Fine dining restaurants are dieter-friendly establishments. They aren’t out to impress you with super-sized portions; they will impress you with the incredible quality of their food both in taste and eye-appeal, and their superb service.
You don’t need a Nutrition Information list for fine dining restaurants. Everything you eat will be properly portioned, prepared with the finest ingredients, and plated to highlight the chef’s most artistic skills. Service is generally impeccable.
I don’t eat at fine dining restaurants very often; it’s a rare treat for me now. But I’ve had the good fortune over the years to eat at some of the finest restaurants in the world. I don’t travel around the world anymore like I did when I was young, so the fine dining restaurants where I eat are closer to my home. There are several restaurants that I think are wonderful within one day’s driving distance from my home in the Twin Cities Metro area.
The first restaurant is the Wild Rice Restaurant in Bayfield, Wisconsin. The food is beautiful and incredibly delicious, the service is top notch, and restaurant environment itself is a work of art. The building was designed by nationally acclaimed Duluth architect, Dave Salmela. My brother hosted ten family members and close friends for his 60th birthday celebration in the all-glass private dining room at the Wild Rice restaurant. What a memorable experience! I’ll never forget it.
I remember the attentiveness of the waiter and the wine steward and how interesting it was to watch the creative culinary staff in the glass-walled kitchen preparing the great food we enjoyed. For the first course I had their wonderful Wild Rice Soup followed by the main course entrée of Grilled Prosciutto-Wrapped Beef Fillet. I’ve never had finer food anywhere. If you have a chance, make your own memory; treat yourself to a special dinner or enjoy the equally-fine fare offered in the bar at the Wild Rice Restaurant. It was a once-in-a-lifetime experience.
Another incredible fine-dining restaurant that I was introduced to this summer is the Nokomis Restaurant and Bar, located between Duluth and Two Harbors, Minnesota, on the Scenic North Shore Drive. To say the least, owner-chef Sean Lewis is an artist in the kitchen. I dined there, looking over beautiful Lake Superior, on my way to Grand Marais on a Friday to attend a class at the North House Folk School. I was so impressed with Chef Lewis’s menu creations that I arranged to stop for a repeat performance on my return trip to the Twin Cities on Monday.
Both Friday and Monday I ordered the Beef Tenderloin Steak with cremini mushrooms, marinated grilled onion, and red wine sauce served on ciabatta bread. I elected to have the field greens salad with citrus dressing both days as well. Both items were wonderful. On Friday, I treated myself to dessert: White Peach Crème Brûlée with Honey Almond Tuille. It was luscious!
On Monday, I treated myself to Opera Cake, an almond sponge cake with ganache, salted caramel ice cream, raspberries, cocoa tuille, raspberry and caramel powder. Another delicious selection. I was on vacation, but with my other meal selections for those days, I went over my 1600 maximum calorie goal by only a couple hundred calories. I considered that pretty good with eating away from home for four days.
To tell you the truth, I had no idea what a Honey Almond Tuille was (though I figured it had to be a cookie since a large, flat, delicate cookie came with my Crème Brûlée) nor did I have the foggiest notion about cocoa tuille. I decided to do a Google search for an explanation. I learned that the dough is made of equal parts of butter, sugar, corn syrup, and flour. To make it a Honey Almond Tuille I guessed that the corn syrup was replaced with honey and sliced almonds were added. When baked, the dough spreads into a large, flat cookie that can be cooled and used flat or draped over some kind of shape to make a cup. I figured the cocoa tuille was baked flat then crumbled over the ice cream on the Opera Cake. Whatever the case, both desserts were wonderfully delicious and I learned something new along the way. The Nokomis Restaurant is a must for your next trip to the North Shore of Lake Superior.
Very near the Nokomis Restaurant and Bar along the Scenic North Shore Drive, but closer to Duluth, lies the New Scenic Café. I’ve been dining there for the past several years whenever I feel the need to restore my soul by the shores of Lake Superior. I have a favorite place along the shore where I like to put up my large patio umbrella, my canvas chair and table (that I use for a footstool), arm myself with a few books and a sketchpad, and sit for entire days staring at the lake. I gaze at the loons and the gulls and watch the waves as they pound against the shore. I love the lake when the sky is clear and the lake looks cobalt blue but I also like it when the sky is overcast and the lake is an angry, frothy gray. I usually eat a picnic lunch during mid-day then eat an early dinner at the New Scenic Café before returning to my hotel in Duluth.
The New Scenic Café’s owner-chef, Scott Graden, makes delicious Filet Mignon Medallions. His current menu says it’s flagoulets (have no idea what that is), braised kale, mire poix, parsley, and chanterelle mushroom jus. I’m not sure he was making it that same way when I had it the last time a year ago, but it was memorable. I know that great restaurants and chefs change their menus according to the local, seasonal, fresh produce they are able to get. Barb and George, old military days friends who live in California, visited me during the fall of 2005. We stopped for lunch at the New Scenic Café and weren’t disappointed. The first time I stopped at the restaurant, around 2000, I stopped in mid-afternoon. I couldn’t decide on one dessert so I ordered two. Both were fabulous. Those were pre-diet days, of course.
Are you wondering why I always seem to have filet mignon or beef tenderloin for my entrée when I eat at a fine restaurant, especially since it is usually one of the most expensive entrées a restaurant will offer? It’s my favorite red meat. I don’t make it very often at home. And, as long as I’m treating myself, I want to truly treat myself.
Back when I was living in the Arrowhead Region of NE Minnesota, my widowed mother and I would drive up the North Shore of Lake Superior on Mother’s Day to enjoy lunch in the Lakeside Dining Room in the main log lodge at 100+ year-old Lutsen’s Resort outside Lutsen, Minnesota. The Lutsen Resort has been a premier Lake Superior North Shore destination and fine dining location for years. I love stopping there any time of the day. I’ve enjoyed many sandwiches, salads, and entrées over the years. They serve superb breakfasts, lunches, and dinners. Check it out and see if you agree.
You’re beginning to think I’ve only eaten in fine dining restaurants in Minnesota and Northern Wisconsin. Not true. I’ve enjoyed fine food at many locations farther afield than my home territory. One of those locations is the Pump Room in the Ambassador East Hotel on Chicago’s Gold Coast. I’ll never forget that experience. Roots author Alex Haley sat at the table next to me and my friend, J.J. I’d heard about this elegant restaurant for years and it was my good fortune to take a seminar being conducted in the Ambassador West Hotel so the most convenient place for me to eat my meals was in the Pump Room - lucky me. Dining there made me feel like a million bucks and in those days, I looked like a million bucks, too. As I move toward my weight loss goal I know I’ll feel like a million bucks again. And, yes, of course I had filet mignon!
In the late 1960s when I was living in Thailand and serving as an Air Force officer there, one of my favorite fine dining restaurants was the rotating rooftop restaurant at the Narai Hotel in Bangkok. I don’t know if it still exists, I know the hotel does. My favorite Bangkok entrée was Roquefort Steak. Some said the meat was water buffalo instead of beef; I don’t know, maybe it was. It was wonderful just the same. Roquefort cheese was stuffed into the steak before grilling so the cheese was deliciously melted when you cut into the steak. My friend and I always finished our dinner at the Narai with a beautifully presented flaming Irish coffee. I managed to copy the technique and used it for at least one special dinner at my home in the years that followed.
When Colorado Springs is my destination, I always have one wonderful meal with my friend, Mary Rita, at one of the fine dining rooms at the Broadmoor Hotel. I’ve had exceptionally fine food at the Tavern, Café Julie, the Golden Bee, and my favorite of all, the Penrose Room. This is a fine dining experience where the food makes you think you’re royalty and you’re treated like a queen. Treat yourself!
I’ve lived in Denver on two different occasions and still visit there because my niece and her husband now live there. Back in the 1960s I loved the food at the old Laftite’s restaurant in the Larimer Square area of downtown Denver. I think that’s the first truly classy restaurant in which I enjoyed a meal. That’s where I was introduced to Chateaubriand - of course, beef tenderloin encased in a bread-type crust. I can still recall the red velvet booths and the exceptional white-glove service.
Another of my old favorite fine dining restaurants is The Fort in Morrison, Colorado. It’s been around a long time and yes, I’ve eaten Filet Mignon there, too. If you’re in the Denver area, it is worth the short trip into the foothills to Morrison to experience both the food and the ambiance of the old west fort itself.
Before I leave the Denver area, I want to mention Palettes at the Art Museum. Imagine fine dining in the environs of the Denver Art Museum, surrounded by fine art. My niece and her husband’s wedding reception dinner was held there. It was superb. This fine restaurant serves the very best contemporary cuisine.
I want to tell you about two other fine dining experiences I’ve had over the years then I will drop the subject. Two years ago I was in Taos, New Mexico and had a truly wonderful dinner at the Stakeout Grill and Bar located 8 miles south of Taos on Outlaw Hill overlooking the Taos Valley. Of course, I had Filet Mignon, with Béarnaise sauce. Tender and wonderful. I could not have asked for better. Another memorable dining experience.
The other very famous place I had the good fortune to enjoy a fine dinner was Antoine’s in New Orleans. One of my many cookbooks had a recipe for Antoine’s famous Pommes de terre soufflées (puffed potatoes). I tried making them at home some years before I had lunch at Antoine’s; I was unsuccessful. The Pommes soufflees at Antoine’s were the best.
I’ve had fine meals in locations around the world: in Hong Kong and in Saigon; in Finland; in Japan and in Seattle; in Cairo, Egypt; in Bad Windsheim, Germany; at the Crow’s Nest in Captain Cook Hotel in Anchorage, Alaska, and in Hawaii. There are fine dining restaurants around the world. Try one during your travels. There is likely one very close to where you live.
And, here’s one more thing I try to do: I dress like I can afford the $60 to $100 or more that I may pay for a special dinner, both to make me feel good and also to honor the special creative effort that the chef and his/her culinary team went through to prepare the dinner for me. Try it.