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Golden Spoon Winners
Bern's Steak House, Tampa
Brooks Restaurant, Deerfield Beach
Cafe L'Europe, Palm Beach
Chalet Suzanne, Lake Wales
Chef Allen's, North Miami Beach
Criolla's, Grayton Beach
Crystal Cafe, Miami Beach
Darrel & Oliver's Cafe Maxx, Pompano Beach
Darrel & Oliver's East City Grill, Fort Lauderdale
Enzo's on the Lake, Longwood
Euphemia Haye, Longboat Key
Manuel's on the 28th, Orlando
Mark's Las Olas, Fort Lauderdale
McGuire's Irish Pub, Pensacola
Michael's on East, Sarasota
Mise en Place, Tampa
Norman's, Coral Gables
Sterlings of Avondale, Jacksonville
32 East, Delray Beach
Victoria & Albert's, Walt Disney World
LUXURY RESORT RESTAURANTS
Biltmore Hotel, Coral Gables
Renaissance Vinoy Resort, St. Petersburg
Ritz-Carlton, Naples
Manalapan's Four Seasons, Palm Beach
The Peabody, Orlando
In this 33rd year of Florida Trend presenting the state's best restaurants with Golden Spoons, the nation's most prestigious regional restaurant award, we've made some changes. Not only are there six first-time winners -- one of them a super sister restaurant of a repeater from past years -- but this year we've added a new category that salutes the state's best superluxe resort restaurants.
The compilation of Florida's Top 200 Restaurants and Top 20 Newcomers will continue to include hotel restaurants and to single out the best of the best in the remarkable Disney complex of culinary excellence and excitement. But major resorts with assets and cash flows unimaginable to a li'l old restaurateur will now have their own Golden Spoon category.
Thus, the Biltmore Hotel's La Palme d'Or, with its remarkable French corps de chefs and Tour des Toques program importing a French chef of the month for a week of dazzling display, wins a Spoon as one of the group of five. The Renaissance Vinoy is another winner, recognized for the talents of executive chef Tom Chin -- there since the beautifully restored landmark reopened in 1992 -- working his magic in Marchand's, the Terrace Room, Fred's and a striking array of special themed dinners tied into exhibits at the nearby Florida International Museum.
The Ritz-Carlton in Naples cannot match that kind of stimulation, but does have a wonderful wine cellar and a staff that excels from back room to front in both its restaurant and grill. The same judgment applies to The Restaurant at Manalapan's Four Seasons, where super executive chef Hubert des Marais holds forth, providing elegant fare in both formal and oceanfront informal settings, overseeing a wide variety of special dinners and activities. The Peabody, located across from the Orlando Convention Center, certainly does not lack for activities; it offers the ultimate escape to civilization at its Dux top-of-the-line restaurant, and the famous resident ducks can now be fed with a Golden Spoon. Close by are the popular Italian Capriccio and the classic B-Line Diner.
The talented twosome responsible for Cafe Maxx and the East City Grill, Darrel Broek and Oliver Saucy, can each eat with a Golden Spoon. For the first time in the history of the awards, two spoons go to the same ownership team. They also have a pair of newcomers vying for top honors: East City Bistros in both Delray Beach and Vero Beach.
Other Spoonies have spinoffs and clones as well, and maybe next year they too will be holding a pair of Spoons -- Michael Klauber with his Michael's on East and Michael's Seafood Grill, to which the Klauber clan has added a newcomer, the State Room, slated to open this month. Then there's Brooks with its Benvenuto spinoff in Boynton Beach, Mark Militello of Mark's Las Olas with his never-stop approach to the business of branching out, McGuire's in Pensacola with its branch of the same name in Destin and the Beach Bistro with its exciting Bistro at Island's End. Even the seemingly inexhaustible and incredible Norman Van Aken keeps adding to his string of sensational successes and serving as culinary consultant to hot hotel properties in SoBe.
First-time Golden Spoon winner Enzo Perlini had expansion on his mind a few years ago when he spun off a short-lived experiment in town, but then was wise enough to retreat to his 1930s lakeside home, Enzo's on the Lake, where he continues to charm his loyal legion of supporters with a marvelous menu that's "tutto Italiano," from antipasti and a parade of peerless pastas to zuppa di pesce.
At another first-timer, Sterlings of Avondale, there's enough authentic excitement in the 12-year-old oasis to keep First Coast fans returning again and again to share in the professional pride of owner Frank Gallo and the wizardry of his chef, Victor Jones. Together they work the kind of dining-out excellence also found at another debut Spoonie, 32 East in Delray Beach. A quartet of owners -- Steve Silver, Barbara Straub, Mike Bilton and Gwen Gove -- is responsible for this 3-year-old success where very talented chef Nick Morfogen runs the kitchen, changing his menu nightly and reinterpreting contemporary American cuisine with great gusto and conscience, confident there's a perfect wine complement in the intelligently, knowingly selected cellar.
