Category Archives: Fine Dining

Harlow Grove

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Harlow Grove is a great addition to the Winter Garden dining scene. It’s just a couple blocks south of Plant Street, where most of the other restaurants are, but it has a completely different vibe. The building is absolutely gorgeous. I felt like I was in a trendy new restaurant in Chicago. It’s visually stunning inside, and the acoustic design is pretty good. There’s a nice variety of seating from bar to table to booth. We loved our corner table in the nook.

The menu is really well thought out. It offers a nice variety of appetizers, salads, and main dishes along with some handhelds. Everything was very appealing, so it was difficult to decide where to start. We settled upon sharing a Caesar salad and the bread service. The Caesar was excellent. The crunch of toasted parmesan on the top was particularly appealing. The bread service was a pull-apart loaf served with two different butters. It was also very good. It might be the only thing on the menu that I thought was maybe overpriced for what it was, but everything else on the menu is extremely reasonably priced.

For our second course, we shared the bisque, a thick truffle-infused potage, and the shrimp cocktail: a conventional assortment of large fresh prawns served with cocktail sauce and horseradish. We enjoyed both of these.

For entrees, my wife had the PEI mussels and I had the filet mignon. She enjoyed her muscles, although they weren’t to my taste, but the filet mignon was wonderful. Perfectly seared and served with truffle mashed potatoes that were like the big brother of the bisque we had earlier.

Service provided by Renato was fabulous. He was not just a server but a delightful host whose recommendations were greatly appreciated.

This restaurant has a sizable cocktail list and a compact but extremely well-thought-out wine list. I can’t think of another wine list that has a higher hit ratio in terms of wines that I would personally choose to put on a wine list, and yet the overall wine pricing is extremely fair.

I also sampled two cocktails which were both standouts. The Fancy Martini is a spectacularly complex vodka-based martini with a terrific balance of pepper and saline flavors. And the caviar-stuffed olives that came with it were a nice bonus.

After dinner, I had the espresso martini, which is also very good and unusual in its incorporation of pistachio. Definitely worth trying.

We love this new addition to Winter Garden. It’s distinct from all the other restaurants in Winter Garden and has already obviously found a tremendous fan base because it was busy every moment that we were there on a Wednesday evening.

https://www.yelp.com/biz/harlow-grove-winter-garden

Vespertine

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At the upper end of fine dining restaurants are places that transcend simply serving astonishing food and create an entire environment for enjoying it. Vespertine is one of those places.

From the moment you lay eyes on the dramatic, custom-designed building, you know you’re in for something special. Here, the journey is part of the story, beginning with a tour of the kitchen on the third floor, descending to the dining room on the second, and finally ending your visit in a dessert lounge at ground level.

It’s easy to defend Vespertine as the finest restaurant in Los Angeles. For me, it is among the top in the country, ranking up there with Single Thread in Healdsburg and the original version of Eleven Madison in New York City. It exists at that ideal Michelin two-star level where chefs are not afraid to take risks, and the service has not yet become a regimented, stiff, and formal process that renders a place soulless. On the contrary, the service at Vespertine is embracing, informative, and fun.

And the food! Of course that’s what it’s all about, and Vespertine does not disappoint. The emphasis here is on hidden layers, often found at the bottoms of exotically assembled bowls. It’s hard to total the number of courses because several of them are served in stages or comprised of multiple components. But nearly everything was a home run. The strengths relate to the incorporations of vegetables, fruits, exotic herbs, and especially flowers. There’s nothing wrong with the proteins either. A spring lamb is glorious. The quail also superb. The kinmedai perhaps the only miss.

But for me, the meal revolves around the obsidian mirror. The dish defies description, both visually and on the palate. Its iridescent texture is unlike anything I’ve ever consumed, and although the entire dish is probably comprised of less than one tablespoon, it should be appreciated in a dozen or more tiny little bites where every element of flavor and texture can be savored. I simply can’t explain it any further. You must experience it.

Often I find wine pairings to be comprised of sommelier favorites that are high acid, obscure, and not necessarily wines that could be enjoyed on their own, even if they do happen to match the food they are served with. None of these are problems at Vespertine. The Vinifera pairing consists of mostly old-world wines of high pedigree that superbly match their courses and are each notable wines standing on their own. The more expensive Optivus pairing swapped out three wines for bigger names. While all three replacements were fine wines, I’m not sure whether the additional cost is justified as the Vinifera pairing was quite stellar on its own.

At $295 pp plus wine pairing Vespertine is not inexpensive, but for the quality of the food, the experience, and the wine, I think the price is well justified and compares well with the other great dining experiences in the country and the world. It’s certainly in my top five, worldwide.

https://www.yelp.com/biz/vespertine-culver-city

Omo by Jont

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How fortunate we are to have this level of restaurant in Orlando now! There was a time when you had to go to New York, Chicago, LA, or, yes, Washington DC, where Omo’s two-star Michelin parent is located, in order to have this type of dining experience. Now we have a wealth of fabulous omakase experiences in Orlando. But Omo isn’t like the other omakases, because it isn’t about sushi and sashimi, like Sorekara or Soseki. It’s closer in concept to Camille, but with the added experience of moving from space to space as you dine.

You begin in the lounge for a series of “snacks” featuring foie gras, wagyu, and caviar. Then you progress to dinner at an L-shaped counter that seats 16.

Each course was a thoughtful and complex construction, meticulously assembled in front of us, and accompanied by a dazzling assortment of dishes, cutlery and yes, one set of chopsticks.

Finally a flurry of sweet bites are served in the dessert room.

The menu offers two levels of dining. We opted for the more elaborate version, The Jaunt. It’s twenty or so courses included many pricey ingredients such as truffles, wagyu, and caviar. At about twice the price, it was an indulgence, but I don’t know that the experience was otherwise significantly different for those who opted for the simpler menu.

There were many stunning dishes, but the one that sticks in my memory was actually an intermezzo of peeled heirloom cherry tomatoes, wasabi, and verbena, served with basil sorbet!

Service was as you would expect from the offspring of a two-star Michelin.

Wine pairings are available, but we opted for a couple of bottles from the excellent wine list.

There is a lot of competition in Orlando now, but I would say that as of this writing Omo is the city’s most spectacular restaurant.

https://www.yelp.com/biz/omo-by-jont-winter-park-9

Norman’s

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I wasn’t expecting to be wowed by Norman’s based on previous restaurants, so we put off visiting for more than a year, but absolutely loved our experience here. The interior is beautiful, and just what I am looking for in a fine dining experience: classy, not noisy, and not brightly lit.

The food really stood out for us, too. The dishes seemed more cohesive than those we’ve had in his past restaurants, with a perfect melding of complex flavors. We opted for six small plates so we could sample many things. Standouts were:

House salad: this was startlingly good! Mixed greens with a light but complex vinaigrette, pepitas, dried fruits, and some crumbled blue cheese. Rarely has a simple salad been so memorable.

Shrimp Ceviche: not really a ceviche, but more of a cooked, creamy combination with some tomato in the sauce and a dollop of avocado crema.

Octopus: absolutely tender and flavorful, so hard to find prepared this well.

French Toast Foie Gras: I had read about this dish, and it did not disappoint! The perfect combination of sweet brioche and lightly seared foie.

Pumpkin Cheesecake: I would call this a pumpkin s’more caramel taco!

Service was impeccable–professional, friendly, and attentive.

I wasn’t a fan of the Norman’s at the Ritz Carlton (mostly due to the coffee shop atmosphere) or his Mount Dora effort (LOUD!) but this one absolutely nails it, with a classy, romantic interior, great acoustics, and subdued lighting. Highly recommended.

https://www.yelp.com/biz/normans-orlando-7