AC Sky Bar is not a restaurant. That should be clear from the name, otherwise it might be AC Sky Cafe or AC Sky Bistro, which would make it sound more like an in-flight food option. A few tapas selections and a burger or two.

I must say I like the look and feel of Bulla Gastrobar very much. The restaurant, in the newly opened but curiously named Lakeside Crossing development, can be at once bustlingly busy and intimately comfortable.
I wish I could also say that the kitchen was turning out food to match the decor. Unfortunately it’s not, at least not with the consistency that should be in place after nearly two months open, and not for what is the third location for an established South Florida restaurant company.

Despite the Four Seasons Resort location, this signature restaurant is not white-glove elegant, another indication that type of fine dining is fading. But the food here is excellent, and the surroundings are stylishly artistic. Out on the balcony you you watch fireworks every night.

Columbia is the oldest restaurant in Florida, but not this location. The original in Tampa’s Ybor City has been around since 1903 (although, until recently, it was thought it was established in 1905). The Celebration restaurant has had its high and low moments in the past 15 years; lately it has been doing better. The menu is not as authentically Spanish as they would like you to believe. It’s not even all that Cuban. But the creative stylings at least get the spicing right. Try the red snapper Alicante or the scallops Casimiro. Desserts are less satisfying.

The Disney Springs location of this Washington based chain is the company’s largest. It’s big and so is the price tag, but the quality is inarguable.

Santiago’s Bodega has opened in the space formerly occupied by Logan’s Bistro on Virginia Drive in Orlando. Actually the place takes more than the Logan’s space. It has incorporated the storefront next door and has produced a new brick porch/patio in front. For all its newness, Santiago’s has a well-worn look that makes it immediately likable and comfortable.

This is a tapas restaurant. Although Santiago’s is new in Orlando, this is a second location for a restaurant in Key West. So the concept isn’t new and neither is the menu. Still, the restaurant was struggling the night I visited as hordes of curious diners descended on the place and overwhelmed the staff.

Mistakes were made, most of them accountable to the vagaries of a new operation, new location and a staff unfamiliar and shell-shocked. Those things can be ironed out.

My main complaint was the cost. My check came to over $68 for five tapas and one glass of wine. (We had two other glasses of wine but the server said they were on the house because of some problems at the beginning of the meal; otherwise the check would have been over $90.) That isn’t a tremendous amount of money for a night out, but the cost-to-quality-to-quantity ratio is way out of whack.

Update: I stopped back in to revisit Santiago’s Bodega recently and had a much more enjoyable experience than when I first reviewed it shortly after it opened last summer. The staff all seemed more comfortable — and were certainly more welcoming and appreciative — and the size of the tapas were more agreeable, too. It still isn’t the cheapest meal in town, but the quality is certainly apparent.

An Altamonte version of the popular Mills 50 restaurant, except bigger and with better parking!

Amid the myriad chains and franchises that are populating the area around the Orlando Eye attraction, an independent restaurant is a welcome find. And that it offers very good food and a fun dining experience makes it all the better.

Tapa Toro comes to us from Vassilis and Katerina Coumbaros, who also own Taverna Opa at nearby Pointe Orlando, one of my favorite Tourist World recommendations. Opa, of course, is the Greek restaurant where every evening is a raucous party of napkins tossed in the air to buoyant balalaika music and belly dancing atop the tables.

At Tapa Toro the theme is Spanish and the music flamenco, and here the napkins stay in the lap and the clacking heels of the dancers punish only the floor.

Disney’s newest top-tier restaurant on the top floor of the Gran Destino Tower at Coronado Springs. It’s a Spanish-inspired menu with a special emphasis on seafood.