Verdi's Bistro, Marco Island

Chef Gomez's international twist on regional American cuisine helped to earn his restaurant, Verdis, a TripAdvisor Certificate of Excellence every year since 2010. In the modern bistro's kitchen, he infuses classics with foreign spices to create signature dishes such as nut-crusted grouper with brown butter-rum sauce, rack of New Zealand lamb with port demi-glace, and crispy duck in raspberry-ginger hoisin sauce. These mains are joined by other simple, gourmet dishes such as PEI mussels and littleneck clams. In the cellar and on the wooden wine racks that line the dining room walls are more than 70 bottles of wine. More than 20 of these are available by the glass, and all are designed to pair with the current menu offerings or stand in as finger paints in an emergency. These dusky reds and icy white wines also complement the colors found in Verdi's' design palette, characterized by light earth tones and dark wood trim. One of Wine Spectator's Top 100 wines for 2017, Pahlmeyer (2015) Chardonnay.