Garden Street Restaurant, Fernandina Beach, Florida
A quick note: If you’re not close to northeastern Florida, why read an article on a small restaurant in a town far from where you live? Many reasons, not including the inspiring prose: Opening your eyes to small, bistros near you. Ideas to expand your at-home kitchen repertoires. Reasons to visit Fernandina well beyond the culinary. So jump right in and let your imagination fly! Well, maybe a glass of wine or two, first.
Fernandina Beach, the major city on Amelia Island, has a motto: This Is My Happy Place. Hard to disagree. When warmer weather arrives, so do the tourists, and not just for the fine beaches, but also for the pre-COVID-19 extravaganzas, such as the Concours d’Elegance (May 2021), a fabulous and expansive showing of classic and exotic and unbelievably expensive cars, the nationally known Shrimp Festival, and the Christmas time Charles Dickens Festival. Then there are other lesser affairs, including what I call the wine-shop-around, when businesses on Centre Street are open late and wine flows freely, and art nights, when galleries stay open late.
There are bookstores and restaurants with views of the ocean, so I wasn’t totally surprised to find a breakfast nook on 3rd street a few streets from the port. What did surprise me was that the Garden Street Bistro (GSB) turned out to be a sans pareil breakfast treasure!
Yes, the GSB offers the usual eggs, bacon, toast, and pancakes, if that’s your bent. But, they also showcase breakfasts that are taste-changing events.
My companion and I decided to ignore the usual, to scramble up the tree of adventure and catch a tasty view from a high culinary limb. For me, it was the grits bowl and for my chicken fancying partner, it was Florentine chicken breast with pan-fried potatoes and a small bowl of well seasoned and lightly sautéed Brussels sprouts.
When you enter the GSB, check your prejudgments about breakfast and flavor at the door. The Florentine chicken was well cooked and juicy, smothered with white cheese, wilted fresh spinach, and sautéed fresh tomatoes.
Don’t let me hear you say you don’t like Brussels sprouts until you’ve tasted these. And don’t even whisper, “This ain’t no breakfast,” you chicken biscuit breakfast fanatics!
Best to shy away from the ‘usual,’ and treat ‘monotony’ as a mental disorder, especially when the GSB is nearby and standing ready to broaden your taste buds’ horizons.
But, by now my three faithful readers are whining. “How ‘bout the damn grits bowl??? That’s what I call breakfast!” Well, in the case of the grits bowl at the GSB, you’re right and wrong. Their version is a bow to tradition, like wearing a swimming suit to the pool, but adding a top hat and tails. These grits are lightly cheesy, but with savory sausage gravy pooled in the middle, and decked out with scrambled eggs, bits of cheese and crumbled bacon on top, served in a bowl that could feed two or three, even if they were ravenous.
Ok, I’ve given my trusty three the bare bones, but what matters most is the taste. Rest assured that when it comes to book reviews and recipes and restaurants, I do not write about things I don’t like. I write about things that touch my foolishly romantic and hungry heart.
The owner and chef, Max Gonzales, hits every note, with verve and clarity. Our breakfast was so generously delicious it registered on the culinary Richter scale.
The atmosphere at Garden Street Bistro is quietly calming and the service is superb. Our waitress knew exactly how to carefully serve the dishes and how to be chatty and informative when describing the menu, and how to back off and let us eat with the serenity we enjoy, interrupting only briefly to refill our mugs of steaming coffee.
The Garden Street Bistro is not just for breakfast and we must return to try their burgers and pizzas. Meanwhile, I encourage having a napkin handy while you drool over their web site!
See, didn’t I tell you about giving free rein to your imagination??? I do not often lie and then it’s for the best of reasons. Well, also for self-protection.
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