South Florida Sun-Sentinel Palm Beach (Sunday)
MUSIC TO THE MOUTH
A sneak peek at new Hard Rock restaurant options
Big guitar, big appetites, big restaurants. But no big chains or big names in the form of celebrity chefs or owners. When the expanded Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Hollywood formally opens Oct. 24, new restaurants, bars and dining options will abound. More than 1,000 seats are being added to the resort’s dining roster, with a variety of upscale, casual and outdoor eateries. Visitors will likely be wowed by the lavish design — some walls and ceilings curve with the bends of the new guitar tower — and culinary offerings.
Word of advice: Bring plastic or win big at the casino. Although there are a number of casual and more affordable options, prices veer toward the high side, particularly at the fine-dining restaurants, which will serve
dinner only.
Abiaka, a sleek, 160-seat, livefire grill restaurant designed by acclaimed architect David Rockwell in a building apart from the main tower, has picture-window views of the guitar hotel and aqua-blue pools and lagoons. According to a preliminary menu with tentative prices, offerings include hush puppies with blue crab ($9), charcoal roasted oysters with manchego cheese ($17), seared scallops ($28), local fish ($32) and grilled dry-aged rib eye with chimichurri ($69).
Council Oak Steaks & Seafood, the resort’s signature steakhouse that has spent the last two years housed in a ballroom, gets a stunning new 268-seat location with a 2,200-bottle wine wall, dry-age meat locker and white-tablecloth dining room with floor-to-ceiling windows framing a cascading, two-story waterfall. Tentative menu items include beef tartare ($25), caviar ($125-$300 per ounce) colossal crab cocktail ($26), 16-ounce veal chop ($54), sole meuniere with brown butter ($56), prime steak au poivre ($75), a 34-ounce longbone rib eye for 2 ($110) and sides such as duck-fat hash browns ($12) and lobster mac-and-cheese ($18).
Rise, a 24-hour diner and deli, features soaring 28-foot ceilings, dramatic lighting fixtures and a contemporary interior with dark wood tables and natural light streaming into the 260-seat interior. Offerings include a Reuben sandwich ($16), quiche Florentine ($13) and an assortment of egg dishes, bagels with spreads, burgers and salads.
“We’d like to think everything we do has some kind of wow factor,” says chef Alex Becker, creative culinary director for the resort.
Also opening this week: Ci
presso, a 220-seat Italian restaurant with a stone-hearth oven;
Fresh Harvest, a Las Vegas-style buffet restaurant; and a second outpost of Constant Grind, a cafe featuring sandwiches, pastries and gelato.
On the way: a still-unnamed Korean barbecue restaurant that will feature do-it-yourself, livefire cooking and hood vents over most tables. It’s expected to open in November and will be operated by Big Belly Hospitality, the same outfit that runs the resort’s Bol Asian restaurant (which recently expanded and revamped).
“After that, that’s it,” says Justin Wyborn, vice president of food and beverage for the Seminole Hard Rock Hollywood.
This will be a rebirth and renewal for the property, one that the tribe will operate nearly all on its own. Unlike at the Paradise Shops, the razed dining and entertainment complex that last occupied this ground
(2005-2017), this time there will be no chains such as Hooters, Johnny Rockets and Ben & Jerry’s. And there will be no boldface names such as music stars Gloria and Emilio Estefan, who operated an outpost of Bongos Cuban restaurant at the old Hard Rock, or local celebrity chef Steve Martorano, who says he couldn’t agree to terms to bring another Cafe Martorano to the property.
Wyborn says the resort decided to eschew brand names because it meant greater creative and operational control. If a restaurant wants to add a dish or tweak a concept, it will not involve a back-and-forth between various ownership and management groups.
Dining operations will be overseen by Becker and director of culinary Robert Ciborowski, a chef who joined the Hard Rock after a stint with Walt Disney World’s Swan Resort. Becker started as executive chef of Kuro, the upscale Japanese-sushi restaurant that opened at the Hard Rock in 2015 and will remain unchanged in its current location, near the old pool and hotel.
“Those guys together are incredible talents, we wanted to give them the opportunity to create something from the ground up and have that control,” Wyborn says.
Executive chefs at the new restaurants have some impressive resumes, including Abiaka’s Abelardo “Tito” Vargas, who spent the last decade working for Jose Andres’ restaurant group, including at Bazaar at the SLS Hotel in Miami Beach, and Cipresso’s Tram Vu. She spent time at Valentino Cucina in Fort Lauderdale.
Food options — 19 in all including a new “beach bar” by the lagoon and food service at the new poker room — will be scattered around the property, evenly spaced around the older side and the new side.
On the older side: Kuro, the new food court (which opened in August) and the new Fresh Harvest Buffet.
Bol and the Hard Rock Cafe are on the periphery of the casino floor.
Cipresso (pronounced Chihpresso) and the Korean barbecue restaurant will be along the new grand hallway leading from the casino to the new hotel lobby, known as the Oculus, which will also feature the Oculus Bar.
The new Council Oak, Abiaka and Rise are all substantially complete and operational, serving tribal members this past week who took part in a “friends and family” preview. Workers are still furiously rushing to complete Cipresso and the Fresh Harvest for the Oct. 24 opening. Crews have been working round-theclock shifts at the resort. Fresh Harvest, which will feature eight food stations, has sprouted from nothing to nearly complete in under a week.
“It’s been amazing to watch,” Wyborn said as he led a reporter on a tour of the property this week.
Fresh Harvest will offer a Sunday brunch for $38 (excluding tax, tip and drinks) that includes an omelet station, carved meats and a pasta station. The resort’s premium Sunday brunch ($89 per person, excluding tax, tip and drinks) will move to Council Oak in late November, Wyborn says, but for the time being will remain at Kuro.
Becker and other chefs looked like kids in a candy store as they showed off new equipment in sparkling kitchens, including grills that will use cherry wood (Council Oak) and white oak (Abiaka), and high-temperature Josper ovens (Council Oak and Abiaka).
“It’s like Dante’s Inferno back here,” Becker said as he showed off Council Oak’s kitchen.
The live-grill restaurant known as Abiaka (which means “warrior”) — which will feature fresh seafood and locally sourced produce along with global delicacies such as Iberico ham and bolder, spice-rubbed meats — had a late name change. It was originally slated to be called Canoa (the Seminole word for canoe). Instead, the tribe decided to honor Sam Jones, a historic tribal figure and war chief from the 18th and 19th centuries. His tribal name was Abiaka.