BY ELLEN FORMAN
Las Olas Boulevard: Chic and trendy? Classic and refined? Late-night party capital?
Walk from block to block and you’ll keep switching your sense of Broward’s most active pedestrian street, a boulevard that finds itself in a constant state of evolution, with new restaurants and shops always working their way into the mix. New downtown residents, weekday office workers, visiting suburbanites and tourists out for a break from the beach all seem to come together as they dine, shop and take in each other.
“What helps make Las Olas is sidewalk dining,” says Bob Van Fleet, president of The Las Olas Company, owner of the Riverside Hotel. “It’s intimate – a meet and greet when you go to dinner.”
The Riverside Hotel, one of the first to offer café dining, is planning a makeover of its own, welcoming Toby Joseph, a five-star former chef of the St. Regis. The Grill Room will update its menu, with an emphasis on an expanded wine room and meetings facilities.
Steps away sits YOLO, for You Only Live Once, drawing a crowd for workday lunches and dinners and after-work happy hours at its lounges and outdoor firepit.
“There’s such a broad demographic,” says partner Peter Bouloukos. “You can hear someone conducting a business meeting, and at the next table, someone’s wearing shorts and a T-shirt.” The owners are opening a music club, Vibe, next to YOLO, during the spring, with a large patio area and live acts. “It will be different for Las Olas,” he says. “There’s a void we can fill.”
Success on Las Olas, it seems, breeds a desire to do it again down the block. Johnny Vinczencz, owner of upscale Johnny V, went down the street to open Smith & Jones, a casual comfort food spot. Grand Forno, classic Italian bakery and café at 1235, will bring Grand Forno Pronto, a smaller space serving its well received baked goodies, to a storefront next to the Riverside Hotel.
Of course, Las Olas is not all about eating and drinking. Shopping opportunities abound, from niche clothing stores, to art galleries, to large, luxe showrooms. Levinson Jewelers, at 888, made a major commitment to its relocation from Plantation, with an outdoor social space for fundraisers joining its luxe fine jewelry and watch showroom.
In dining circles, what’s catching eyes is the entrance of familiar South Florida faces and the return of Las Olas favorites.
SoLita is the new offering at the former Mark’s Las Olas space (1032), old school Italian with a modern twist, with many of the managers hailing from Café Martorano. Trata Greek Taverna (1103), rooted in area Greek favorites, is in the former Teal Bistro space.
Tony Cupelli will be re-opening Café Europa at 810 as an Italian trattoria, with an emphasis on fresh home cooking and, he says, the desserts and pastas the regulars enjoyed before the eatery was closed for demolition (it’s now a green space).
“I think Las Olas is going to come back the way it used to be,” Cupelli says. “It’s a beautiful street.”
Address: 5050 Town Center Circle, Suite 245, Boca Raton, 561-544-8000, www.wildolives.com.
Star status: This is the newest offspring of über-chef Todd English, who owns seafood spots, steakhouses – even restaurants on the Queen Mary 2 and Queen Victoria – nationwide. In South Florida, he owns Wild Olives Café at CityPlace in West Palm Beach, Figs by Todd English at Macy’s in Palm Beach Gardens and da Campo Osteria at Il Lugano Hotel in Fort Lauderdale. This summer he’s set to open Wellington Wild Olives Cafe at The Mall at Wellington Green.Wild Olives’ cuisine: English’s take on rustic Mediterranean dishes, made with quality ingredients.
Worth the trip: Golden pan-fried scallops ($26) served atop celery purée with chips made of fried pancetta. It’s garnished with a sprinkling of toasted chopped pistachios and topped with a pile of frisée and gala-apple bits in a gently sweet dressing. Like many of English’s dishes, there’s a mix of flavors on the plate.
Best bet: The flat breads ($14-$16) were our favorite items – also the best values. Choose from the Margarita with roasted tomato sauce, mozzarella and fresh basil; the Bronx Bomber with pepperoni, toasted tomatoes and mozzarella cheese; or the Bianca with rapini, roasted garlic, caramelized onions and four cheeses.
Sweet endings: Three warm and gooey pecan chocolate chip cookies ($8) that taste hot from the microwave are served with creamy Tahitian vanilla gelato. Apple Cobbler ($9) is diced apples in a thick cinnamon-spiced sauce with a tad of streusel-like topping baked in an individual casserole dish. It too is topped with a scoop of Tahitian vanilla gelato that melts into it. Both desserts are big enough to share.
Décor: You’ll recognize the room from its tenure as Opus 5. After a gentle makeover, there are chocolate-brown walls, a wall of mirrors framed in black, circular booths in brown leather and ceiling lights covered with large lampshades.
High energy: Because the floors are hardwood and the windows are covered in wooden venetian blinds, there’s very little to absorb noise. Don’t expect to have an intimate conversation – although couples tend to cozy up in the booths.
Prices: Our bill topped $100 for a two-course meal for two and one dessert without alcohol.
—Deborah S. Hartz-Seeley
Florida’s oldest family-owned jeweler is nearly doubling its showroom space this spring, as Daoud’s Fine Jewelry moves to a new 6,000-square-foot showroom just west of its previous location. Owner Patrick Daoud says the new space was gutted and outfitted with a “classic aesthetic” of marble floors, real wooden cases and high-end antiques. The new space will allow the shop to showcase more of its continually expanding collection, Daoud says, highlighting lines that include Simon G, Kirk Kara and the EPS Collection. It also provides plenty of reasons to window shop: “We’re always adding new merchandise,” says Daoud, a fourth-generation jeweler currently in his 32nd year with the company. “We deal with everything,’’ he says, “you can buy a piece from us that was made in the 1800s or you can buy a designer piece.”
Daoud’s Fine Jewelry, 2473 E. Sunrise Blvd., Fort Lauderdale, 954-565-2734. www.daouds.com.
–Valerie Nahmad
If you haven’t seen the Design Center of the America’s first DesignHouse, take your time.
The show house’s unprecedented five-month run continues through June 11 in 9,000 square feet of converted showroom space at the DCOTA in Dania Beach. Proceeds benefit Vizcaya Museum and Gardens in Miami-Dade, the Fort Lauderdale Museum of Art and the Norton Museum of Art in West Palm Beach.
The 14 South Florida designers decorated 15 rooms – from wine cellar to relaxation lounge – that reflect the latest in home décor trends. You will see how a bare wall can be turned into a masterpiece with a wallpaper mural and how a master bedroom wall can be accented with opulent glass-bead wallpaper. Other trends include use of sculpture as a headboard, circular motifs, Lucite and metallic finishes.
The DesignHouse runs through June 11 at DCOTA, 1855 Griffin Road, Dania Beach. Hours are 9 a.m. through 5 p.m. weekdays. A $10 donation is suggested. Call 954-920-7997.
–Charlyne Varkonyi Schaub
A sailboat docked at Bahia Mar was Jean-Charles Clerte’s home for several years while he attended high school in Fort Lauderdale. His family returned to France when he was 16, but he always wanted to come back. “I feel like this is my home,” he says. So when the opportunity arose to bring his family’s Bordeaux-based home goods store to Florida, he came home again, opening La Cafetière in Fort Lauderdale’s Galleria mall. His great uncle, who started the company in 1948, was from Corsica, so he brought a light, Mediterranean touch to his merchandise, which continues to this day. “It’s French, but not too heavy,” Clerte says. “The shapes are smooth, quiet and understated, and there’s a light touch of Provence in the colors.” The store, arranged in charming vignettes, features casually elegant tableware, furniture, lighting, linens, luggage and décor items, plus Pyla, the Yorkie – who can be spotted trotting after Clerte, as he helps customers with their lavender-tissue topped bags.
La Cafetière, The Galleria at Fort Lauderdale, 954-396-9980, www.la-cafetiere.com.
–Elizabeth Rahe
Between sips of red wines in the tasting room at Lincoln Culinary Institute in West Palm Beach, judges in this year’s American Fine Wine Competition were still buzzing about the Best of Show shocker in white wine the day before.
“The real surprise was a pinot grigio…,” one judge hushed, as if about to confess a secret affair, “from Ohio.’’
“Ohio!” another repeated.
The only wine-producing region I could think of where a river once caught fire?
“It was a revelation,’’ another said about the 2008 Pinot Grigio from Ferrante Winery of the Grand River Valley.
If I’d stood up at that moment and said the word “California’’ in a free-association test, the first words back likely would have been “white wine.’’ But these judges – top South Florida chefs, sommeliers, wine writers all – were past association and well on their way to intimacy with the relatively unknown pinot grigio from the Buckeye State.
That a white wine from Ohio could crush the grapes of better-known domestic appellations – Napa, Columbia and the Russian River valleys were well represented among the more than 500 wines in the competition – was taken around the judges’ tables as proof again that the blind taste-test system works. A triumph of “It just tastes good” over any terroir guarding.
“It’s pretty unanimous that blind tasting is the only true way to judge a wine,’’ said Shari Gherman, co-founder of the third annual, homegrown South Florida competition. “The judges were excited to know that Ohio is producing some very special wine.”
The Ferrante pinot grigio was among the newly award-winning wines poured at the second phase of the competition, a Culinary Gala pairing wines from the competition with a five-course extravaganza prepared by celebrity chefs March 13 at the institute. (For a complete list of the medalists and photos from the event, see www.cityandshore.com/wine_spirits.html). Proceeds from an auction of the participating wines will benefit Quantum House at St. Mary’s Hospital in West Palm Beach, the American Red Cross and the institute’s scholarship program.
California did manage to recover its honor later in the day in the red wine category, where a splendid 2007 Cabernet Franc, produced by Turnbull Winery in Oakville, took Best of Show.
A result taken around the judges’ tables as proof that love really is blind.
—Mark Gauert