Table Of Content
So, the wine list itself is reason to go, and one of the standout features that elevate Bern’s above its peers, but that’s just one. Waugh was a famed British wine merchant and on one trip, Bern visited him for dinner in his London home. After the entrée, Waugh suggested they adjourn to another room for dessert, port and cigars, and Bern loved the idea. He loved it so much that when he returned to Tampa he turned the upstairs into the Harry Waugh Dessert Room, with 48 private booths, each made from a repurposed redwood wine cask. Today when you first take your seat at dinner, the waiter asks if you would like to book a booth upstairs for dessert and you simply must say yes.
The Farm
We ask that no t-shirts, tennis shoes, flip-flops, shorts, or torn or faded blue jeans be worn. If any of these items are worn to Bern’s, you may be seated in our lounge area instead of one of the dining rooms. In the front, Bodega is the go-to for Cuban food and fresh juices in St. Petersburg’s Edge District. But peek around a barn-style door in the back and find Bar Chica. Try one of the signature cocktails, like the Florida Sour, concocted of Whistle Pig Whiskey, “Piggyback” 6-year rye, orange, lemon, rosemary simple syrup and a red wine float.
Best Fine Dining Restaurants to Celebrate New Year's Eve in Tampa - www.813area.com
Best Fine Dining Restaurants to Celebrate New Year's Eve in Tampa.
Posted: Wed, 27 Dec 2023 08:00:00 GMT [source]
Restaurant BT
The experience and food was truly something we have never encountered before. We later learned that their waiters train for one year working at almost every station in the restaurant. Then they train for another 8-12 weeks in the dining rooms before they become a full-service waiter on their own. It's incredible and we can definitely tell that the service from these waiters are far different from any other restaurant we've been to. The in-house cellar actually isn't able to house all of their wines, so they have a second storage unit off their premises down the street.
MAKE A Reservation
Our prime steaks are cut to order, we serve vegetables that are grown locally on the Bern’s farm when available and sourced from the finest purveyors, and our menu includes 21 choices of caviar. Each visit to Bern’s Steak House takes you on a gastronomic adventure that defines Bern’s not as a meal but as an experience. They are trimmed and cut after you order, and broiled over real charcoal. These steaks are just as good (or even better) as similar high-end steakhouses like Ruth's Chris. However, unlike the other high-end chain steakhouses, you don't have to order à la carte.
Every meat on the menu is given its own paragraph explanation, which sounds like it was written by someone who's an e-commerce copywriter by day and a steak scholar by night. The Delmonico that they dry-age for 100 days is always our go-to. St. Petersburg-based Star Trolley filled a void when it started in 2021, providing festive transportation for weddings.
Making Reservations
Bern's Steak House is a local favorite and has been around since 1956. I know you are probably thinking this is going to be a typical steakhouse restaurant review but let me reassure you that it is more than just a steakhouse. Even I had my doubts but was blown away by the meal and the entire experience. Dessert is a very special thing at Bern's, which also offers an incredible array of dessert wines, ... [+] fortified wines and specialty cocktails and coffees.
At first, I thought it was just going to be a room where I can pick a dessert to take home with me. The portions are plentiful and the steak was cooked beautifully. We really enjoyed the Caesar Salad prepared from scratch at our table (extra cost if you choose not to have the salad that comes with the entrees), which was the best caesar salad we've ever had. It was fresh and packed with flavor and had a touch of saltiness from the anchovies. It also paired nicely with the complimentary bread we received that was a bit crunchy like croutons. We love to share our tips on hidden gems and the latest fashion trends.
Be prepared to reserve 3-4 hours of your time for this dining experience if you are going to the dessert room (and a Bern's experience is not complete without ending the night in the dessert room). We had reservations at 9PM and did not leave Bern's until 1AM. Bern's Steak House takes their last reservation at 10PM on the weekdays and 11PM on the weekends but they will stay open until the very last customer has fully enjoyed the entire Bern's experience.
If you plan on visiting on a weekend at prime time, make sure to reserve a table a month in advance. I called the restaurant almost three weeks in advance to make a reservation and the earliest available time they had was 9PM on a weekend. They informed me that in order to get a table at a decent time at their restaurant, I would have to book at least one month in advance. After our meal, we were kindly escorted to take a tour of the kitchen.
These places are typically expensive and very much a la carte. All of that comes with each steak, which are priced lower than almost all other top steakhouses to begin with. A 12-ounce dry-aged NY Strip is $60 with all the extras, and two weeks earlier I ate at a high-end chain steakhouse where a not as good one was $72 with nothing. Bern’s perennially wins the highest possible Wine Spectator Grand Award of Excellence, which less than 100 places in the world receive, and has won it ever year for more than four decades. They also won the James Beard Award for Outstanding Wine Program, and the cellars are so extensive and impressive that they offer guests guided tours with dinner, something that stopped in the pandemic and is being re-introduced shortly. Bern Laxer was a World War II vet and passionate gardener who visited his aunt in Tampa with his new bride, Gert, and never left.
We also appreciated that they didn't present a huge bowl of the soup to fill us up before the steaks came out. The worst thing you can do is fill yourself up with all the appetizers before the main course. We ordered the crab cakes as an appetizer but wish we hadn't because we were a little full by the time the steaks came out. Dry-aged Prime steaks are hand cut to order and available in any size you can imagine.
It's always fun to see the behind-the-scenes and I was amazed at how huge the kitchen was. The steakhouse is sectioned off into different dining halls, so it's hard to get an idea of just how big this place is until you tour the kitchen. There were multiple steak stations and also a station for salads, dessert, and more.
There are a handful of eateries so notable I feel like when I travel to the cities they are in I absolutely have to eat there or it’s a wasted culinary trip. All the city’s essential spots for seafood platters, steaks, Cubans, and more. Bern’s Steak House was created from what was once an ordinary business block on Howard Avenue, containing a grocery, barber shop and dime store. Bern and Gert, with the help of their own carpenters, metalworkers, painters and electricians, built what you now see today. Bern’s can put a candle in the dessert of the person celebrating while in the Harry Waugh Dessert Room.
Owner Richard Novikas started it after he inherited a fleet of trolleys and busses from his family’s business in New Jersey. Once business started booming, Novikas considered a plan for his 44-passenger transit bus. Inspired by a trip to The Ringling Museum in Sarasota where he saw an antique circus train car, he turned it into a 1920s speakeasy.
Don’t fill up on the assorted sides—at the end of the meal, guests are whisked to the posh upstairs dessert room, where bananas Foster or baked Alaska can be enjoyed with house-roasted coffee and live piano music. The dessert room was a whole another experience of the restaurant with private booth style seating located upstairs. It almost felt like we had stepped back in time as there was a live piano player and our booth had an old school phone where we can phone-in piano requests. It's a very intimate dining experience and it doesn't stop there.
We were given a large menu (basically a book) with nearly 50 dessert choices and more than 1,000 dessert wines and spirits to choose from. But the heart of the meal starts with USDA Prime steaks, dry-aged at least 45-days (which is extra generous in the industry) and cut in house, something only a handful of the best steakhouses do. But what almost no other top steakhouses do is offer you anything with your steak.
No comments:
Post a Comment