Restaurants in Sarasota

Sarasota Bay Roasting Company's knowledgeable staff curate a gallery of savory sips including house-roasted coffees, loose-leaf teas, and specialty wines. Crafted in small, Ambex roaster batches before customers' eyes, custom bags of joe ($10.99+ for 12 oz.) keep drinkers alert during nights spent balancing checkbooks or days spent mowing bankers’ lawns for lower interest rates. Slather tongues in Costa Rican tarrazu, full-bodied, bold and sans the bitter bite, or let the Mexican high grown's intricate flavors jolt awake snooze-happy central nervous systems. Iced coffee options abound, which utilize a 16 hour cooling process to prevent bitterness. An assortment of organic fair-trade loose-leaf teas ($2.50+/ounce) coat mouths in fruits and florals including blooming-black-peony, blueberry-cheesecake, and banana-dulce-tisane. Sarasota Bay Roasting Company’s cellars house dozens of wine varieties, including specialty vintages ($9.99+). Wine sages stay on hand to help pair customers with fermented soul mates, and a taste testing ensures tongues know a merlot from a cabernet and a wine glass from a cleverly disguised bowl of chili.

A menu of comforting breakfast dishes, brimming sandwiches, and homemade baked sweets fills Broken Egg with a bouquet of warming aromas. Three-egg omelets ($12.99 each), such as the Siesta Key with blue crab and swiss, or the Longboat Key with salmon, cream cheese, and capers, allow patrons to draw out breakfast experiences without listening to Tony the Tiger's long-winded tales. Masters of the griddle forge plate-smothering pancakes from whole-wheat or buttermilk batter that can be dolled up with 13 different toppings including coconut and pecans ($4.99+). The Boar in a Quilt bundles two hearty sausages in a large blueberry pancake ($7.99). During lunch hours, the grouper sandwich's grilled or blackened fillet dons a cloak of house remoulade ($13.99), and in the Dickie V burger, a turkey patty sticks to a strict curfew between onion-bagel halves ($8.29).

True to its name, The Teahouse at Asian Arts offsets its exotic Asian concoctions with a Silk Road-inspired ambience of traditional Asian artwork and décor—right down to the mahjongg you can play at your table while waiting for your food. Your journey to the East begins with two items from the appetizer menu, such as crabmeat dumplings or yodofu, a tofu and vegetables mix that comes with dipping sauce and a clean bill of karma. From there you'll be free to pick your entrees from a massive menu of sandwiches and wraps, specials such as Hannah's wasabi mussels in miso broth, and soups and dumplings, which come in beef, crab, Mothra, and vegetarian variations. End your excursion with two sweet desserts, such as a warm pear crumble or ice-creamy Japanese daifuku mochi. In between bites, The Teahouse at Asian Arts will delicately hose down dirty palates with an Around the World flight of five infused sake shots; seasoned sake-sippers, meanwhile, can order an eight-ounce carafe of their preferred varietal. For added fun, a seasoned chiromancer will give you and your date a mini palm reading that determines your romantic chances, the number of kids you'll have, and exactly how many Shriner cars will be involved in your death tomorrow.

Voocaray Cajun Cuisine and Bar's menu catalogs a bounty of bayou cuisine. An appetizer of gator bites hide under a coating of Kick n' Bayou sauce, ready to pounce on taste buds to properly prepare them for Louisianan flavor ($6.95). The kitchensmiths prepare the whole crawfish entree with Cajun seasonings and sauté the seafood delicacy in white-wine sauce and garlic ($5.95/half-pound, $8.95/pound). The Swamp & Turf burger, 8 ounces of beef, features crawfish tails and spices for a whimsical take on an American classic ($10.95) and the muffaletta unites a bonanza of black forest ham, genoa salami, mortadella, provolone, and homemade olive tapenade ($10.95). Guests can thwart thirst with one of the Louisiana beers on tap while imbibing the jambalaya, a concoction of shrimp, andouille sausage, chicken, the French language, and Cajun spices ($9.95), and a deep-fried beignet ($4.95).

When Gerald Bennett began work as head chef at the InterContinental Hotel in Cleveland, he was accustomed to whipping up dishes for celebrity clientele. But when the royal family of Dubai came to visit and he served them in their opulent suite, he never thought they'd ask him to leave with them as their personal chef. Since returning to the states and stepping into his role as the president of the Private Chef Association, Gerald has worked to bring his gastronomic prowess to the masses through Food Fun Adventure’s classes and tours. He passes along a visible passion for culinary fusion, which shines through in dishes blending French and Thai or American and German influences. Culinary tours take participants to local sushi houses, steak houses, and bistros, each highlighting specialty dishes. When head chefs come out to greet their visitors, they often divulge culinary secrets and answer questions about curfew hours for free-range ingredients while doling out tapas and other small plates. In a more hands-on culinary experience, customers gather in classes and learn to refine dishes based on a chosen theme. Using mostly local and organic ingredients in two kitchen classrooms, chefs show students how to craft delicacies such as scallion waffles with orange-zest chicken and tagine-roasted rack of lamb. In one kitchen, which doubles as an art gallery, knives flick through ingredients, and pots clatter at island stations and small burners. The company’s event center, Heaven, fills with chatter as up to 40 pairs of students filter in. Beneath projectors for screening chef demonstrations and documentaries about the life of a paring knife, separate kitchens equipped with ovens and burners fill with the bustle of creation, which gives way to reverent exhalations as patrons finally sample the fruits of their labor.

Following a move from New York City, Mark Rebhan and his father Henry opened Alpine Steakhouse in 1975, considering it to be the next progression of a family tradition that dates back hundreds of years to the family’s roots in Germany. Today, 35 years after they cut the metaphorical ribbon, Mark and his newly employed son continue to operate the meat market and steak house by hand-cutting filet mignons, frying up free-range chicken, and crafting their own polish kielbasa and spicy Cajun sausage for hungry diners and unarmed nunchuck assassins. The father-son duo sources many of their meats from Karl Ehmer’s esteemed butcher shop, another family-run New York-based business with a long tradition of meticulous culinary care. True to the family roots, Alpine Steakhouse specializes in German dishes such as knockwurst and wiener schnitzel. The restaurant has also racked up accolades for its eccentric specialty, turducken, which caught the eyes and moistened the tongues of Guy Fieri and his crew on Food Network’s Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives. The delicacy is a Russian nesting doll of avian culinary favorites, with a boneless duck stuffed inside a boneless chicken, which is then stuffed inside a boneless turkey, all finished off with sausage-laden cornbread stuffing, spinach stuffing, parmesan, fresh garlic, andouille sausage, roasted bell peppers, and a silent prayer that someone, someday, will invent an edible kitchen sink. The behemoth bird takes 16 hours to cook, weighs in around 22 pounds, and has only been sighted in the wild twice.