salad with goat’s cheese, toasted pistachios and blackberries was a generous portion for two, and a perfectly summery way to begin, washed down by a bottle of Donnafugata’s ‘Anthilla’ white wine from Sicily at $56. Next up, a classic linguine a la vongole, well-cooked pasta just hanging on to al dente, a scattering of Manila clams, in white wine and chilli broth. It was a tad underflavored I thought, but again, in the sunshine, with a glass of chilled white wine, what was not to like? We passed on desserts, but with coffees the bill including service came to $178. It’s not a destination place for dinner perhaps, but it was a fine lunch spot. (2019)
The reviews below come from 2010, but all are still trading as of 2019, so I have left the reviews here.
Sparks Steak House, 210 East 46th St (between 2nd & 3rd Ave). Tel: 212/687.4855
This was our choice for the New York steak house experience. Let me set the tone by telling you that part of Sparks’ fame stems from a freezing night in December 1985 when “Big Paul” Castellano, a local mobster, was gunned down on the restaurant’s steps. It sounds like a story-line from the Sopranos, and indeed walking in is like visiting a film set: it is an enormous restaurant, clubby and darkly-lit, the busy bar serving beers and cocktails with brisk efficiency and a simply vast dining room (how many covers here? Hundreds I suspect). The space is divided by wood and etched glass partitions, and after a Manhattan at the bar we were comfortably seated in a corner table and settled in to peruse the menu. Steaks dominate of course, but a selection of lamb, fish and other dishes is available too. I ordered sirloin, with onion rings and creamed spinach, which is perhaps the quintessential choice. The steak was excellent: caramelised and with some bite on the outside, yielding and flavoursome inside, though the creamed spinach didn’t do much for me in terms of flavour or texture I must say. We had to have baked New York cheesecake of course (good, not exceptional) and a bottle of robust Cabernet Sauvignon from an extensive list. Overall we paid around $120 per head which was fine for an entertaining evening. I probably would not return: other than the steak itself the food was lacklustre and I found the several groups of noisy businessmen that surrounded our table a little loud. It is an experience for sure. (2010)
Mary’s Fish Camp, 64 Charles St, West Village. Tel: 646/486.2185
No reservations at this terrific and tiny, no-frills neighbourhood restaurant where diners squeeze into crowded tables and order from the short, every-changing menu. If there’s no table when you arrive, leave your name and have a drink in one of the surrounding bars – they will come and get you when your time has come. The open kitchen produces copious plates of fish, which is delivered fresh daily. At lunch I ordered a pan-fried cod sandwich, which came with a mound of French fries. The sandwich was delicious, the fish cooked to just opaque perfection and from the very short wine list a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc from South Africa hit the spot at $40. With coffees, the bill for four came to $160. (2010)
Nyonya, 199 Grand St (Little Italy). Tel: 212/334-3669
Nyonya is Malaysian cuisine, and this packed restaurant with its exposed brick walls and buzzing atmosphere is reckoned to deliver an authentic interpretation of it with imported ingredients such a ginger flowers, Kaffir leaves and Galanga and home-made curry sauces made from coconut milk and tamarind seeds. After some very tasty chicken satay washed down with Malaysian beers, we shared a large, overflowing bowl of beef rendang with coconut rice. The beef had been slow-cooked in coconut milk and curry spices for many hours, before being finished in a wok to dry off the liquid and leave moistly-coated chunks of melt in the mouth beef. This was a good casual dinner, the total bill coming in at only around $20 per person (cash only). (2010)
New York – Finger Lakes
In the north of the state of New York lies the Finger Lakes, with a sizeable wine industry and plenty of recreational activities. I spent a long weekend there, based in the town of Ithaca, home of Cornell University.
Ithaca: Mahogany Grill, 112 N. Aurora Street. Tel: 607/272.1438
This bistro-style, busy restaurant was jumping both inside and on the pavement tables on my weekend visit, but the short wait for a table was worth it for the welcoming, speedy service and a good choice of food, wines, and micro-brews. I had a very nicely char-grilled USDA Black Angus steak and slice of creamy baked cheesecake, both of which were unfussy, well-cooked and tasty. Moderate prices. (2010)
Ithaca: Moosewood, 215 N. Cayuga Street. Tel: 607/273.9610
Fine, hearty vegetarian cuisine – expect long queues at peak times. Good range of micro-brew beers as well as wines and large platters of home-cooked food. (2010)
Florida – Orlando & Cocoa Beach
The most recent notes here are from October 2016. There’s a selection of restaurants in the popular Cocoa Beach area one hour due east of Orlando, and one review from the upmarket Orlando suburb of Winter Park. Other Orlando notes date from 2009 visit, but all were still trading as of October 2016.
Cocoa Beach
Chain restaurants
Seven or eight mile of dead straight causeway takes you from Cocoa Village to Cocoa Beach, passing through Merrit Island where I was based. In a fortnight here we exhausted the area’s meagre stock of ‘fine dining’ restaurants, and not wanting to cook every evening, had very little choice but to try a couple of the chain restaurants that line the Causeway. It is so typical of suburban America, completely dominated by sports bars, fast food joints, diners and restaurant chains like Outback, Red Lobster and Longhorn. The latter category really could all be rolled into one giant super-chain, as their plastic laminated menus are so similar and their 200-seater dining rooms almost identical. Despite billing themselves as specialising steak, seafood, Italian or whatever, differences in food quality are indiscernible too. Red Lobster provided delicious cheddar biscuits (three helpings of those would do me for dinner) and lobster linguini was pretty good, certainly not short on lobster. Each main came with a decent Caeser salad and our bill, with a couple of glasses of beer, was $85 before service. Another evening we were in the mood for steak, so flipped a coin and ended up in Longhorn Steak House, another massive barn, exchanging the faux fishing memorabilia for faux cowboy memorabilia. Once again a choice of salad was included with my filet mignon, keeping it simple with just a baked potato with sour cream to accompany. With beers the bill once again came to $85 pre-service. Both were competent, and about as special as eating in a motorway service station. It will undoubtedly sound snobbish, but whilst each did a job of feeding us, I’d be truly depressed if my restaurant choice was confined only to such chains.
Cocoa Vilage: Crush Eleven, 11 Riverside Dr, FL 32922. Tel: 321-634-1100
It sounds cruel to say that Crush 11 is showing nearby Café Margaux (below) how it should be done, but there’s more than a grain of truth in that. It’s own strap-line of “Rustic urban fare,” may be a tad pretentious, but the food was really good and the service and atmosphere spot-on on our busy Saturday evening visit. With an emphasis on quality artisan ingredients – locally sourced where possible – and a menu that contains lots of ‘snacks’ and ‘bites’ to encourage at least an element of tapas-style sharing, it chimes very well with contemporary fine dining. We started with three small plates to share, all priced around $5 -$7 dollars: fried Marcona almonds with rosemary and sea salt, Medjool dates stuffed with goat’s cheese and wrapped in candied bacon with sticky sweet Malbec glaze, and finally, deep-fried wedges of Herreño cheese, served with Amish mustard. All were delicious, but the briney bite of the cheese against the sweet but pungent tang of the mustard was probably the winner. For my main I chose a flat iron steak, beautifully char-grilled and sliced over a crushed fingerling potato and avocado mash. The steak had also been marinated in a spicy Srirachra sauce to give and extra layer of piquant flavour. My partner’s grilled duck breast came with a cauliflower purée and lots of pickled blackberries in the red wine reduction, and a side of thematic duck fat-roasted fries that were yummily full of flavour. Like its sister restaurant The Fat Snook (below) BYO is welcomed with a corkage charge of $20 per bottle, which was perfect for us, though the one-page wine list is pretty good too. With a pre-service bill of $105 this was excellent value all round and the best meal of the trip.
Cocoa Beach: The Fat Snook, 2464 S Atlantic Ave, FL 32931. Tel: 321-784-1190
Since 2007 The Fat Snook has ploughed a fairly lonely furrow in trying to offer a modern fine dining alternative to the chains that dominate the scene here. It seats around 50 in a pleasant but simple dining room one block from the beach. Sister restaurant to Crush Eleven, it is still Florida-casual, but compared to the laid-back feel of Crush Eleven, I found it trying a bit too hard and slipping dangerously close to being somewhat pretentious. Our utterly pleasant server’s minute-long descriptions of each special and menu ‘highlight’ were so full of extravagant detail as to be both tedious and bewildering. The menu is fairly similar to Crush Eleven’s, though I thought the food was not quite on a par. Maybe that was just our particular choices. I started with a roasted beet salad, which was very good, along with multi-coloured beets came orange and papaya segments and little balls of goat’s cheese coated in crushed macadamia nut. For my main course I took Catch of the Day option #1, which was Mahi Mahi, landed at neighbouring Port Canaveral, which was roasted and served over an inch-thick rosti of potato and fennel salami, served with a roasted garlic & white anchovie aioli and with a crunchy salad of local green beans. The fish was flaking and moist, the rosti full of flavour, though its bulk made this a fish dish that lacked finesse and was just a little stodgy. Three desserts were on offer, and having read that desserts were a highlight, we opted to share all three. I’m not a fan of most Key lime pies I’ve tasted, finding them far too sweet without enough limey zest to counterbalance the sugar, but this was promoted as the house signature dessert. For me it suffered from the same cloying sweetness. A chocolate millefuielle affair was a little too sweet for my taste too, and possibly my favourite of the three was a ricotta ‘cheescake’, piped into a pastry shell. With a bottle of superb Chardonnay from Ramey of Sonoma at $72, the bill came to $215, or $250 once a tip was added. In all honestly this did not feel like great value. The staff were great and the overall experience good, so I would certainly try the Fat Snook again on a future visit, but would choose differently and certainly take advantage of their $20 corkage policy.
Cocoa Village: Café Margaux, 220 Brevard Ave, FL 32922. Tel: 321-639-8343
Café Margaux is so typical of many ‘fancy French’ restaurants that I’ve come across in smaller towns all over the US: a real throwback to 1970s Britain, in terms of decor certainly, and to a certain extent, food. Replete with more swags and tails drapes, busy carpeting and rococo-patterned tableware, our waiter did tell us that the restaurant was about to be modernised and the food offering somewhat changed, which in my honest opinion, it badly needs. First a word for the wine list: with several vintages of Bordeaux first growths – some going back to the 1970s – and other top end wines from Europe and the US, it’s a pretty serious list, though not at bargain prices. The well-heeled clientelle (one elderly party of four was collected by a uniformed chauffeur driving a dazzling blue Rolls Royce) clearly regards this as the spot to dine in the area. Expensive at night, lunch offers a simple menu with main courses at around $20, including a green salad or soup. I went for the $21 Coquilles St. Jacques and upgraded to a Caesar salad for $2, which was decent but unexpectional. The scallops – three in a small boat shaped dish on the plate – where good, nicely caramelised and well cooked, though they sat under slightly too heavy cheese sauce with sliced mushrooms, that had been fired under the grill. Also on the plate were two small salads: one a cold pasta salad, the other a refreshing bowl of watermelon and mint. Both perfectly pleasant, but such odd choices with coquilles St. Jacques, then I noticed the same two accompaniments were served with every meal I saw leaving the kitchen. We passed on dessert, and with half a bottle of Kendal-Jackson Reserve Chardonnay, the bill of $71 ex-service was not inappropriate for a very relaxed and comfortable lunch, but until the style and substance is improved I’d struggle to whole-heartedly recommend Café Margaux.
Winter Park
Blu on the avenue, 326 Park Ave South, FL 32789. Tel: 407-960-3778
Winter Park, a suburban city of Orlando, provides a real antidote from Kissimmee and the theme parks. With its highly strollable historic centre and lots of upmarket shopping and eating, it’s a place I’ve always enjoyed for its more Californian vibe. Blu is a relatively recent opening, with a bar, large dining room and pavement terrace. The wine list is pretty good, and learning that on Mondays and Tuesdays they take $10 off all full bottles was a bonus. I started with a really good carpaccio of beef: some excellent flavour to the meat, that was just as creamily soft as it should be, yet retaining a bit of texture, lots of shaved Grand Padana and a salad of bitter leaves accompanying nicely. For my lunch-time main I zoomed-in on a lobster sandwich: plenty of meat inside a Parmesan crusted brioche bun, the lobster held in suspension by melted Gouda. Alongside, a bowl of crisp and delicious fries. With a bottle of Guenoc Chardonnay the bill for two of $90 before service seemed perfectly reasonable.
Orlando
I would never even have considered the Disney Empire as a fine dining destination. Several people urged me to try however, naming in particular the Portobello and the more expensive Californian Grill. Both are within Disney World, but neither require Park tickets to attend.
The Portobello Yacht Club, Disney Pleasure Beach. 407-934-8888.
The Portobello has a nautical theme with lots of polished wood, brass and decorated with fine ships models. Like everywhere else in the Magic Kingdom it is also large, noisy and child-friendly (a good or bad point depending on your point of view!). We ate here on the first evening after flying in and I felt a bit jet-lagged, but I enjoyed what I remember very much. True to its Italian leanings, before the meal we were served warm, home-made Italian bread with excellent olive oil and a whole bulb of slow-roasted garlic for spreading. Delicious. My Seabass was seared and, though slightly over-cooked, very tasty, served with good, fresh vegetables and rice pilaf. Decaffeinated Espresso was good. The individual pizzas made in the wood-fired oven looked excellent, and the mostly Californian and Italian wine list had a fair by-the-glass selection. Worth a visit. $150 for dinner. Open daily.
The Californian Grill, Disney Contemporary Resort. 407-824-1576
This was easily the best meal of my trip in 2009, and although the restaurant is still there, I think the offering has changed: caveat emptor on this one. The Californian Grill has a big reputation for food and wine, regularly appearing in “America’s Top 100” type lists. It is situated on the 15th floor of a large Disney hotel within the Magic Kingdom, with easy parking, mono-rail connection and absolutely spectacular views over the theme park and lake which can be enjoyed from a couple of large terraces. We were very lucky in that we were given a prime seat facing directly onto the Disney Castle and evening fireworks. Kitsch or not, itis a remarkable view compared to that from most restaurant tables! The food really was superb, light and imaginative. A starter of Sonoma goats cheese ravioli in a tomato and herb broth was wonderfully textured and full of flavour. For a main course I chose the filet mignon which was truly stunning – the best steak I’ve had in a long time – served on mashed sweet potato. My partners seared yellowjack tuna steak was also fantastically good, blackened and cooked just raw in the centre. The waiter suggested sharing a hot triple-chocolate soufflé with peanut butter ice-cream for dessert which was the right decision – it was densely rich, yet light as a feather and as good as any dessert I can remember. Again, good espresso to finish things off. The wine list really is first class – a choice of about 100 interesting and some quite rare bottlings, with reasonable mark-ups and – best of all – everything available by the glass. Friendly staff complete the picture of a really enjoyable night out. $250 for dinner. Open every day.
Florida – Tampa Bay area
Bern’s Steak House, 1208 South Howard Ave, Tampa. 813/251-2421
What can I say about Bern’s? A legend in its own lunch-time. This place is over-the-top, unique and wonderful in an awful kind of a way. Formed from what looks like a large concrete warehouse under a freeway slip-road, the interior is a wonderful cross between Parisian bordello and Blackpool pleasure beach. Apart from the steaks and the decor, Bern’s is famous for its wine list. Weighing in at a couple of Kilos, it has 7,000 entries including, for example, 100 vintages of Latour going back to the 1830’s. Bern’s operates on a vast scale, with several large dining areas and lots of hustle and bustle. The dining room I was in (Burgundy), despite the red velvet and wine-themed murals, was basically a large, ambiance-free hanger of a place with horrible lighting. The waiting staff were helpful and charming though which helped make up. The steaks are superb – you specify weight, thickness and cut, and it is cooked the way you like. All meat is top quality and hung for 8 weeks to ensure it is succulent and tender. Desserts can be taken in a special dessert room with a piano player belting out schmaltzy show tunes and cheesy ballads. Designed with 50 individual booths, all of which have a view of the piano player or a TV screen relaying the sound and pictures. Great fun, decent food and quite a wine list. Maybe not very sophisticated, but an experience. $110 for dinner. Open every day.
Guppy’s, 1701 Gulf Boulevard, Indian Rocks Beach.
A fairly chic, but casual and friendly place with a large outside terrace and a couple of big indoor rooms, Guppy’s does some really good fish and seafood at reasonable prices. I loved the smoked-fish pate served with crackers as a starter – a lovely, rough texture with chunks of fish and a really nice flavour. One of the house specialities is the tuna steak – cut like a filet-mignon in a thick, small portion and broiled (Charcoal grilled) just nicely. Wine list is a single sheet of A4 – mostly Californian – and there’s a good list of beers. The waitress made that familiar but annoying mistake of treating foreigners as if they don’t know to tip – she did a huffy number on us when she thought she was only keeping $5 change out of the $100 I gave her – hope she felt bad when she discovered the other $10 I left on the table…. $95 for dinner. Open 7 days.
Florida – Palm Beach area
Eleven Maple Street, Jensen Beach. Phone 561/ 334-7714
Outside the door on a Thursday evening is market and neighbourhood street-party, but inside it’s an oasis of calm with a comfortable yet up-market atmosphere. This was probably my second favourite place in food terms. The cuisine here is definitely “fusion” with a Pacific Rim flavour. My Oak-grilled Grouper was served on sticky rice and Thai Crab-cakes, with a Thai green curry sauce. It was garnished with delicious wild mushrooms, smoky bean-sprouts and stir-fried vegetables. This was a sensational dish – not nearly as weird as it sounds! The oak-burning grill in the kitchen imparts a wonderfully smoky flavour. Dessert was equally good – a light pineapple and macadamia nut cheesecake, served with a berry coulis and some sweet, black, mission-figs – scrumptious stuff. Wine list is also quite interesting with some unusual choices from small US producers. We had a Pinot and Viognier by the glass, both good. Eleven Maple could be an expensive choice with main courses starting at $25 and everything a la carte, but it is very good.$160 for dinner.