There is no better feeling sometimes, than sitting in a restaurant or bar, and overlook one of the world's great oceans. Hundreds, perhaps even thousands, of miles between where you are sitting and that next piece of land, continent even. The Lido Restaurant in Bermuda offers just that. The Lido Restaurant is situated at the Elbow Beach Club Resort, which is operated by Mandarin Oriental and is one of Bermuda's finest resorts, directly overlooking the Atlantic. There are several restaurants at the resort in fact, but Lido offers that fine dining experience along with another restaurant at the resort. The Lido Restaurant looks straight over the ocean, and diners
seated at the windows can look down over the pink sands of Elbow Beach.
The Lido, and indeed another of the resort's restaurants have an excellent reputation and have won many awards over the years.
The driveway into the property itself is very impressive, with a huge tree lined driveway from the main road, especially attractive at this time of year with its impressive lighting. On arrival at the Lido Restaurant area, you will find that there is plenty of seating, both outdoors at the Marina Terrace, and inside in the adjoining nightclub (which obviously doesn't conflict with dinner times, as it felt like a bar.). It being winter and dark quite early at the moment, we enjoyed our pre dinner drinks in the nightclub area, in a big cosy booth that would no doubt seat double our family group of four, later on in the evening.
Although it was the Friday before Christmas the large restaurant was not full to capacity and staff were friendly and attentive. We had a great table overlooking the beach and we were given time to peruse our menus.
The cuisine is described as "Seafood Specialities with a Mediterranean Touch" and given its location this is hardly surprising although they certainly have a modern and innovative twist. There were other options for diners who do not care for fish/seafood dishes, although I think it would be fair to say their choices would be much more restricted.
I decided to have the trio of antipastini starter, and while I imagine these will vary, this consisted of wonderfully presented dishes, delicately dressed with sauces and the selection includes crab cakes, spring rolls, ravioli and duck confit croquette. It was beautifully presented and absolutely delicious. My hubby elected for a curried shrimp dish, and the presentation was absolutely fantastic (as was the taste). The dish itself was white ceramic and probably around 12" long by about 2" wide, and if I could have done it discreetly I would have taken a picture! The specials of the day was also quite a lengthy list, and top marks to our server for remembering it all, which is more than any of us could have done.
Other starter options included snails, salmon, Foie Gras, which my sister had, and the dish of the island, the Bermudian Fish Chowder. Most starters are about the $16 price bracket although the soups and salads were a little less.
There is plenty of tempting fish dishes for the main course, including lobster for those who enjoy that, and a catch of the day dish. My husband opted for the Sea Bass choice while both my sister and I decided on the veal escallops instead. These were very tasty, particularly so as I had not had one for ages, and served with vegetables. One of the restaurants regular specials is a trio of pasta dishes, which must be for a minimum of two people and the dishes change each day. A typical main course would be around $30 although the catch of the day and lobster dishes would be much more expensive.
I was the good one and didn't opt for the puddings although the rest did. Hubby enjoyed a raspberry crème brulee while my brother in law went for the chocolate option and my sister sampled a soufflé. I enjoyed my liquor coffee tipple, which is the calypso, which is better than any pudding in my opinion, while the rest of the table enjoyed regular coffees.
Service was attentive but certainly not intrusive, and as the restaurant was fairly quiet, the diners were spaced out quite well, which gave a feeling of privacy and is obviously much nicer than everyone being hunched up one end of the restaurant. Our wine waiter was also observant and topped us up regularly as we sampled our way through 3-4 bottles of Sancerre Domaine Du Rochoy, which was a change for us from the usual Marlborough version of the Sauvignon grape. The chef also made an appearance and visited tables individually towards the end of the experience, and again it is always nice to chat with a professional and dedicated chef, and of the calibre you would expect here.
The menu certainly isn't the cheapest place to dine on the island, and in fact is probably among one of the most expensive. We were around $120 a head all in, including the 15% service charge, but we did enjoy some great food and fine wines and with a strong pound which was almost $2 to the £1 at the time of our visit, makes it an enjoyable experience at a relatively affordable price.
Dress code is Smart/Smart Casual and diners also receive free entry into the nightclub later on if they wish - the place to be seen in Bermuda! Recommended 9/10
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Advantages: Easy to reach, lush, lots to do, relaxing pace, great food Disadvantages: Can be a little expensive, although the strong pound offsets that currently...
helencbradshaw 28.12.2006 (29.12.2006)
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