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And by dessert time, after sighing over macadamia ice cream made from a recipe perfected decades ago, it’s clear that customers keep filling these baroque rooms nightly for reasons beyond nostalgia or habit. It is still family owned (Bern and Gert’s son), and clearly a passion project. I will absolutely eat there any time I go to Tampa, I may go back to Tampa sooner just to eat there.
A unique culinary experience
The appropriate attire at Bern’s Steak House is business casual to semi-formal. We ask that no t-shirts, tennis shoes, flip-flops, shorts, or torn or faded blue jeans be worn. If any of these items are worn to Bern’s, you may be seated in our lounge area instead of one of the dining rooms.
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Bern’s wine collection and the cuisine it accompanies has earned Bern’s Steak House the Grand Award by Wine Spectator Magazine for 30 straight years. During that stretch, in 1996, Wine Spectator named Bern’s the best steak house in the United States. So, the wine list itself is reason to go, and one of the standout features that elevate Bern’s above its peers, but that’s just one. Waugh was a famed British wine merchant and on one trip, Bern visited him for dinner in his London home.
For Retro Decadence, Bern’s Steak House in Tampa Still Delivers
Bern's Steak House set to close for renovations - Tampa Bay Business Journal - Tampa Bay Business Journal
Bern's Steak House set to close for renovations - Tampa Bay Business Journal.
Posted: Fri, 13 Jan 2023 08:00:00 GMT [source]
All the city’s essential spots for seafood platters, steaks, Cubans, and more. There are a handful of eateries so notable I feel like when I travel to the cities they are in I absolutely have to eat there or it’s a wasted culinary trip. Other major holiday hours vary; please call Bern’s for more information. We recommend making reservations well in advance of your visit and we accept reservations only for the current month and the subsequent two months.
Somehow I managed my glass of 1977 D’Oliveiras Bual Madeira much more successfully. All the ordering may sound tedious, but an elegant, ceremonious rhythm governs the dining rooms. A Delmonico (aka ribeye) afforded the classic marbled pleasure, but I slightly preferred the porterhouse, which includes both filet and New York strip sections. The aging sharpened the meat’s individual qualities; the filet was taut rather than flabby and the strip, while not quite reaching blue-cheese funkiness, expressed fathoms of mineral tang.
The dessert room was added in 1985, featuring 48 private dining booths built into large redwood wine casks. Three pages of desserts and an extra page of coffee options joins a 39 pages of wine and spirits. This includes ice wines, ports, cognacs, cordials and more, all set to pair up with handmade chocolate treats and other desserts of a wide variety. But the heart of the meal starts with USDA Prime steaks, dry-aged at least 45-days (which is extra generous in the industry) and cut in house, something only a handful of the best steakhouses do. But what almost no other top steakhouses do is offer you anything with your steak. These places are typically expensive and very much a la carte.
THE BERN’S FAMILY
Does the food and wine at Bern’s Steak House match the high acclaim? While the expectations were lofty to start, the experience delivered. Bern’s provides a fascinating dining experience including a stroll through history, the process of fine food preparation and rare wine 101.
Bern and Gert Laxer moved from Manhattan to Tampa in the early 1950s, wading into the restaurant business by first running a luncheonette until they bought a place called the Beer Haven in a retail complex in 1956. They started their steakhouse with Bern overseeing the kitchen and Gert running the floor. One by one, the Laxers bought the other businesses around them as they grew their restaurant to a 350-seat behemoth. So much has made Bern’s Steak House a destination and conversation-starter in its almost sixty years in business, but for first-timers the surprise always begins with the building itself.
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While our steak was prepared, we enjoyed the Bern’s Spicy Seared Tuna appetizer, which includes shiitake scallion “firecrackers”, green papaya salad and a spicy mango coulis. This was followed by Bern’s soup trio, including a French Onion soup which had been cooking for over 24 hours, a rich Lobster Bisque and a cool Vichyssoise. Bern’s real beauty — meticulously cooked steaks, debonair service, and, best of all, the deepest restaurant wine cellar in the U.S. — reveals itself soon after you’re ushered to a table in slightly more demure surroundings.
The staff, who train for months before manning the floor, stayed doting and engaged no matter who was drinking what. In addition to the Prime standards, they offer Japanese wagyu and grass fed beef from specialty ranches as well as the now trendy ultra-aged option, 100-days. Besides steak there is lamb, quail, chicken and plenty of seafood. Dessert is a very special thing at Bern's, which also offers an incredible array of dessert wines, ...
It even features sushi– not as a gimmick, but another way to showcase this restaurant’s fine seafood and tenderloin. There is a staggering array of dessert wines, fortified wines and rare whiskies by the glass, with many tasting flight options. And it is like two different superb dining out experiences wrapped into one great meal, and again, something you just cannot do at other top steakhouses. A signature part of what makes Bern’s Bern’s is the dessert course, and some locals come just for it. After dinner, guests are treated to a tour of the kitchen, the wine cellar and an optional table at the Harry Waugh dessert room upstairs.
If your requested date or time is not available, you are welcome to check back periodically either online or by phone, however due to the volume of requests, we do not have a call back/waiting list. TheCoolist recently visited Bern’s Steak House in Tampa, Florida to experience it for ourselves, and to see if this culinary institution can live up to its lofty acclaim. An auto accident forced Bern to retire in 1993 (he died in 2002); Bern and Gert’s son, David, took over the business. David, proving his own entrepreneurial know-how, expanded on the brand by opening a second and more casual restaurant, Sidebern’s, in 1996. It was recently remodeled and renamed Haven, focusing on small plates and a extensive cheese program. And in 2013 he opened the Epicurean hotel — with a cooking classroom and an eclectic American restaurant called Elevage — right across the street from Bern’s.
