Fine Dining
Fine dining restaurants, also referred to as white tablecloth restaurants, are typically higher end and fancier restaurants.
A fine dining restaurant has a formal atmosphere, and a full menu. Some of them also offers tasting menu or Chef’s table experience.
Fine dining restaurants offer international wine lists, and sometimes sommeliers, to help you with your food and wine pairing. They also have dress codes in most cases.
Pricci
Amazing culinary experience in a classy ambience, service and décor.
- Bar, Wine, & Beverages: A
- Quality of Service: A
- Food and Menu: A
Most Chefs have three main characteristics in common: creativity, dedication, knowledge. Great Chefs add humbleness, passion, consistency, respect for their craft and others. Amazing Chefs continue innovating, learning, and mentoring new professionals.
Chef Piero Premoli is one of them. His seasonal menu, is a literally, a trip to Italy
I visited his restaurant to celebrate a birthday, a table for four that was easy to reserve online.
Bar, wine, and beverages ‘A’
Hand picked wine list, mostly from Italy, innovative house cocktails, and beer selection can complement any of your menu choices. Monte Zovo-Sauvignon Verora- Vintage 2019, a young wine jewelry with a crispy and refreshing body and aroma but strong enough to be the perfect companion for our meal.
Quality of Service ‘A’
From white tablecloth to well pressed uniforms, this restaurant gives you the refined ambience for a perfect elegance experience. Dining staff is well trained to present and explain every item in the menu. If you ask the Chef a wine suggestion, he probably will come to your table to suggest the best pairing.
Food and Menu ‘A’
We started with a refreshing summer cold peas zuppa (soup), a recipe that you must master to ensure the perfect combination of the peas’ sweetness and a savory kick.
Ravioli di Brasato and Polpo (Octopus) were our appetizers. The Ravioli, there is nothing like fresh pasta,it dissolves in your mouth revealing the tenderness of the beef shortbeef, every bite comes with a full display of flavors. In addition, sauteed scallops, peas, mushrooms, and cherry tomatoes, a combination that will awake all your culinary senses. Octopus, well grilled tentacles with a splash of fava beans’ pure and a homemade red onion pickle…’una meraviglia’!
Main course, Chilean fresh sea bass, with a golden crispy seal. This delicate fish was platted over lightly sauteed cherry tomatoes, capers, and olives. A cilantro garlic sauce was displayed as a temptation to embrace every bite.
To conclude, a selection of delightfull homemade desserts and sorbet.
If you are looking for a place where food, elegance, traditional service, mixes with passionate and talented teamwork , Pricci is the place. Without doubt a potentially well deserved Michelin Star Restaurant.
Aria
When a tasting menu sticks with the words
- Bar, Wine, & Beverages: A
- Quality of Service: C
- Food and Menu: B
An Atlanta celebrity Chef-owner, great ambiance, decor, and location, Aria restaurant has been in business for over 21 years.
We were very intrigued by the mixed reviews on several web platforms. We decided to make a reservation for their tasting menu. We arrive right on time for our reservation, and we were seated right away.
Bar, wine, and beverages: A
With a primarily European-inspired wine list and a promising cocktail list, we started with a couple of cocktails and the wine pairing with our tasting menu.
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Cocktails were flavorful and straight, with no garnish or ‘look signature.’ The selection for the wine tasting paired quite well with each dish.
Quality of Service: C
We got a good start with our server. Unfortunately, as the restaurant started to get busy, our service changed from attentive to rushed and non synchronize with our tasting menu and wine experience.
Menu courses were delivered to our table by different servers without any explanation. We had to ask a couple of times to please remove the prior empty dishes and change our silverware before the next course.
No matter which type of tasting menu experience is offered, it always requires kitchen-dining room coordination and flawless service, especially when a wine pairing is added to the equation.
In restaurants with this pedigree, their restaurant/dining room Manager should be on the floor, ensuring excellent service and a phenomenal customer experience.
Food and Menu: B
There is a fine line between a tasting menu vs. a taste from the menu. Some Chefs offer a taste of their most famous or solicited dishes served in small portions.
There is not a set limit on how many courses the menu should have. The experience, flavors, and presentation of each Chef’s creation should be paramount.
Other Chefs offer a creative, innovative, sophisticated, and contemporary tasting menu separate from their regular menu or only tasting menu experience.
A tasting menu should not only be prepared with the finest and exclusive ingredients but should also use advanced cooking techniques and outstanding plating presentations.
Aria offers a TRULLY tasting of their regular menu, seven dishes presented in small portions. Good cooking technique, great ingredients, with bland flavors and no platting inspiration. It offered nothing memorable or outstanding in the flavors or plating presentation. In other words, there was no a ‘WOW’ factor at
Café L’Europe
As stated on their website, Café L’Europe, with 40 plus years, has become a dining landmark in Palm Beach, Florida.
- Bar, Wine, & Beverages: A
- Quality of Service: B
- Food and Menu: C
The new decoration, style, layout, and bar area have a distinguished but contemporary look. Outdoor tables provide the European look of the restaurant.
This fine dining establishment was the perfect selection for our culinary first night in Palm Beach, with an impressive menu.
Bar, Wine, and Beverages: A
A Crafted cocktail list was presented, along with some well-received suggestions. The Polo cocktail, high goal gin, coconut, pineapple, and curacao, were a hit, and the Gardener cocktail was another great refreshing suggestion.
Their wine selection was impressive, with vineyards mainly from Europe and the rest of the World. We were able to select from young Tempranillos to well-preserved vintages.
Quality of Service: B
The restaurant caters to local and seasonal clientele. Naturally, personnel knows their regulars clients by name. We were not regulars, but Maître D’ welcomed us after he checked our reservation.
After he suggested cocktails, food, and wine, the services went from excellent to inconsistent and delayed. We didn’t have an assigned server to our area, and therefore it was pretty challenging to communicate our table needs.
Kindly, the Maître D’ had to check several times on our food and beverages. However, this is not a one-person operation nor a good representation of this restaurant’s reputation.
Food and Menu: C
The menu did look good on paper. Unfortunately, it was a disappointment in all counts. The roasted Halibut was overcooked and dry; the ‘sauté’ spinach had no flavor; six nibbles potatoes cooked without any season or sauté right after or garnish. The sauce was cold and salty. The veal chop was also overcooked and tough. The mashed potatoes did not have any highlight flavor nor the whole dish any garnish or special plating, and the only memorable taste was the morel mushroom sauce. Desserts were very standard without too much effort on plating techniques.
Overall, since this is a fine-dining establishment, there is an expectation of high-quality ingredients, cooking, and plating techniques. On the other hand, from a price point of a well-described menu, the assumption is to have a fantastic culinary experience and not just comfort food. The reality, the food doesn’t match or honor Café L’Europe’s legacy and reputation.
Nan Thai Fine Dining
This family-owned restaurant has become an icon for Thai food lovers.
- Bar, Wine, & Beverages: A
- Quality of Service: B
- Food and Menu: C
With a very interesting dining room layout and a beautiful décor, Nan Thai fine dining offers a traditional menu along with an impressive crafted cocktail list along with a well-selected wine list.
Tables were fully dressed and set that, along with the ambiance, promised a great culinary experience.
Bar, Wine, and Beverages: A
There is nothing more appealing in a restaurant than a traditional hard copy menu, and Nan displays one with such an attractive design and presentation.
Our selection was great; every cocktail has a good combination of alcoholic strength, sweetness, sourness, bitterness, saltiness, temperature, and texture.
Our favorites; King’s Hour Glass (Toki whisky, ginger, yuzu, demerara), Ginger Blossom (ginger-infused vodka, lime, ginger beer), and Port of Siam (Toki whisky, croft tawny port, cynar, luxardo, lemon).
An extensive selection of wines is listed on the menu. Cabernet Sauvignon, Pinot Noir, Malbec, Merlot, Syrah, Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, Pinot Grigio, and Riesling.
Quality of Service: B
Although our server was just fantastic, the problem is more profound than that. Managers cannot expect servers to deliver a fine dining experience when they have been assigned to more than four tables or more than 15 people simultaneously. Anything else is just bad business practices and intentionally creating a bad reputation.
If staff quantity is an issue, then close a section. On busy nights like Fridays or Saturdays, the manager must be on the floor assisting servers or checking on the customer experience.
Food and Menu: C
Our selection:
Nan’s Tasting Tree: Grilled chicken breast bamboo skewers, red curry peanut sauce, cucumber salad; Stuffed fried shrimp with pineapple chili sauce; Crispy calamari, roasted chili sauce, shrimp & chicken Thai dumplings, scallion, and Thai chili crispy garlic sauce.
The appetizers were well done. The calamari perhaps needs more attention on the cooking technique and/or supplier.
Plasahmrod: Pan-fried Chilean sea bass filet, three flavor chili sauce, eggplant, crispy Brussel sprouts, jasmine.
MKP $42, SeaBass was just okay on flavor and cooking technique. Deep-fried brussels sprouts had, literally, no taste, and there was no eggplant on the dish.
Chef’s Special: Deep-fried lobster and filet mignon on a green curry
MKP as $78, there was no correlation between price point and the product presented on the table. The filet mignon was overcooked, and the reason was that it was only half an inch thick. The lobster was simply deep-fried with no seasoning. Green beans were over-boiled, therefore, had a saggy texture. The sauce had a good flavor but not enough to complement the whole dish.
Thai Tea Creme Brulee; Creme brulee infused with Thai tea, torched demerara sugar, and Wild Lemongrass Custard; Soft custard infused with wild lemongrass, and sweet caramel reduction
Both desserts were good with nice flavor combinations.
The biggest negative surprise was the Georgia Department of Public Health inspection’s score displayed beside the front entry: Grade B – Score 89 out of 100. If you are not familiar with this type of inspection, I will encourage everyone to read about it and find restaurants’ scores and details on the web per county.
Nan Thai Fine Dining has an extensive history and a reputation. Unfortunately, from the culinary, kitchen practices, and service point of view, it needs close management attention. I hope they can ‘listen’ to their customer and not simply respond to every review with the same verbiage; “Thank you for taking the time to share your recent dining experience with us. For the past two decades, we have prided ourselves on providing an exceptional customer experience; however, we obviously failed during your recent visit. We would love an opportunity to make up for your unsatisfactory experience and hope you will dine with us again in the future.”