Cafe Boulud, Brazilian Court, Palm Beach, Florida.

Chef Daniel Boulud has a deservedly great reputation, but, not all of his restaurants are equally good as his very best or represent his deservedly vaunted reputation equally well.

Terrific arancini.

A delicious mushroom veloute with black barley and creme fresh (which I opted not to have). 

Dover sole meunier was frankly a bit disappointing. It was a touch mealy. It was served with a nicely textured three grain pilaff. In Palm Beach, the "dover sole gold standard" is the dover sole at Bistro Chez Jean Pierre. In fact any resto anywhere would have a tough time besting that standard.

Good french fries (but not great). They were not crispy enough.

Warm, upside down guanaja chocolate cake with vanilla ice cream. Very good. 

Beignets hot from the oven. My eating partner loved them and asked for extras to take home for tomorrow morning's breakfast.

Petit Fours.

My Favourite Pizza Place in Florida, Pizzeria Oceano, Lantana, One of North America's Greats and, in Palm Beach and the charm of Pizza Al Fresco

Pizzeria Oceano, Lantana, Florida (Immediately South of Palm Beach).

This is it....Pizzeria Oceano: no reservations; lineups to get a table if you arrive after 5:35pm and when the dough runs out, and it runs out, they close. I have written about this restaurant before, but, it is worth writing about again. 

The chef very carefully makes one pizza at a time in a wood burning oven of his own design. Here, the pizza crust has the slightly smokey flavour of the wood smoke and is thin, flakey/crispy and delicious. The "non-pizza" items change daily and are often creative renditions of what is available locally from farmers, fishermen and artisanal producers of the region. 

Other than 24 seats outside and seating for 10 inside, this is it. Not too many tables. As you can see, people wait patiently for what they love. The resto opens at "5:30 ish"...anytime between 5:30 and 5:50 and the door is locked till then. It is only open when the outside music starts to play!

Fresh white shrimp stuffing, "dippy" egg and baby celery.

Crispy skinned, fried green tomatoes with zucchini, onion, dill/mustard aioli. They do this  dish from time to time and I love it.  

Not offered on the same day as the above courses, this simple but wonderful, tasty heirloom tomato salad came with manouri cheese, red onions, crispy croutons, olives, herbs and olive oil dressing.

Another dish not offered on the same day is this very good kohlrabi slaw with apple, fennel seed, shallots, and a lemon and creme fraiche dressing.

Trust me, this is the best tasting pizza crust available almost anywhere. Toppings are prime and tasty....but secondary to the crust, in my opinion, and the choice of toppings changes as to the whims of the chef. When I day-dream or get a craving for pizza, I dream about this crust! This one above, is "the basic" with tomato sauce, mozzarella, baby arugula and basil.

These are pieces of pizza of what remains of the delicious smoked pork jowl, spigarello, fontina cheese, creme fraiche and potato.

Offered on another day was this cremini mushroom pizza topped with spring onion, black pepper, fontina, Grayson and mozzarella cheeses.

Pizza Al Fresco, 14 Via Mizner, Off Worth Ave, Palm Beach

For those those steadfast Palm Beachers who do not wish to step away from Worth Avenue, there is a charming outdoor patio. Pizza al Fresco restaurant is an inviting oasis for lunch or snack, in one of the alleys off of Worth Avenue, that offers credible, good tasting pizza that is, however, nowhere near the stratosphere of taste of Oceano, above.

Thin, crispy-crusted pizza topped with rapini, mozzarella and crumbled sausage.

Palm Beach Restos, The Continuing Saga: Chez Jean Pierre, Pizzeria Oceano, Buccan.

Chez Jean Pierre

Chez Jean Pierre has become one of my go to restos here in Palm Beach, particularly for their wonderful filet of sole. They fly the fish in weekly from France and simply pan fry it in a bit of butter....but, to perfection. You would be hard pressed to find sole done better anywhere in North America.

Pizzeria Oceano

Another resto that I love to frequent is Pizzeria Oceano in Lantana just immediately south of Palm Beach. As I have previously blogged, here you will enjoy what I consider one of the very best pizza's in North America and perhaps it would rank as in the top 5 to 10. It is so good, I just had to mention it again. It is so good that this little place that doesn't seat more than about 20 people was just featured on CBS.


Once a month, Pizzeria Oceano does a spontaneous middle of the month Sunday brunch, "Sloppy Sunday". These were our wonderful choices.

The “house pizza” (tomato sauce and mozzarella cheese) with the addition of red onion, spring raab, fresh cut garlic slices and baby escarole. The crust, perfectly crispy and flakey as always, with it's wonderful flavour working so well with all the ingredients on the perfectly unsoggy (as is often found in most restaurant pizzas) crust. No wonder this resto was just featured on CBS!

Sour cream omelet, with onions, manouri cheese, gingered chick peas, bight sized potato chunks, all topped with a moderately spicy, curried, heirloom tomato gravy. The omelet was gently fluffy, a bit creamy in texture and perfectly prepared. Another great Sunday morning wakeup dish.

Baby escarole, smokey bacon with a bacon vinaigrette, soft poached egg, pickled onion and pecorino cheese.

"Johnny cakes", pancakes with a toothsome slightly dense but airy texture, the perfect pancake, with a lovely complementary honey butter sauce and berries. I am not a pancake lover but these were exceptionally edible.

The Royal Red shrimp hash. Small, savory chunks of sauteed country ham, bight sized chunks of perfectly cooked, sweet tasting, Royal Red shrimp with a very fresh flavour redolent of the sea, mini fingerlings, mini purple potatoes, bits of sweet pepper and fontina cheese, all together in a “hash”, dressed with "dirty" gravy and a fried egg topped with chopped scallions. What a perfect morning combination of flavours and textures.

Buccan

Buccan is a relatively new resto in Palm Beach. It is very noisy and no matter where you sit it is very hard to hear what your friends are telling you. However, the food is pretty good, in general.

Brick oven roasted pork taco, charred tomatillo salsa, avocado. Mild smokey with a great range of pleasing sharp flavours of cilantro, lime juice (which i squeezed on) and tomatillo. The lime juice enhanced all of the flavours. I could crave these.

Wedge of iceberg lettuce with smokey bacon chunks, chopped tomato and a very creamy blue cheese dressing without the chunks (thankfully) . The old fashioned iceberg was terrific, crispy and cold.

Hot dog panini, sauerkraut, gruyere, mustard, chili (on the side). Eating this hot dog was like eating a crispy fried bread, grilled cheese sandwich. The "bun" was grilled bread with slices of hot dog in the middle.

Squid ink orrechiette, sausage, conch, basil, chilies. Very tasty with earthy flavours and a rich stock strongly flavoured with citrus and garlic. One of my 2 favourite dishes at this meal.

Marguerita pizza (but ordered with no cheese except a sprinkle of parmesan), oven dried tomatoes, fresh basil and slices of garlic. Crispy thin crust that was a bit too dense. It was pleasing but had none of the flavour and flakeyness of the gold standard Pizzeria Oceano in Lanata. It's a good pizza by most standards though. Ok sauce, a bit too sharp...would be more mellow if the sauce was prep cooked lower and longer. Perhaps use San Marzano tomatoes as well?

Wood grilled shrimp scampi, perfectly cooked, with arugula, on grilled bread and with a strong lemon flavoured dressing that overwhelmed the wood oven flavours.

Wood grilled burger, medium rare, no cheese requested (I never like cheese with meat except aged thin parmesan slices on carpaccio), on brioche. This is a very juicy burger, quite tasty too, with very good flavour and perfectly cooked. Fries crispy on the outside (requested crispy) but a bit soggy\greasy on the inside. Ok flavour.

MMMMMMMMMMMmmmmmmmm!

Crispy potato cakes, nicely peppery, with very good flavour and a nice crispy skin. I liked these better than the fries.

Restaurants of Palm Beach, Florida

To be frank, Palm Beach Florida has many adequate restaurants, but few that inspire me to return. So when I stay there, I often wind up ordering fresh meats and poultry, from such star purveyors across the U.S. as Lobel's (for their Wyoming burgers and steaks) in New York and Bryan's Fine Foods  (Corta Madera, California) for their exceptional aged lamb and their custom ordered and ground burgers where one may select the burger ingredients from over 20 types of meat for the burger. Also, I have the opportunity of ordering bbq brisket, ribs, and their sauce from some of the great bbq spots in the United States or bacon from some of the best producers who custom smoke their wonderfully different bacon. 


Locally, perhaps one of the best grocers is Carmine's........but, it is no Pusateri's (Toronto) and what Palm Beach lacks is such great specialty purveyors of products that Toronto has in spades such as Harvest Wagon for fruits and veg and such wonderful  specialty butchers as Cumbrae's or Olliffe's.


So, speaking of Palm Beach, where do I like to eat? I have been asked this question many times. For a simple roast beef dinner (yes, I eat that, reflecting on my fond memories of Ed's Warehouse in Toronto), the old standby of Ta-boo Restaurant on Worth Avenue, and that is pretty much all there is for me there.  Then, there is nothing like Michelle Bernstein's resto at the Omphoy Hotel for perhaps the best southern fried chicken in Florida (outside of her flagship resto in Miami). They also do a very good weekend brunch and some of the highlights are:


Pulled pork sliders with a slightly too sweet bbq sauce topped with creamy cole slaw and accompanied by crunchy, house made potato chips.

Poached eggs with creamy grits topped by a bit of tobasco butter and a wonderful stock/sauce made from ham hocks (my fave).

I also ordered, but was disappointed by the chorizo and potato hash. The potatoes were not crispy, there wasn't enough chorizo for flavour and the dish was just too greasy overall for my taste. Also, unfortunately, a bit boring.

Another very good Palm Beach resto, actually, just south of Palm Beach in Lantana, is Pizzeria Oceano. This very small pizza place, for me, vies for being one of the top places to enjoy pizza in North America!! What sets this little pizza joint apart is the thin, tasty and crispy crust made in a wood fired oven and topped with wonderful local produce or specialty meats from some of the finest regional purveyors. The crust is airy at the edge so that the dough has air pockets that exhibit a wonderful crispy flakiness. When one picks up a wedge of pizza, the whole slice stands out flat and stiff, not saggy and soggy. Ahhhh, such a wonderful crispy and tasty mouth feel!

The pizza selection changes daily but the "basic" (house made fresh mozzarella, pecorino, a rich tomato sauce and fresh basil leaves) is available every day. The pizza above has paper thin slices of potato with a rosemary "cream" and thinly sliced red onions. The "basic" also has 8 available "add ons" which vary depending or what is of interest to the chef, at local markets, but today's examples of add ons include sopressata, shallots, red onion, bielliese guancilae, Swanks toscano (black) kale, Swanks totsoi and fresh cut garlic. The pizza below is "the basic" and has fresh sliced garlic, thinly sliced shallots, basil leaves and Biellese's guanciale which is melted into the pizza so not visible in the photo. Just look and salivate when you see this beautiful crust at the edge!

A small selection of other very well executed dishes, which again, vary day to day, depending on the chef's inspiration.


The dish below is a delectably flavoured pasta dish with eggplant, a perfectly cooked, fresh porcini mushroom ragu with smoked buffalo mozzarella and a rich tomato sauce redolent of fresh thyme

The dish below is thinly sliced local country ham with locally farmed black kale, fingerling potatoes and onions in an intense, slightly smokey ham broth. 

They will also, on occasion, do an exceptional stromboli sandwich. What makes this sandwich truly exceptional, besides good ingredients, is the outstanding "bread", which I presume is made in house. The sandwich is baked in the wood burning oven giving the dark brown exterior crust of the bread not only a beautiful crispy quality, but also, an airy flakiness that when one bights down, one experiences an exceptionally satisfying crunch and then a burst of flavours fill the mouth! Love on a bun!!

MICHELLE BERNSTEIN AT THE OMPHOY HOTEL
2842 South Ocean Blvd
Palm Beach, FL
561-540-6444


PIZZERIA OCEANO
201 East Ocean Ave
Lantana, FL
561-429-5550

Michelle Bernstein in Palm Beach

I just enjoyed what was perhaps one of the best fried chicken dishes I have tasted. Wonderfully crispy, non-greasy, perfectly cooked, juicy chicken, that had been marinated in buttermilk and herbs for 48 hours before being fried. It was accompanied by an exceptionally flavourourful buttermilk biscuit, black truffle flavoured creamed corn,  julienned celery root salad, a miniature tobacco sauce bottle, a small jar of honey and white chicken gravy. The dish was executed by the executive chef at Michelle Bernstein's Palm Beach outpost at the Omphoy Hotel, Lindsay Autrey, who worked closely with chef Bernstein at her Miami restaurant.

They also do a very good starter of perfectly cooked bone marrow, in long split shanks that are topped with pulled pork that has been mixed with a tangy BBQ sauce, that goes well with the marrow.