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Fernandina Beach/ The Beech Street
Grill This gingerbread-trimmed sea captain’s estate with tiered wraparound verandas and a series of side annexes holds a ramble of dining rooms pretty in peach and green. Chase McQuarry’s five-year-old restaurant is widely regarded as the town’s best for fine wining and dining. The fare is a testament to regional and contemporary cuisine. Look for starters like Low Country seafood gumbo, chilled coconut and crab bisque, steamed dumplings with kim-chi or duck ravioli with an Asian beurre blanc and marinated seaweed salad. Crab-stuffed local shrimp with tasso ham gravy, grouper encrusted with macadamia nuts, grilled duck breast with ancho chile and tropical fruit salsa, and roasted venison loin with black currant sauce typify the main dishes. Chived whipped potatoes, spicy Asian slaw and sweet potato hash are among the sides. Dessert could be chocolate truffle torte, white chocolate cheesecake or bread pudding with bourbon hard sauce. The 200-label wine list has been honored by Wine Spectator. In 1998, Beech Street opened two other restaurants and briefly operated a third, our favorite Café Atlantis, when the original owner left. The new restaurants are the beachy Terrace at the Beachside Commons, 2900 Atlantic Ave., and River Place Café, a cafeteria-style seafood haunt by the water on Route A1A at the Shave Bridge. Although the last in particular has many devotees, the grill remains the mainstay for fine dining. (904) 277-3662. Entrées, $16.95 to $24.95. Dinner nightly, 5:30 to 10. Le Clos The most charming restaurant in town was opened in 1997 in a little yellow house by Katherine Ewing, a Le Cordon Bleu graduate who trained at the Ritz Hotel in Paris. She took an abandoned 1906 residence and transformed it into a welcoming restaurant resembling those of the French countryside. "I always wanted to do this," she said as she distributed fresh flowers around the arty, gray and white dining room, where wine bottles and candles stand tall on each table. "I hate cute, but I became the queen of cute." She produces provençal fare of considerable distinction. Start with her pork and chicken liver pâté or smoked Scottish salmon with traditional accompaniments. Her fish of the day, scrawled in large letters on a huge blackboard, was crab cakes with pineapple relish at our spring visit. Other main dishes include scampi over homemade pasta, coquilles St. Jacques, poached chicken breast with Indian curries and spices, braised lamb shank and sautéed veal chop. A salad of organic field greens comes with. Save room for one of Katherine’s acclaimed desserts, among them French pastries, pear compote, chocolate mousse and crème caramel. (904) 261-8100. Entrées, $17 to $23. Dinner, Tuesday-Saturday 5:30 to 9 or 9:30. Joe’s 2nd Street
Bistro Featuring new American cuisine with international accents, Joe Robucci’s bistro opened to rave reviews in 1998. We weren’t surprised, since his stylish Café Allègre had been wildly popular before it lamentably closed in our home area outside Hartford, Ct. Here you can eat by the fountain on a New Orleans-style courtyard, or at white-linened tables in an intimated, 60-seat dining room with an islands theme in a restored early 1900s house. The dinner menu ranges widely from seafood paella, sautéed red snapper with sweet pepper coulis and shrimp étoufée to pecan-breaded breast of duck with spiced currant sauce, grilled leg of lamb with wine-honey glaze and filet mignon with chili sauce and fried oysters. The antelope au poivre with Szechwan peppercorns, wild mushrooms and scallion sauce sounds sensational. Among starters are crab cakes with tropical tartar sauce and roast duck cappellini. Desserts are stellar, as they were in Hartford. Consider champagne sabayon, pecan-studded rum baba, chocolate banana bread pudding or grand marnier parfait. The courtyard menu features focaccia pizzas and interesting light fare for dinner outside. (904) 321-2558. Entrées, $17 to $23. Dinner nightly except Monday, 5:30 to 9:30. The Southern Tip Housed in one of the Southern-style structures in the Palmetto Walk shopping complex, this is a good bet for lunch as well as dinner. The setting is refined and the fare new American. Richard and Lisa Schmidt, who trained at the Ritz Carlton nearby, offer an intimate bar and downstairs dining room and a larger dining room upstairs. The Cuban sandwich – roasted pork loin with spiced cheese and chipotle bean spread on a toasted hoagie roll – makes an unusual lunch. Or you can order a turkey BLT or a marinated Greek salad. For dinner, expect main courses like seared mahi-mahi with pepper-mango sauce, herb-roasted chicken with olive-grape salsa, roasted pork tenderloin with cherry-fig chutney and grilled beef tenderloin with melted cambozola cheese and wild mushroom ragoût. Dessert could be key lime pie with a trio of fruit sauces, chocolate-cappuccino mousse cake or pecan-crusted New York-style cheesecake. (904) 261-6184. Entrées, $15.95 to $21.95. Lunch daily, 11:30 to 2. Dinner nightly 6 to 9. Brett’s Waterway
Cafe The only in-town restaurant facing the Intracoastal Waterway, Brett Carter’s contemporary establishment at the Fernandina Harbor Marina draws the tourists in droves. It drew us, too, for lunch at our first visit, before smaller restaurants emerged with more innovative fare. Windows on three sides of the dining room take full advantage of the waterfront setting. The standard continental/American menu touches all the bases, from shrimp scampi and grilled chicken to steak au poivre. If you have to wait for a table, check out the Carter Enterprises’ Front and Centre store, full of unusual memorabilia. (904) 261-0042. Entrées, $14.95 to $23.95. Lunch, Monday-Saturday 11:30 to 2:30. Dinner nightly from 5:30. Material excerpted from Inn Spots & Special Places in the Southeast, by Nancy and Richard Woodworth. Copyright 2000. Wood Pond Press E-mail feedback to: Home
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