The food at 1826 Restaurant & Lounge is nothing short of gorgeous. Butter-poached lobster sits neatly in a black dish, a colorful string of chanterelles, flowers, greens, and razor clams curving around the bowl's oversized rim. The citrus mosaic lives up to its name, laying clementines, grapefruit, key lime pavlovas, passion fruit, and basil together in a technicolor arrangement.

These artful presentations are hardly surprising, considering that Executive Chef Luke Bergman fine-tuned his skills at The Modern, the restaurant inside New York's Museum of Metropolitan Art. The CIA grad and Trophée Passion gold-medal winner keeps his skills sharp by changing the menu seasonally, looking to local produce and fresh Florida seafood for inspiration.

This homegrown approach carries over to the bar: bartenders use hand-crafted mixers made from garden herbs and spices. Guests would do well to enjoy a post-dinner cocktail upstairs in the lounge, where multiple couches give them a place to people-watch or flirt with palm trees through the floor-to-ceiling windows.