Otto’s High Dive in Orlando

The Michelin Guide has announced the addition of eight new restaurants to its Bib Gourmand designation ahead of next week’s awards announcement in Miami.

Added to the Florida guide’s Bib Gourmand list are Isan Zaap, Otto’s High Dive and Taste of Chengdu in Orlando and Norigami in Winter Garden. Also joining the list are Gorkhali Kitchen and Psomi in Tampa and Rosie’s and Jaguar Sun in Miami. The Florida edition of the estimable guidebook includes restaurants in Miami, Tampa and Orlando areas.

Bib Gourmand restaurants, according to Michelin, are those that offer good food at a good price. “The restaurants joining the Bib Gourmand selection prove that foodies can find flavorful international feasts right in their own backyard – in Miami, Orlando or Tampa,” said Gwendal Poullennec, International Director of the Michelin Guides.

The May 11 ceremony in Miami will announce the winners of the coveted Michelin stars as well as those restaurants not quite worthy of stars but still recommended.

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May 14 is Mother’s Day so May 14 will be the busiest brunch day of the year.

What mother doesn’t like to be treated to brunch? (It’s a rhetorical question; no need to reply.) There are bunches of brunches to choose from this year and you’ll find some select ones on our Holiday Dining pages.

You’ll want to pay especial attention to the offerings at Tap Room at Dubsdread, a perennial holiday brunch spot. And The Wilson at the Meliá Orlando Hotel Celebration, where brunch comes with unlimited beer, wine, prosecco or mimosas for mom, assuming that your mom is over 21.

At STK at Disney Springs, you can find the traditional brunch (and I’ll have more about STK’s brunch soon), but they’re also offering an afternoon tea, which comes with prosecco, Moêt Brut or Veuve Cliquot Rosé, which is my cup of tea, as it were.

Be sure to make your reservations as early as possible, and remember that if your plans change – like your mother breaks down and tells you she’s never liked brunch – call the restaurant to tell them your plans have changed and that you may possibly be adopted.

See all the listings here

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If you want to experience the cuisines of the world, you need to go to the world. Art In Voyage, the travel company with offices in Orlando and Cape Town, is offering an extraordinary opportunity to do just that.

It’s called the Magellan Odyssey, and in March 2024 it will take 48 guests on an around-the-world journey – 10 countries on five continents in 28 days.

Travel will be aboard a private, all-business-class jet with lie-flat seats, with stops in Peru, Chile, Tanzania, Jordan, France, Finland, Bhutan, Thailand, New Zealand and Bora Bora. Along the way you may go on safari, take a jungle boat ride, dine in a Michelin-starred restaurant, see the Northern Lights, and take a train through a Peruvian valley. The trip is designed so that individuals can customize the experience at each of the stops.

The trip was curated by AIV’s founder and CEO, Mikael Audebert. “Magellan Odyssey was designed with the intent to escape the usual destinations by focusing on exclusive experiences, and avoiding crowded cities and overdone areas,” said Audebert. “We put a great deal of care into identifying and studying destinations guests might not visit on their own—because they are remote or hard to reach, or because other tour companies don’t offer the same level of luxury access.”

I know many of you have been on an AIV journey – I’ve hosted some myself – so you know that Audebert makes certain everything is first rate. This one will be truly over the top. It’s definitely a dream vacation for those who dream really big.

See more details at Art In Voyage for more on the Magellan Odyssey. And take a look at the video below.

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The International Vegan Food Festival is Saturday, April 29, from 3 to 8 p.m. on downtown Orlando’s Wall Street. The event is free to attend and will have plant-based foods for purchase from more than 50 vendors. (Some of the vendors will be selling other things besides food so be sure to check before you bite.) The International Vegan Food Festival is sponsored by Orlando Bearded Vegan, which doesn’t narrow it down much.

Speaking of food festivals, I’ve learned that the Epcot International Food & Wine Festival, which will run from July 27 through November 18, will again be missing the wine tastings, dinners and other events, including the popular Party for the Senses, that were put on hold during the pandemic. But a Disney World spokeswoman says that “the teams are evaluating for the future.”

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Daytona Grande

Mike Trudnak, who earlier this month left Aurora at the Celeste, the restaurant he opened in 2020, has reemerged in Daytona Beach at the Daytona Grande. He started his new job as the executive chef for the oceanfront resort on Thursday. On Monday, his former executive sous chef and sous chef from Aurora will join him on the coast.

“We’re trying to bring that Aurora magic over here,” Trudnak said in a phone conversation on Wednesday.

Not that it’s going to be Aurora at the Grande. In fact, Trudnak hasn’t even decided yet what he’s going do with the menu for the property’s main restaurant, though he said he expects the cuisine will reflect the diversity of his kitchen staff.

The hotel, which has been open a year and a half, is the only hotel with walkup access from the beach, according to Trudnak.

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Our friends at Southeast Steel Appliance Warehouse in downtown Orlando are introducing a new line of products called LG Studio. I don’t know where they’re going to fit them all because the warehouse is already chockfull of manner of stoves, refrigerators, dishwashers and washing machines. (Do people still call them washing machines or is that an old-timey term?)

Southeast Steel has been carrying LG products for years, and most recently brought in the LG SKS, an upscale line of kitchen appliances. (SKS stands for Signature Kitchen Suite.)

LG Studio is also an upscale line, but with appliances for both kitchen and laundry. And the really attractive thing – literally, if you’re design minded – is that all LG Studio appliances are meant to match. So if you want a uniform look in your kitchen you can achieve that by shopping the LG Studio line.

If you’d like to get an idea of what they look like, stop in this Saturday, April 29, from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Southeast Steel will have a display set up and an LG representative will be on hand to answer questions about the Studio line. Also, not incidentally, Southeast Steel is featuring a rebate on LG Studio appliances.

I plan on stopping by because I’ve always wanted to tell my friends I have an upscale washing machine.

Southeast Steel Appliance Warehouse is at 63 W. Amelia Street, Orlando (map).

Jason Wolfe – Photo via Tornatore’s Facebook page.

Jason Wolfe, who became the executive chef at Tornatore’s Ristorante nearly three and a half years ago, is leaving the popular College Park restaurant. His final day in the kitchen is Saturday, April 22.

In a text message Friday, Wolfe wrote, “I have many opportunities lining up [but I’m] just not sure the direction I’m going to go just yet.” He said he’s looking for a position that will allow him to spend more time with his 19-month-old son. He said that he is considering starting a private-chef business but realizes that in the meantime he will have to “keep the lights on and food on the table while I build it. Going to take this week to decide which direction to go in.”

Denny Tornatore texted that he will step back into the role of executive chef. “I will be taking over the kitchen like I did the first 11 years here,” he wrote. He added that he and Wolfe are “best friends and I wish him the best.”

“I have 30 years experience cooking Italian food so I will bring it back to the classics that we built our restaurant on,” Tornatore said. “I am actually excited to get back in there.”

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Walt Disney World culinears have have announced the dates for the 2023 Epcot International Food & Wine Festival, and while for the past several years the fest has been getting longer, this year it will be shorter.

Mind you, it will still run a pretty long while, from July 27 through November 18. Last year it started on July 14 and ended Nov. 19, but not everything opened right away; certain marketplaces – the food stands set up throughout the theme park – didn’t open until mid August.

Still waiting on word about whether the festival will return to its prepandemic schedule of events. Last year we were still missing winemaker-hosted tastings, special luncheons and wine dinners, and the splashy Party for the Senses, which had previously run most Saturday nights during the event’s run.

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This is probably more attention than Bud Light deserves.

But the Anheuser-Busch InBev brand has been at the center of a brewhaha that has prompted a boycott and a counter buycott. And locally, a restaurant and bar has decided to take a stand in a rather public and pinheaded way.

The restaurant, Grills Seafood, which has locations in Cape Canaveral, Melbourne and on North Orange Blossom Trail in Orlando, removed Bud Light from its list of beers and, according to an article in The Space Coast Rocket, destroyed what it had in stock with a manager allegedly telling staff, “We don’t serve faggot beer.”

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Mike Trudnak, executive chef at Aurora at the Celeste, is parting ways with the restaurant. His last day is Friday, April 14. Trudnak opened the restaurant along with the hotel, the only one on UCF’s campus, two and a half years ago in the fall of 2020. In a post on Facebook, Trudnak announced he was leaving and “will be taking on a bigger challenge and opportunity.” Whose challenge and what opportunity he did not say. Calls to his office number were not immediately returned.

Pigzza, the oddly named and much anticipated pizza project from Pig Floyd’s Urban Barbakoa, will open on Tuesday, April 18, in a freshly renovated former gas station and buy here/pay here auto dealer facility. It looks nicer now.

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