Tastes Of Orlando: JW Marriot

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3800 Ocean

3800 N Ocean Dr.
Singer Island, FL 33404
(561) 340-1795
View Website Here

The folks at 3800 Ocean like to think of themselves as a “collective kitchen” with food concepts and ideas that incorporate regional flavors and cultural tastes into everything they create.

The menus here are inspired by the local abundance of South Florida’s renowned crops that thrive under a hospitable climate and the regional flavors that stir the souls of the collaborative team of chefs. Each chef brings a new insight to the dining experience with the comfort food favorites of New England, the fire and spice of Mexico, the Caribbean traditions of Jamaica, and the ageless classics of Long Island.

Heading that kitchen is Executive Chef Gustavo Calderon. If you remember back in August, I told you about the announcement from 3800 Ocean, that they have named Gustavo Calderon as executive chef. In case you missed that, you can get the full release Here.

Returning to Florida after two years of culinary work abroad, Chef Calderon will direct the execution of the resort’s culinary needs under the expertise of assistant general manager and former executive chef Larry LaValley. Calderon and LaValley previously worked together at the acclaimed Mark’s South Beach and The Regent Bal Harbor, where Chef Calderon honed his skills in South Florida cuisine under James Beard award winning Chef Mark Militello and other well respected area chefs.

The local abundance of fresh produce and seafood allows 3800 Ocean to take the collective kitchen dining concept quite literally. Everything is made from scratch. Every taste evokes an emotional connection to a past culinary memory or perhaps a future craving.

Here diners can find a variety of seafood dishes like a Yellowfin Tuna Crudo for starters to a Pan Roasted Black Grouper for dinner. For meat lovers they offer an elegant take on Korean BBQ with the Korean BBQ Short Rib and a fancy and savory pork roast with the Pork Tenderloin Porchetta. For pasta lovers the Maine Lobster and Truffle Risotto or the Jumbo Shrimp Garganelli are not to be missed.

Everything at 3800 is made from scratch in an open kitchen where you can see your food being made. All pasta is hand rolled and cut, all the meats are seasoned and marinated for varying times in house and the seafood selection is as fresh as it can be. To get an even better view of that food being made, you can reserve a spot at the Kitchen Table.

The Kitchen Table offers guests a unique dining experience that is designed for an adventurous palate. Each menu is created personally by a team of chefs and features the freshest seasonal daily ingredients. The five seat experience takes place from 5 to 7 p.m. every Thursday through Saturday. A seat at the table is $69 per person with cocktail and wine pairings available upon request.

Whether you choose to dine indoors in a space of contemporary elegance or outdoors on an expansive covered patio with calming breezes, 3800 Ocean has some impressive views. This was the view from our table inside the restaurant.

3800 Lounge is very classy and stylish, and it’s the the perfect place to enjoy a pre or post dinner cocktail. Guests can choose from such cocktails like the Singer Island Martini, Coconut Mojito, Honey Bourbon Manhattan or a Cucumber Smash all made with fresh ingredients and house blended spirits.

From the musings menu, we were treated to the “Oysters and Caviar” for an amuse bouche. This was a very savory bite of food with a little kick from the horseradish, but the creme fraiche and chervil helped to even it out.

The Short Rib Egg Rolls with mango sweet and sour sauce and slices of pickled Asian pear were nothing short of fabulous. The meat was tender and juicy and the flaky egg roll casing was great for absorbing the sweet and sour sauce.

We had to try the “Chef’s Special Octopus” with chorizo, fingerling potatoes, guajillo chile, cherry tomatoes, fresh garlic, kalamata olives, and a tomatillo salsa verde. This is not on the regular menu and is only available for a limited time. I could tell you a million things about how awesome this dish was, but to simplify it, I will say this… This is the best octopus dish I have ever had, and if it’s available on your visit, do not hesitate to order it. Superb in every way.

The Korean BBQ Boneless Short Rib was another dish that was pretty amazing as well. The meat just falls to pieces and does not require a knife and the flavors are extraordinary. The short rib is served atop a vegetable stir fry with sides of a cucumber kimchee salad and a crispy rice cake.

Although the menu describes this simply as a Carrot Cake Cheesecake, the flavors are complex and delightful in every bite. It really is the perfect marriage of Cheesecake and Carrot cake and is a perfect way to end your evening at 3800 Ocean.

Being that 3800 Ocean is part of the resort, they are open for breakfast and lunch as well. For breakfast they have traditional offerings like eggs, potatoes and bacon. If you require something a little more fancy they have Belgian Waffles, Nutella and Banana Stuffed French Toast and a Spanish Fritatta.

For lunch 3800 Ocean offers a variety of flatbreads, sandwiches, burgers, pastas and salads. Of note would be the Short Rib and Gruyere Grilled Cheese with bacon onion jam or the The amazing sounding Double Burger Stan‐Lee Stack with two 1/4Lb Angus beef patties, crispy pork belly, roasted garlic mayo, tomato jam, fried pickles, blue cheese and Gruyere cheese.

If you just stop by for dinner or drinks, or choose to book a romantic getaway, the Palm Beach Marriott Singer Island Beach Resort & Spa is sure to impress. The food at 3800 Ocean is world class and is served with pride. Having the only all suite beachfront property in Palm Beach County with a beautiful stretch of palm fringed sand, the surroundings and the views are hard to beat. The decor is sleek and contemporary, and so is the food.

Palm Beach Marriott Singer Island names Gustavo Calderon Executive Chef

3800 N Ocean Dr.

Singer Island, FL 33404
(561) 340-1795
View Website Here

The award-winning signature restaurant of the AAA Four Diamond rated Palm Beach Marriott Singer Island Resort & Spa, has named Gustavo Calderon as executive chef

Returning to Florida after two years of culinary work abroad, he will direct the execution of the resort’s culinary needs under the expertise of assistant general manager and former executive chef Larry LaValley.

Calderon and LaValley previously worked together at the acclaimed Mark’s South Beach and The Regent Bal Harbor, where Calderon honed his skills in South Florida cuisine under James Beard award winning Chef Mark Militello and other well-respected area chefs.

With more than 10 years of professional experience, Calderon most recently served as executive sous chef at The Ritz-Carlton Bahrain. There, he assisted the executive chef with the supervision of the hotel’s culinary division, which consisted of nine restaurants and 23 villas, while overseeing the hotel’s banquet operations. He successfully led a kitchen of 110 cooks and 24 sous-chefs. Calderon spent four years with Ritz-Carlton in Cancun, Naples (Florida) and Bahrain before accepting his new position at Palm Beach Marriott Singer Island.

Calderon’s career began in Saltillo, Mexico, where his grandmother owned a small family restaurant and where he became immersed in authentic Mexican cuisine. He received his bachelor’s degree in hotel management from the Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education in Mexico. Calderon furthered his education with a degree in culinary arts from the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, New York, where he was exposed to fine dining during an internship at Le Bernardin under the legendary Chef Eric Ripert.

3800 Ocean offers an unforgettable oceanfront dining experience. One of the premier restaurants near Palm Beach Gardens, they serve the collective memories and cultures of a team of chefs who hail from regions rich in culinary tradition. The menus are meant to inspire you with a selection that ranges from yellowfin tuna crudo to Korean bbq boneless short rib.

Rising 21 stories above a beautiful stretch of palm fringed sand, Palm Beach Marriott Singer Island Beach Resort & Spa is the only all-suite beachfront property in Palm Beach County. Each of its 193 suites offers spacious and stylish condo style living in surroundings that are equally ideal for family vacations, romantic getaways and business travel. The decor is sleek and contemporary, with modern furnishings and a palette that evokes the sand, sea and sky.

For additional information on Palm Beach Marriott Singer Island and its dining offerings, please visit www.palmbeachmarriottresort.com or call 561-340-1700.

You can also connect online via Facebook and Twitter.

Whisper Creek Farm: The Kitchen

4040 Central Florida Pkwy
Orlando, FL 32837
(407) 206-2300

View Website Here

Say hello to the all new restaurant and brewery at JW Marriott...

Whisper Creek Farm: The Kitchen.

As the name implies, this new restaurant is focused on getting the most out of the resort’s on-site farm, and really amplifying the farm to fork dining scene in Orlando. If the food is not enough to impress you, they do have a pretty magnificent nano brewery on site as well.

The Ritz-Carlton and JW Marriott Orlando,Grande Lakes continues to set the bar high for the farm-to-fork experience in Orlando, which is quickly becoming a top culinary destination. The Kitchen at JW Marriott Orlando Features the inaugural batch of beer from The Brewery at Grande Lakes, an in-house first-of-its-kind nano-brewery producing house-made brews on tap and served throughout the resort.

The Kitchen showcases a rustic yet polished design and is intended to have the vibe of eating in your family’s kitchen, with a variety of communal, high-top, sofa, outdoor, and bar seating with rich woods, steel blues, and leather accents throughout. Menu items at The Kitchen include everything from snacks to small plates and sandwiches, charcuterie & cheese boards, and flatbreads that will feature seasonal ingredients from the 7,000-square-foot on-site garden at Whisper Creek Farm.

The Kitchen’s sausages and charcuterie, prepared by the JW Marriott butcher, pair perfectly with The Brewery’s hops-laden creations. Signature menu items prepared in the restaurant’s open-air display kitchen includes fresh pickled vegetables, hop-salted house pretzels served with “Surplus” Ale cheese fondue, and a smoked ham sandwich with a farm fried egg. In addition to showcasing The Brewery’s seasonal brews, The Kitchen’s six taps will rotate between five seasonal selections from The Brewery, and the always-available Surplus Honey Citrus Ale which is Grande Lakes’ flagship beer.

JW Marriott Grande Lakes and Whisper Creek Farm: The Brewery are the first Marriott property to launch a nano-brewery, and as such, they have brought in a local Cicerone certified brew master to lead The Brewery. The Brewery will produce 28 gallons of beer weekly including five styles of beer created each season. The current lineup will feature a Dark, Wheat/Light, Amber, IPA and a Special Brew (a seasonal made from the freshest farm ingredients). Signature Special Brew varieties will include the Maple Bacon Stout, Soup of the Day IPA, and Ghost Pepper Wheat.

To complement The Brewery launch, Grande Lakes Orlando is collaborating with nearby Florida Beer Company. The Cape Canaveral-based brewery is helping to develop The Kitchen's flagship beer named Surplus, a signature Floridian honey citrus ale that is to be distributed throughout the resort’s outlets and available year round (naturally infused with Grande Lakes honey sourced from the resort's-property apiaries).

The launch of the on-property brewery furthers the resort’s ever-expanding commitment to sustainable cuisine, which started more than ten years ago with Primo Garden providing fresh produce and herbs for award-winning Chef Melissa Kelly's Primo restaurant at JW Marriott Orlando. Since then Grande Lakes has launched several apiaries, baked all its bread in house (by a 30-strong pastry team), welcomed 30 chickens to a Whisper Creek Farm coop, and opened Highball & Harvest at The Ritz-Carlton Orlando in September 2014, featuring Southern-inspired cuisine with ingredients from Whisper Creek Farm.

You should already know by now, that whenever the Ritz Carlton and JW Marriott Orlando decide to launch a new culinary adventure, it's always a top notch affair, and The Kitchen is no exception. I was invited to a media preview and got to sample some of the food and craft beers on tap. Everything was exceptional, of course.

We started with a serving of Chive Biscuits with Pork Butter and Apple Moonshine Jam. The butter was savory with a slight pork flavor and the jam was sweet and tart all at once.

The Kale Pesto Flatbread is topped with eggplant, balsamic onions and arugula, all from Whisper Creek Farm. We enjoyed these dishes with a Farmhouse Brown Ale.

Nothing says farm to fork more than an outstanding salad, and the Whisper Creek Farm Harvest Salad really delivered. Made with fresh picked vegetables, pickled vegetables and a citrus ricotta cheese, this salad paired perfectly with a WCF Lemon Tea Ale.

Our first main dish we sampled was the Seared Grouper with Anson Mills grits. This was served in a savory broth made from ham hocks, topped with leeks and paired with Surplus Pale Ale.

Next Up, we had the Whisper Creek Smoked Ham and Farm Fried Egg sandwich served on house-made Whisper Creek Farm honey pecan roll. This sandwich was inspired in part by a popular ham sandwich on the original 1927 Marriott Hot Shoppe Menu and it was delicious. The Lemon Grass Amber Wheat Ale that accompanied this sandwich was light and had a crisp finish.

The Surplus Kumquat Gelato was a tasty treat to end our meal, and it paired wonderfully with the Paradise Orange Wheat.

In addition to brewing signature beer for The Kitchen, The Brewery also operates as a highly unique back-of-house Chef’s Table for intimate evenings and group events.

The Kitchen’s small plates are carefully planned by the JW Marriott culinary team and brought to life by Chef de Partie Jason Shapiro who joined Grande Lakes Orlando in 2009, and since then has been involved in the resort’s farm-to-fork efforts including the creation of Whisper Creek Farm.

Located just off the main JW Marriott lobby, The Kitchen seats 100 indoors and 50 on the outdoor terrace. The restaurant is open from 5 p.m.to 11 p.m., with the bar open until midnight. The space can also be utilized as a brand-new social meeting space, bookable for group functions during the day.

Grande Lakes Orlando is a 500-acre resort with a luxury 582-room Ritz-Carlton and a deluxe 1,000-room JW Marriott hotel situated at the headwaters of the Florida Everglades. Orlando’s luxury leader provides an authentic, local experience from its farm-to-fork dining offerings to its Grande Lakes Adventures Experiences, which include kayaking, eco-tours on Shingle Creek, and a fishing school.

Whisper Creek Farm: The Kitchen on Urbanspoon

Primo by Melissa Kelly

JW Marriott

Orlando Grande Lakes

4040 Central Florida Parkway

Orlando FL 32837

407-393-4444

View Website Here

Primo by Melissa Kelly is another one of Orlando's great hotel restaurants. The Primo brand and name may sound familiar, because the Orlando Grande Lakes location is the second one of three locations. Chef Kelly's first restaurant in Rockland Maine, is a world class and critically acclaimed restaurant that is set in a 19th century Victorian style house.

The idea of Primo is a "home-grown" concept that emphasizes the freshest local ingredients to create imaginative and dazzling recipes that are based on contemporary Italian cuisine. Chef Kelly grew up on Long Island, and her earliest cooking lessons took place in her Italian grandmother's kitchen. In fact, she still favors Mediterranean accented foods.

Chef Kelly attended the Culinary Institute of America, Hyde Park, New York and graduated first in her class. Her post-graduate education took place in some of the top restaurant kitchens in the country with a resume that includes the posh Greenbrier Hotel, West Virginia, Bluebeards Castle, St. Thomas USVI and An American Place in New York.

Continuing to broaden her culinary skills,Chef Kelly moved west to work with Reed Heron of restaurant Lulu and the legendary Alice Waters of Chez Panisse. She is also the 2013 and 1999 James Beard Foundation's Best Chef: Northeast. She was also nominated in 1998.

In 2003 Chef Kelly partnered with JW Marriott to open a second Primo at Grande Lakes Orlando, and a third location followed in 2005 at JW Marriot Starr Pass Resort in Tucson, Arizona. Primo is a licensed agreement between JW Marriott, Chef Melissa Kelly and Price Kushner with the help of Mariano Vegel who is the Chef de Cuisine at Primo Orlando.

Primo by Chef Melissa Kelly features Italian flavors using ingredients cultivated from the resort’s on-site Organic Garden. The “home-grown” Primo concept pioneered farm-to-fork dining in Orlando upon opening in 2003.

The robust flavors that guests will experience are produced through classical cooking and preparation methods with strong inspiration from cuisines off the coastal regions of Italy, France and Spain. Primo cuisine features ingredients cultivated from the resort’s on-site Primo Organic Garden as well as the resort’s 7,000-square-foot garden at Whisper Creek Farm. Other ingredients are sourced from Central Florida’s small organic farms.

The Design and Decor of Primo is a Mediterranean setting, with the earthy colors of wood, stone and copper. There is an ambiance of colors as green, gold, amber, and rust offer an elegant, but casual atmosphere through the soft textured wall coverings, carpeting, window treatments, and fabrics. Special details include Venetian light fixtures, a mosaic entry, and an exhibition kitchen that creates a warm, yet sophisticated dining experience.

Here are a few examples of Chef Kelly's master culinary skills that you will find on display at Primo, Orlando Grande Lakes.