finedining

As a Tampa resident for over twenty years, I've had the gastronomical pleasure of experiencing these fine dining establishments. Trade those beach shorts for something more cosmopolitan, and come hungry.

Here's my rating scale: $$ - Comparatively Inexpensive. $$$ - More Expensive. $$$$ - Very Expensive. Upscale = dress nice. Chic = dress to kill.

Charley's Steakhouse
(813) 353-9706
4444 West Cypress Street, Tampa, 33607.
Upscale $$$$. Charley's has graced Tampa since 1974 with a quiet, sophisticated ambiance. The service is as upscale as the clothes. Everyone should be waited on like this at least once in their lives. Cozy and elegant, chandelier-decked setting. The specialties are mouth-watering cuts of steak and Surf & Turf.
Rated number 5 out of the Top 10 Steak Restaurants in the U.S. at Prime Top 10, a list of America's Finest USDA Prime Steakhouses & Restaurants.
Reservations not usually needed.

Mitchell's Fish Market
(813) 289-3663
204 Westshore Plaza, Tampa, 33609.
Upscale $$$. Mitchell's is reminiscent of the classy mid-nineteenth and twentieth century 'men only' dining clubs. But women are allowed, of course. All varnished wood and frosted glass with some miniature ships on display. Mitchell's hasn't been in Tampa that long (several years), but it's made a name for itself. The broiled tilapia is succulent, for one. The seafood-many varieties obtained from one coast to the other-is always fresh, never frozen. A relaxed, classy ambiance. Reservations not needed.

The models may be dieting during New York Fashion Week but not everyone else is and Armani Ristorante has rolled out a new bar menu to entice those looking for a quick delicious nibble. Prices range from $8 (which gets you some house made ice cream or sorbet) to $28 for Misto alla Griglia-- grilled lamb chop, beef filet, veal filet, Cornish hen and selected vegetables in extra virgin olive oil. More adventurous palates might opt for Polpettine di Cinghiale alla Cacciatora-- wild boar "meatballs" , vegetable-mushroom sauce served with baby arugula and radicchio ($22) but there is also a vegetarian lasanga for those of a less carnivorous nature.

The restaurant continues to offer an international selection of fine wines by the bottle and by the glass, as well as an innovative array of cocktails including Il Diavolo made with tequila reposado, cassis, splash of lemon juice and topped with ginger ale as well as the Armani Martini, a blend of fresh orange juice, white rum, triple sec served with an orange slice. Armani / Ristorante 5th Avenue is open for lunch and dinner daily until 11 p.m. Monday - Saturday and until 5 p.m. on Sunday.

True foodies think nothing of spending exorbitant sums on their passion. Fine wines, and four star meals, often in foreign countries, are their version of luxury. The names they drop are not Prada or Manolo but Keller and Ripert. Twenty-five years ago Ariane Daguin from France and her partner George Faisan started D'Artagnan. It was really the first company to focus on providing consumers in the United States with food products from Ariane's native region of France, Gascony. It has become the premier supplier of specialty food products from the foie gras to truffles to high end American restaurants and gourmet shops.

This February the company celebrates its 25th anniversary with a week long celebration in New York starting on February 17, 2010. The highlight of the festivities is a "32 Star Progressive Dinner" on Saturday February 21rst. The special event features celebrated chefs from the Gascon region of France in various four star kitchens around Manhattan. The evening kicks off with cocktails at 5pm after which the participants will board the "Armagnac-fueled" bus to experience each course at a different 4 star restaurant.

Participating chefs include:

• Daniel Boulud with Jean-Marie Gautier, M.O.F. of Hotel du Palais, Biarritz
• Jean-Georges Vongeritchen with Michel Trama of Aubergade, Puymirol
• Daniel Humm with Jacques & Laurent Pourcel of Le Jardin des Sens, Montpellier
• Thomas Keller with Hélène Darroze of Restaurant Hélène Darroze, Paris
• Eric Ripert with Thierry Marx of Cordeillan-Bages, Pauillac and Philippe Urraca, M.O.F.

The above list is just for the main course! There are others chefs cooking their native cuisine for the other courses. Wines from top producers including Chateau Lynch Bages will be featured and Trou Gascon Armagnac will be served on the bus between courses.

The finale occurs at Le Bernadin where all the chefs will celebrate after dessert. Seating is limited and costs $600 per person for the evening.

Eric Ripert, the chef/owner of the New York restaurant Le Bernardin, along with his wine director Aldo Sohm, has introduced the Avec Eric Perfect Pairings wine club.

Ripert is the host of a new show for PBS, Avec Eric, in which he explores his own vision of why we cook and where he finds his inspiration. Sohm, who oversees Le Bernardin's wine collection of over 15,000 bottles, recently received the 2009 James Beard Award for "Outstanding Wine Service" and was named "Best Sommelier in the World" in 2008 by the Worldwide Sommelier Association. Sohm is the first representative from America to win this title. Le Bernardin holds three stars from the Michelin Guide ,and has maintained its four-star rating from The New York Times for over 20 years.

In an interesting twist, the wines were picked with specific recipes from the chef in mind. Each month, Ripert and Sohm choose two bottles of wine for their members with the intention of pairing them with recipes inspired by his new series. The members will receive the recipes, as well as the wines, in addition to detailed tasting notes written by Sohm. Members also gain access to monthly online videos of the duo explaining each pairing. The wines are a mixed selection of reds, whites and sparkling chosen to complement the proposed dishes.

Ripert feels strongly that great food does not need to be complicated or intimidating for the home chef. Each show starts out with a trip to a vineyard, farm or four-star kitchen but finishes with the chef in his home kitchen demonstrating recipes for the home cook and enjoying the perfect glass of wine to accompany his meal. A Votre Sante!

Foie gras (pronounced ˈfwä-ˈgrä, French for "fat liver") is a food product made of the liver of a duck or goose that has been specially fattened, typically through gavage (force-feeding) corn. It is a delicacy in French cuisine. Foie gras' flavor is described as rich, buttery, and delicate, unlike that of a regular duck or goose liver. Foie gras is sold whole, or is prepared into mousse, parfait, or pâté, and often is served as an accompaniment to another food item, such as steak.

France is the largest producer and consumer of foie gras, though it is produced and consumed worldwide, particularly in other European nations, the United States, and China. Gavage-based foie gras production is controversial and considered by some to be cruel. A number of countries and other jurisdictions have laws against force feeding or the sale of foie gras.

Culinary Concepts by Jean-Georges, the global restaurant company by the renowned chef and his business partner Phil Suarez, has announced their first restaurant in Hawaii. The Kaua'i Grill will open at The St. Regis Resort Princeville at the start of November. The grill is the resort's signature restaurant and has stunning views of Hanalei Bay through panoramic floor-to-ceiling windows. Chef Vongerichten and his team have created a menu that will utilize the freshest fish and ingredients indigenous to the islands while adapting recipes and culinary techniques to showcase the chef's unique approach.

The interior will be done in shades of cocoa, ruby, and bronze with zebra wood. The spiraling lit fabric ceiling evokes the shape of a nautilus shell. Cascading from the center of the ceiling is a hand-crafted fiber optic and ruby glass hibiscus chandelier. The restaurant will be open for dinner nightly from 6 to 10 p.m. for resort guests as well as the public.

Today, Michelin released The Michelin Guide 2010 New York City Restaurants, with five establishments receiving three stars, its highest rating. The top rated restaurants include Daniel, Jean Georges (above), Le Bernardin, Masa and Per Se.

There were six restaurants earning two stars and 44 restaurants that earned one star. Three stars represents "exception cuisine, worth a special journey" while two stars is for "excellent cuisine, worth a detour". One star, which is still an excellent rating, is defined as "a very good restaurant in its category".

To rate restaurants and hotels around the world, Michelin employs a rigorous selection process that is applied independently and consistently. Indeed, in each of the 23 countries where it inspects restaurants and hotels, the selections are made by anonymous, professional inspectors who are Michelin employees. The inspectors pay all their bills in full.

While the Michelin Guide is known around the world for its famous stars, these restaurant account for just 10% of the selection in the New York City guide. The guide also includes a wide diversity of establishments, and includes small restaurants that offer a high-quality dining experience at an affordable price.

One useful section features "Inspectors' Favorites for Good Value", including a total of 85 affordable restaurants that offer two dishes, and a glass of wine or dessert for $40 or less. There is also a list of 109 restaurants selected by its experts that offer a meal under $25.

"The Michelin Guide has long been respected and the stars are what people love to talk about in the culinary world," says Jean-Luc Naret, director of the Michelin Guides. "But the Guide is so much more. It's filled with a year's worth of notes from the team of inspectors who set out to ensure the Michelin Guide provides an excellent mix of what readers truly want--a wonderful dining recommendation from trusted experts."

The Michelin Guide New York City 2010 is the fifth edition since Michelin began reviewing restaurants in New York. Its cover price is $17.95.

The lack of interest in fine dining has doomed the fancy fare in Tucson. The Arizona Daily Star reports that Tucson's only five-diamond restaurant, the upscale Ventana Room at Loews Ventana Canyon Resort, has closed. The restaurant had closed for the summer as it usually does but now won't reopen. The resort's public relations director said that people prefer the gourmet comfort food to dress-up dining. The elegant restaurant was on the top floor of the hotel. Earlier this year prices were reduced and the requirement that gentlemen wear coats was dropped but it was not enough to stop diners from migrating to the more casual dining experiences available at the resort.

The Ventana Room served entrees including seared New England diver scallops with salsify and artichoke barigoule, Alaskan black cod with caramelized green apple, parsnip puree and currant balsamic reduction and Australian Wagyu beef tenderloin with Tohono O'odham white tepary beans and pomegranate port reduction. The Ventana room space will be converted to high-end meeting and banquet space for parties and special events. There is now only one five-diamond restaurant open in Arizona, Kai, at the Wild Horse Pass in Chandler, Arizona.

Lovers of food and wine hardly need a reason to head to Yountville, California to eat at Thomas Keller's Bouchon but I'm going to give you a couple anyway, starting with the new Provence tasting menu. The Provence regional tasting menu will be available as a three-course prix-fixe option (accented by amuse-bouches and mignardise courses) beginning August 4th through August 9th. The menu showcases traditional flavors and dishes including Filet de Rouget en Escabèche which is a chilled rouget accompanied with garden radishes, artichokes, navel orange, pickled garlic, piquillo peppers and parsley; a traditional Bouillabaisse with monkfish, shrimp, crab and mussels; and peach clafoutis with lavender honey, and house made toasted almond ice cream. The prix-fixe menu is $60 per person

Bouchon is also showcasing local wineries through the Vin de Carafe wine offerings which feature unique selections specially crafted for Bouchon one single barrel at a time by Napa Valley winemakers.Each new installment will feature a different vintner, including both a red and white offering. Vin de Carafe is available by the glass or en carafe for the table to enjoy and will be an ongoing addition to the restaurant's customary wine list. The first selections include the 2007 Napa Valley Chardonnay from Jason Kesner and the 2007 Coombsville Cabernet from Andy Erickson and Annie Favia. Vin de Carafe selections are available by the glass for $8 or en carafe with prices ranging from $25-$50. For more information or to make a reservation, call 707-944-8037.

Care for a little alfresco dining? A pair of New Hampshire and Maine farms along with four award-winning chefs combine for one fabulous evening that includes a four-course meal and event held in the fields of Weston's Farm on the Saco River. August 29th is the date for the Second Annual "Fields on the Saco", an event that offers up the best of the season's harvest in a lavish feast for 100 under tents set up in the field. The menu will be accompanied by paired wines and Maine Cold River Vodka and will be presented by Chef Bryant Alden of the Chef's Market in North Conway, Executive Chef Brad Southwick of the White Mountain Hotel and Resort, Chef Jonathan Spak, co-owner of the Oxford House Inn, and Chef Jim Harrison of the Flatbread Company.

Hors d'oeuvres will include sweet corn fritters and scallops wrapped in pancetta with an Amaretto reduction. The meal begins with an appetizer of roulade of pork gratin with braised baby beets and butternut-apple coulis. The salad is baby spinach with grilled peaches and goat cheese with a maple pecan apple cider vinaigrette. The entree will be a mixed grill of tournedos of beef, lamb sausage, and chicken kebob with summer vegetables on a potato nest. The meal finished up with a blueberry polenta pound cake with honey and chevre semifreddo.

The event actually begins at 1 p.m. in the afternoon and includes far more than the dinner. There are guided farm tours, farm stores showcasing foods, flowers and local products. Cold River Vodka and complimentary wines will be offered with live music provided by Jazz Meisters and a "wet art" auction (wet art refers to paintings created on site). Winners of the Art-A-Ron-Dack Chair judging will be auctioned, offering bidders the chance to take home a unique chair and artwork combined. A Border Collie exhibition at Nerefield Farm on East Conway Road and a bonfire will round out the schedule. Each person attending the dinner will take home a beautiful Lead Wine Glass by Cristal d'Arques of France and a gift bag. Tickets are $125 each and the event will be limited to 100 people. Info on ordering tickets can be found on the Mount Washington Valley website.

One of Boston's more elegant dining institutions has become as victim of the economic slump. Aujourd'hui, the fine dining restaurant at the Four Seasons Hotel Boston will close at the end of June, leaving the more casual Bristol Lounge as the hotel's main dining option. The beautiful, if slightly staid, Aujourd'hui space will be reconfigured for use as a private function venue. The Boston Herald quotes Four Seasons Hotel Boston public relations director Kristan Fletcher as saying that Aujourd'hui's formal (and expensive) style doesn't fit with the way people are dining today.

The restaurant overlooking Boston Garden opened in 1985. It served refined French cuisine and offered tasting menus and elaborate desserts as well as putting on a spectacular Sunday brunch that included a raw bar.

UPDATE: As Aqualung pointed out in the comments, another fine restaurant in Boston, Great Bay in the Hotel Commonwealth is also closing.

What does the chef at the world's best restaurant do for an encore? How about opening a pizza joint? The LA Times reports that El Bulli chef, Ferran Adria has been in Italy studying pizza making. it's quite a change in direction for a man famous for his devotion to molecular gastronomy. But Adira has promised that his planned pizza restaurant in Barcelona, Spain will be a straightforward affair, no foams, no liquid nitrogen or strange balls of flavor, just your basic pizza pie.

Some Italian chefs are skeptical about the pizza skills of Ferran Adria and his pastry chef brother Alberto feeling that pizzamaking is more of a calling than something you can just quickly pick up. But for the Adrias the new planned venture offers a chance to cook for far more people than the small amount who eat at El Bulli each year. Let's just hope we don't see Adria frozen pizzas in the market in a few years right next to the Wolfgang Puck boxes.

Once again the molecular gastronomy stylings of chef Ferran Adria have pushed Spanish restaurant El Bulli to the top of another world's best restaurants list. El Bulli won the top slot in the San Pellegrino World's 50 Best Restaurants 2009. The list is the result of a poll of more than 800 chefs, critics managers and others done for Restaurant Magazine.

According to the AFP, Adria is quoted as saying it was an important night for Spain (in addition to El Bulli, two other Spanish restaurants, Mugaritz and El Celler de Can Roca were in the top five). He dedicated his award to Heston Blumenthal, whose restaurant, The Fat Duck was in the second position. Adria praised Blumenthal for his honesty. Blumenthal closed his restaurant briefly over a potential food poisoning scare earlier this year. Restaurants in the top ten from the U.S. were Thomas Keller's Per Se and Grant Achtaz's Alinea in the US.

Off the list this year was Gordon Ramsay's flagship London restaurant. Bloomberg reports that it was in 13th place last year but didn't even crack the top 100 for 2009. He did squeak onto the list in slot 91 with his restaurant Maze.

At the start of March, one of New York City's priciest restaurant's Masa dropped its menu price. It's a good time to eat in New York City for less because, as the Wall Street Journal reports, another of the city's premier dining destinations, Thomas Keller's New York restaurant, Per Se is introducing an à la carte menu. Since the restaurant opened, Per Se has only offered two multi-course dinner tasting menus at $275 a pop.

The à la carte menu which is served only in the restaurant's lounge, lets customers sample a few of the famed chef's dishes. You don't even have to make a reservation months in advance, you can simply walk in. The menu changes nightly and includes items that are part of the tasting menu served in the dining room. Of course you'll still be spending quite a bit, wine and cocktails start in the $15 to $20 range and most dishes are around $30 to $40.

Jean-Georges Vongericthen has become the latest high-profile chef to take restaurants to the Middle East. Culinary Concepts by Jean-Georges has announced the opening of Spice Market and Market by Jean-Georges at the new W Hotel Doha. The restaurants are part of a partnership with Starwood Hotels & Resorts and represent the chef's first foray into the Middle East. "Doha is a region full of exotic spices and rich delicacies and I'm eager to infuse some of the signature dishes found at Spice Market and Market with the indigenous flavors of the region and a wealth of new ingredients," said Vongerichten. He also blogged about the experience last week.

Vongerichten is famous for eschewing the use of meat stocks and using vegetable juices and fruit essences for a light and fresh flavor. His most recent cookbook focuses on his love of Asian flavors. The decor for Spice Market at W Hotel Doha includes handcrafted screens and a series of clustered bespoke lanterns. Jean-Georges Vongericthen will be in good celebrity chef company, Nobu is also opening up a restaurant in Doha at the Four Seasons next year.