Word comes that Peter Rosinola Jr. (pictured above), the owner operator of Palma Maria in Casselberry, has died. A Jan. 4 post on the restaurant’s Facebook page said:

It is with heartfelt sadness that we inform you that our beloved brother, Peter Rosinola Jr., has passed away. We greatly appreciate your sympathies and condolences as our family deals with this great loss. We will be closed for the time being.
Thank you,
The Rosinola Family

Palma Maria is one of the area’s older restaurants and I’d been yearning to revisit for the past year to review it as an Orlando Classic. It was a perennial Critic’s Choice in the Orlando Sentinel’s Foodie Awards when it had a Best Early Bird Dinner category. (remember early bird dinners?). It was, as you can gather from the note above, a family operation and it showed in the service and food quality. One of its more endearing features was that it baked its own bread and each table was given a whole loaf at the beginning of the meal, and if there was any left over the server would bag it up to be taken home.

Condolences to the Rosinolas.

•        Caribe Royale has a new executive chef. David Hackett, who most recently was the executive chef at the Four Diamond Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center in Maryland, has joined the Disney-area resort whose restaurants include the estimable Venetian Chop House. Hackett, who has also worked at properties owned by Marriott, Kessler, Starwood, Biltmore and Walt Disney World – he’s obviously a hotel man – has one multiple culinary awards, including the Brillat-Savarin Medaille de Merite. You know an award is prestigious when you can’t pronounce it.

Estefan Kitchen, the new Cuban restaurant at the Promenade at Sunset Place, has instituted a drag-themed brunch. This is not to be confused with the car shows that take place at the Prom – this is a different kind of drag. Every Sunday from now on, the Diva’s Dining Performance will take the stage from noon to 3 p.m. to entertain diners as they feast on such things as open-faced Cuban egg sandwiches, omelets, French toast, steak & eggs, and tres leches. Doesn’t sound like a drag at all. Reservations at the restaurant’s website.

Well, that was a year.

The first two and a half months of 2020 were normal enough with the usual openings, closings and restaurant reviews – both positive and not-so. We began the year with news that K Restaurant and Wine Bar was closing because of the owner’s health, and a few days later word came that Urbain 40, the American cafe with a French name at Dellagio Plaza, had closed abruptly.

Review highlights included Spice Indian Grill; Hungry Pants, the meatless-or-not eatery in Sodo; Dexter’s New Standard, the relo of Dexter’s of Winter Park; El Vic’s Kitchen in College Park; a revisit to Stefano’s Trattoria; Elize, the very good Netherlands restaurant that took over the Rusty Spoon space; and Mia’s Italian Kitchen, an excellent Italian trattoria that was worth braving International Drive for.

I recall dining at Mia’s in early March. Word was already circulating that a novel coronavirus was going around. I remember begin careful not to shake hands with anyone. But I shared dishes with my dining companion and no one had come up with the term social distancing yet.

Then a couple of weeks later all hell broke loose.

I’d like to thank the people who make Scott Joseph’s Orlando Restaurant Guide possible.