Sponsored Grande Lakes Orlando, the 500-acre luxury resort that is home to the Ritz-Carlton and JW Marriott hotels – and their top-of-the-line restaurants – is celebrating its 20th anniversary with GLO Summer NIghts all season long. Through Labor Day, the resort will feature fireworks every Saturday (Fridays, too, on holiday weekends), so if you’re going out to experience Knife & Spoon’s special four-course menu in celebration of its Michelin star rating, make your reservation for a Saturday to end the evening with a big bang. In addition to the fireworks, the evening will include stilt ..read more

Big Fin Seafood, the elaborate restaurant at Dellagio Town Center on Restaurant Row, has been sold. Philippe Villain, who also owns Russell’s on Lake Ivanhoe and a new brand called Little Fin in the Villages, said he sold Big Fin last week to Estein USA, an investment company located on Apopka Vineland Road in Orlando. In a phone call Tuesday afternoon, a spokesman for Estein said Big Fin will continue to operate the same with the current front- and back-of-house staff in place. Estein also owns and operates the private London House next door at Dellagio. Read More ..read more

Ace Cafe, the downtown Orlando mega bar and restaurant that emphasized loud motorcycles and louder music, announced its closing over the Memorial Day weekend. The restaurant, at 100 W. Livingston St., opened almost exactly six years ago in the former Harry P. Leu building. The Orlando location was based, loosely, on a venue in London that became popular with young people during World War II who would ride their motorbikes to the remote bar to listen to one of the few juke boxes in England. (For my review, in June 2017, I visited both the just-opened Ace Cafe Orlando and the one in London, ne ..read more

I have a family recipe, one my mom cooked regularly when I was growing, that I make from time to time. It’s noodle based and I’ve always just used store-bought dried egg noodles. Then one day I decided to make fresh pasta and I used some in the recipe. And suddenly a mundane dish was a superior one. I’ll never go back to using dried pasta in that recipe again. Vinicius Turci and his wife, Nathalia Kalil, understand that. Fresh pastas are the centerpiece of their College Park restaurant, Turci Pasta. Read More ..read more

The 2023 edition of Wine Quest, the annual wine tasting and auction benefitting Quest, Inc., will be Friday and Saturday, June 2 and 3 from 7 to 10 p.m. each night at Loews Portofino Bay Hotel. Friday is the grand tasting event, a walkabout sampling of wines, hors d’oeuvres and craft spirits plus a silent auction. Saturday is a sit-down, four-course dinner with pairings from Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars. You can do one night or both. The Friday tasting event is $250 per person and the Saturday dinner is $350. You can get both evenings for $500. Or you could choose one of the group-ticket levels ..read more

John Paonessa has had a day. He arrived at work Tuesday morning to find news vans from every local television station in front of Hamburger Mary’s, the restaurant he owns and operates with his husband, Mike Rogier. He’s been fielding calls for requests for interviews from NPR and CNN and other national news organizations. “I never thought this would blow up the way it did,” Paonessa told me. The “this” is the announcement that Paonessa and Rogier, through their business entity HM Florida-Orl, LLC, are suing Ron DeSantis and the State of Florida in federal court claiming that a bill recently ..read more

Pizzeria Valdiano has been sold, but it’s still staying in the Liguori family. Founder Joe Liguori, who also has the growing Hangry Bison brand, has sold the Pizzeria Valdiano business to his sister Angela Liguori and two longtime employees, Michael Fiorino of the Winter Park location and Adrian Zumbado in Lakeland. Asked if he was selling to focus on Hangry Bison, Liguori said: “Yes, that is the primary reason, but it is also for Mike and Adrian, my sister, and the Pizzeria Valdiano brand as well. The timing is right that The Hangry Bison needs my full attention, and Pizzeria Valdiano deser ..read more

In celebration of achieving Michelin stardom for the second year in a row, Knife & Spoon, the upscale steak and seafood restaurant at the Ritz-Carlton Grande Lakes Orlando, is offering a special four-course menu now through June 17. Tyler Kineman, chef de cuisine for John Tesar, the Dallas-based celebrity chef, has put together a table d’hote with each course offering two choices. And there isn’t a clunker among them, with such favorites as hamachi crudo, fresh local oysters, whole fish and prime New York strip steak. (See the full menu below.) There is an optional wine pairing, as well ..read more

Narcoossee’s, the Grand Floridian restaurant that sits apart – physically and experientially – from the more well known Victoria & Albert’s and Citricos in the “main house,” recently reopened after a renovation and menu refresh. Like the other restaurants in the nearly 35-year-old hotel, Narcoossee’s has undergone renovations before – it was originally an oyster bar – but this one changed the physical layout and removed a sunken part of the room so that it is now all on one level. It still takes full advantage of its lagoonfront location and proximity to the Magic Kingdom. And while it i ..read more

Did you know that every time you say the words “Taco Tuesday” you’re violating a trademark? It’s true. The phrase is owned by the Wyoming based chain Taco John’s, which trademarked it 34 years ago. (It was originally Taco Twosday because they sold their already-cheap tacos two-for-one on Tuesdays.) Now everyone says it, because the only thing we like better than tacos is alliteration. (Making a note to see who owns Wine Down Wednesday.) But now Taco Bell has filed a petition with the US Patent and Trademark office to have the trademark rescinded. Bell is not going after John’s for selfish re ..read more