Palm Beach Restaurant Reviews by Roger

   The newest new restaurant in Palm Beach just opened. It is the revamped, redecorated and reimagined Café  L’Europe at  331 South County Road. Café L’Europe was established in 1980. It was closed in July 2020 for renovations and has reopened for the 2020-2021 season.  It has  always been considered as one of the best restaurants on the island. Whereas the old café had two large rooms with a wall separating them, the redesign has one single large and impressive room with a horseshoe bar in the middle. The blank foot high ceilings, the large windows and the abundance of light result in a soaring room reminiscent of blank. While the capacity of the restaurant is actually 175 people,  it looks as if it could hold considerably more. The tables are conveniently distanced, but not very far apart. On the banquettes it is too easy to converse with your neighbor. The best table, in my opinion, is number 63 – a large round table in the north west corner looking out onto both the dining room and

La Goulue just opened on Royal Palm Way in Palm Beach. It is the sister of the well-known fashionable Manhattan eatery. The New York restaurant is run by Jean de Noyer. The Palm Beach establishment is run by the more affable Thierry Miroir - also the owner of Blue Provence just down the street from La Goulue. Palm Beach’s location is managed by a youthful and charming Mathieu Potelle - clearly a comer in the restaurant world. Much effort was made to make the decor authentic Parisian bistro style and they achieved this quite well - except that in Paris bistros, the tables are much closer together – even in this time of COVID-19. The French doors open to the street, let in the delightful Florida breezes, and allow for plenty of air circulation.  The open kitchen is beautiful and worth a visit. It is a big improvement over the Manhattan kitchen. Also the restrooms are very Toulouse-Lautrecian. Visit them too! La Goulue was the stage name of  Louise Weber, a Parisian dancer who was a star

  We had dinner at LOLA 41 – a new restaurant for Palm Beach, located in the soon-to-open White Elephant Hotel. Our dinner began with sashimi:  both magura (tuna) and hamachi (yellowtail). Both fish were excellent. They were very firm and have a relatively high fat content which makes them melt in your mouth. LOLA 41 offers both nigiri and sashimi. While nigiri uses rice to enhance the flavor of the fish, in sashimi there is no rice. The fish must stand on its own. It is eaten with a dab of soy sauce, as befits the Japanese tradition. My guests had specialty rolls:  asahi (spicy salmon topped with avocado and tuna) and anata (spicy tuna topped with cucumber and more tuna). Both were well prepared, beautiful to look at, and delightful to eat. Although both rolls were served with wasabi mayo or wasabi aioli, these condiments were unnecessary, as the rolls were delicious in their own flavors. Under the menu heading of “smaller plates” we tasted poke nachos – a combination of tuna, salmon,