Florida - 4
Take a trip to the beach from Oetker Collection’s The Vineta Palm Beach. The ocean’s only three blocks away but who would pass up a trip in the hotel’s house car, also known as a stylishly-branded open-sided orange minimoke? There are, by the way, also two complimentary city bikes, daffodil yellow with snowdrop-white baskets.
Eating in, or out, at the hotel is another essential experience. In the two months since the hotel opened 1. The President has asserted its nearby Palm Beach airport needs to be renamed President Donald J. Trump International Airport and 2. The Vineta’s charming all-meals restaurant has amassed a loyal following of Palm Beachers (and West Palm Beachers, from across the bridge.
Called after the hotel’s location, at 363 Cocoanut Row (with a nod too, to C. Chanel), Coco’s is a most relaxing, Palm Beach environment, tiled floors and a sizeable courtyard. The dinner menu is two slightly-smaller-than-A4 cards joined together, cream with deep burgundy outlining. The main menu has fish bar, starters, signatures of Hotel de Cap, pastas and sides. There's a smaller menu, ‘dinner at Coco's’, with specials – regulars range from porcini risotto to a 32-ounce bone-in ribeye, Australian Wagyu with truffle butter sauce.
This is a cocktail venue, perhaps a Giovanni's, bubbled up with Mumm Rosé. Girlahead went simple, starting with a Maison Margaux plate holding a crab and avocado cocktail (two halves of avocado filled with jumbo lump crab mash, little dots of horseradish cocktail sauce). Breads were delicious, sourdough, thick slices, and thinnest lavash, and oodles of olive oil. Next came another starter, a classic steak tartare with hand-cut Wagyu, blended with duck egg and completely covered in watercress and shaved pecorino – and a side of Yukon Gold potato purée that was out of this world. To finish? A salted caramel turtle sundae, supporting local sea turtle conservation.
See why this place is so special? Vineta resonates vertically, with history going back a hundred years, and horizontally, with today’s community. There were, for instance, locals going past – visible though a wrought-iron gate – as Girlahead breakfasted outside, in Coco’s terracotta-tiled courtyard, under one of eight umbrellas, green with cream undersides. This menu has all the usuals, plus two unique specials: American Riviera (eggs and ham, plus pancakes) and Coco's Morning Glory (eggs, avocado on toast, and coconut chia parfait). In either case, what a way to go.
