Romance blooms at The Grand Taverne, an upscale restaurant nestled inside the The Grand Central Hotel & Spa's restored Victorian-era building, where head chef David Gilderson sprinkles a from-scratch smorgasbord of steak and seafood with herbs freshly plucked from his balcony garden. Chef David artfully arranges the menu's pan-seared scallops, completing his culinary replica of Starry Night with strokes of lobster butter sauce and potato risotto ($26). A slab of grilled beef steeps in béarnaise sauce beside a mound of gratin dauphinois potatoes ($29, add crabmeat for $7), and a sesame-encrusted tuna carpaccio relaxes beneath gingered napa slaw and grapefruit-wasabi sauce ($13). Unravel onions stuffed with herbed goat cheese, cradled in a balmy bed of house-made pasta and sautéed spinach, draped with a blanket of roasted tomato coulis ($17), and sung to sleep by a legion of tiny grandmothers.
