Among the improvements, the hotel pumped $25 million into the 20,000-sq.-ft. oceanfront spa and Beach Club with its quartet of pools and $20 million into the building of a marvelous three-story golf and tennis clubhouse and the redesign of Florida's oldest golf course (1897).
More breathtakingly beautiful than ever, The Breakers also has food and drink and skilled serving staffs. They are terrific tributes to the perfectionism of the vice president in charge of food and beverage, Kevin Walters, and executive chef Matthias Radits.
In addition to all the in-house culinary excitement, there's more off campus. Reversing the current emerging trend of quality hotels and resorts bringing in established restaurants, The Breakers' parent company has used its own finely honed talents to open a pair of restaurants, Echo and Fathom, a fair distance from home. Both are easy to recommend with great enthusiasm as are the remarkable rebirths at the hotel:
At The Breakers (561/655-6611)
The Circle
Bright and cheerful breakfast room with floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the ocean, providing the best of Florida's Sunday brunch staging areas. The non-stop carefully policed and replenished groaning buffets grace the Tapestry Bar and are manned by a platoon of chefs in charge of stations featuring omelets, waffles and French toast, pasta, roasts and sautéed veal scaloppine. The seafood array is as eye-popping as it is impeccably fresh, and the dessert pyramid is a glorious entry into pastry paradise. Such prep and presentation does not come cheap. Cost is $61 including tax and compulsory 20% service.
Flagler's Steakhouse
Rebirth in a smashing setting, the new golf and tennis clubhouse overlooking the meticulously manicured golf course with a touch of Scotland in its panorama layout. Much more upper-class country club than a big city steakhouse, but there's no lack of prime cuts and such stunners as a 26-ounce Colossal Prime Rib Chop, 12-ounce filet mignon or steak au poivre, porterhouse and Chateaubriand, $34 to $44, plus shrimp scampi and two pounds of Maine lobster for $55, $8 more if you want it filled with jumbo lump crab. But it also boasts The Best Veal Chop In Town, citrus-roasted hen, Colorado rack of lamb and orchiette pasta with vegetable Bolognese, $18 to $36. And it is open for lunch with a splendid array of salads, sandwiches and burgers, including the half-pound Flagler, $13 to $26. No wonder there's a growing legion of the town's professional and business folk happy to find a power place.
L'Escalier
The stairway in French, opened in January as a stairway to the stars -- of interior design, with antique mirrors, heavily carved mahogany banquettes and chairs and sophisicated table settings with Versace service plates and Riedel crystal. Its 6,500-bottle inventory is ably watched over by sommelier Virginia Philip, who has a portion of the cellar in a corner of the Tapestry Bar. Chef Matthew Sobon creates French cuisine that approaches the platonic. From the fixed price menu, $75 plus $45 for a wine pairing for the four courses, I awarded my own stars for the sautéed soft shell crab, arguably the best I have ever tasted (and I'm a soft shell freak!) and wild striped bass with saffron mussel broth; similarly wild and flavorful Tasmanian salmon; and a Meyer lemon sabayon tart with minted papaya salad and dried pineapple chips for finishers. From the regular menu with eight starters, $10 to $18, and 10 mains, $26 to $40, I was equally impressed with the timbale of minted jumbo lump crabmeat and the roast rack and grilled saddle of lamb with eggplant caviar and mascarpone strudel.
Off-campus Restaurants
Echo
230A Sunrise Ave. 561/802-4222
Opened in February last year in the space where the short-lived and unmourned Aquaterra struggled for survival, Echo features what is boldly proclaimed to be Resounding Asian Cuisine. This downtown bit of Far East fun picks and chooses from the Pacific Rim and sports its own sushi chef and off-season menu that has to be one of the best dining out bargains in town, $70 for two, including a glass of sake, wine or Asian beer and a choice of three appetizers and three entrees plus a trio of Asian-inspired sorbets for dessert with coffee or Asian tea. The Vietnamese spring rolls were the best and most tightly packed I've ever tasted; the satay-similar skewered beef and chicken with a red chile-spiked peanut sauce were splendid; and the crisply battered lemon chicken and overflowing serving of shrimp Pad Thai were in the same category. Open for dinner Tuesday through Sunday.
Fathom
11611 Ellison Wilson Road 561/626-8788
Opened last December in the Medina Temple-like structure on the northeast corner
of the Intracoastal Waterway and PGA Boulevard built originally for Hibiscus, which couldn't make a go of it, this Flagler offshoot proclaims its devotion to Intense Ocean Cuisine and then lives up to the pledge by having seafood purveyors who bring in the freshness from docks and depths for raw bar serving and kitchen mastery by top toque Michael Rosen, who perfected his skills at Walt Disney World's highly regarded Flying Fish Cafe. The 14 appetizers range from $6 for creamy lobster gazpacho and corn-conch chowder to $14 for baked day boat oysters with Reggiano-corn custard or Maine lobster and polenta dumplings. At $8, the World's Greatest Conch Fritters are served with smoked chili tartar sauce, which, if not the greatest are surely among the crunchiest. The 10 seafood entrees range from $19 for homemade penne with shrimp, fish, squid, toasted garlic and torn basil to $27 for a whole catfish or yellowtail snapper, Hong Kong-style served with basmati rice and Szechuan chili vinaigrette and the house version of the classic cioppino, a sure test of the back room's command -- and honesty -- as a dish that demands freshness and skill in cooking times. It passed with flying colors. Dinner is served Tuesday through Sunday, although Flagler Management is considering opening for lunch in the season.
Restaurants Around the State
SOUTHEAST
Miami
Casa Juancho
2436 S.W. 8th St. 305/642-2452
Handsomely designed Spanish sensation with an upfront tapas bar filled with local movers and shakers there to meet and greet or to move on to dinners of excellent Florida lobster, paella or one of the signature fish dishes. Lunch, about $11, and dinner, $10 to $35.
SOUTHWEST/TAMPA BAY
Sarasota
The Lazy Lobster
7602 N. Lockwood Ridge Road 941/351-5515
If you like the Anna Maria Oyster Bar in Bradenton, you'll like owner John Horne's latest achievement, where the Disney-like fun decor is as nautical as the menu, where lobster is the star. Dinner, $13 to $33.
CENTRAL
Altamonte Springs
Maison & Jardin
430 S. Wymore Road 407/862-4410
Handsomely landscaped country manse of great class with formal service to match and a menu with such standbys as filet mignon, rack of lamb, veal chop, seasonal game and an excellent wine cellar. Sunday brunch in season, $25, and dinner, $20 to $32.
NORTHEAST
Gainesville
Mildred's Big City Food
3445 W. University Ave. 352/371-1711
Big city all the way with great luncheon salads and sandwiches and downtown dinners built around rainbow trout with crab and lobster-braised sweet potatoes, pasta provencal, and for the good ol' boys, pan-fried grouper on grits splashed with red-eye. Lunch, $5 to $8, and dinner, $13 to $21.
NORTHWEST
Tallahassee
Georgio's
Carriage Gate, 3425 Thomasville Road 850/893-4161
Chefs Grant Beane and Patrick Molthen are the terrific twosome who produce for owner George Koikos some of the best food in all north Florida, from gumbo and she-crab soup to blue-crab-stuffed gulf snapper, garlic-loaded filet mignon and rack of lamb. Dinner, $15 to $30.