M.M. Cloutier
Billed as a culinary experience that feels like “Palm Beach’s best-kept secret,” the dining room at Palm House — the island’s newest luxe hotel that debuted Friday on the ocean block of Royal Palm Way — will serve a style of cuisine popular among foodies, epicures and celebrities.
With 88 seats featuring banquettes and tables as well as a 36-seat alfresco terrace overlooking a “Mediterranean-inspired” pool deck, the Palm House Dining Room will serve daily breakfast, lunch and dinner.
Approved by the town as a dining room and not a restaurant — meaning patrons should be hotel guests and their “bona fide” guests — it features an open kitchen where patrons can snag a peak of chefs preparing the featured cuisine: traditional Japanese made with Peruvian ingredients.
Dishes will include vegan pancakes, toro tartare with caviar, shishito peppers with yuzu miso, and tiradito uniting hallmarks of sashimi with Peruvian ceviche.
Other dishes include a sashimi salad with “Matsuhisa” dressing ($40 at dinner) and tuna tataki with Matsuhisa dressing ($40 at dinner).
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To some upscale diners, all of those dishes might sound familiar.
They and other — but not all — items on Palm House Dining Room’s menu are items found on menus in the global restaurant empire of famed chef-restaurateur Nobu Matsuhisa, whose Japanese cuisine made with Peruvian ingredients is king among health-conscious foodies and celebrities.
Rumors have circulated for months that a Nobu might open at Palm House — a move that would require town approval. A Nobu restaurant debuted Oct. 18 at Eau Palm Beach Resort in nearby Manalapan.
Palm House hotel officials declined to comment to the Daily News about any connection to or affiliation with Nobu.
Instead, they stressed that the dining room reflects “the experiences and vision” of its chefs with a concept “both familiar and distinctive in its own right.”
Executive chef de cuisine, Jerry Ayala, a Florida native, has experience with various cuisines at high-end hotels and restaurants, according to his online Linkedin page and information hotel officials provided.
Among other things, Ayala, has held upper-level chef positions with COMO Hotels and Resorts, plus Groot Hospitality, whose dining foci include southeast Asian cuisine.
Ayala said in a prepared statement that he’s thrilled to welcome “discerning guests” by offering a “culinary experience that will keep them excited and eager for more.”
How does the town’s Zoning Code clarify the differences between a dining room — what Palm House was approved for, the town’s Director of Planning, Zoning & Building Wayne Bergman said — and a restaurant?
A dining room “means any building or part thereof or any room or part thereof in which food is dispensed or served for profit or gratis to a restricted and limited clientele consisting of tenants and residents of the same premises and their bona fide guests, and private club members and their bona fide guests.”
A restaurant “means every building or part thereof and all accessory buildings used in connection therewith or any place or location kept, used or maintained as, advertised as or held out to the public to be a place where meals and foodstuffs are prepared and served.”
“Palm House’s dining room is not a restaurant and cannot advertise,” Town Council President Bobbie Lindsay told the Daily News on Saturday, noting it’s there to serve hotel guests and their “bona fide” guests.
She said she looks forward to the dining room being a success and noted the hotel property’s opening is a benefit to the town.
With 79 rooms, including 21 suites, Palm House is the result of a three-year renovation by L+R Hotels, a London-headquartered hotel investment and management company with a portfolio of 105-plus worldwide hotels, in affiliation with Iconic Hotels, a British brand that has been a part of the Palm House rebirth.
Formerly known as the Heart of Palm Beach, the hotel was closed for 17 years.
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