Bern’s Steak Home. For anybody who has lived within the Tampa Bay space for any time frame, the identify is nearly legendary. For a lot of of those that have seen the modifications it in the end needed to undergo for the reason that late Bern Laxer (he handed away in 2002) and his spouse Gert (who adopted her husband in 2020) first opened Bern’s in 1956 (together with now owned and is being run by Bern and Gert’’s son David), Bern’s remains to be the go-to steak home — regardless of the presence of chains like Fleming’s, Eddie V’s, Charley’s, Capital Grille and Ocean Prime — as a lot for the expertise as for the meals itself.
Whereas the restaurant does accommodate a various small variety of walk-ins for the dinner and lounge areas, and seating on the bar is “first come, first served,” reservations are extremely inspired for dinner tables within the varied principal eating rooms, and that reservation remains to be among the many hardest to e-book in Tampa. They usually need to be made as much as 60 days upfront to make sure a desk on the evening you need.
So, after correspondent Joel Provenzano and his spouse Jessica informed me that their most up-to-date Bern’s expertise didn’t reside as much as the steak home’s legendary popularity — and realizing that I had by no means taken Jannah there within the ten years we’ve been collectively — I made a decision to take us all out to S. Howard Ave. to present this venerable establishment one other attempt.
On Changing into A Legend
For many years, Bern’s Steak Home has stood as a landmark in Tampa’s culinary scene, attracting native elite and the who’s-who of American meals royalty, e.g., cooks like Emeril Lagasse, plus sports activities and leisure celebrities and even precise visiting royalty.
Since opening practically 60 years in the past, it has grow to be a go-to vacation spot for particular events, high-end eating and one of the in depth wine lists in your entire world, plus a separate dessert room practically as well-known because the restaurant itself. In different phrases, it will be nearly unattainable to copy what the Laxer household has created and nurtured for generations of Tampa Bay residents and guests.
The restaurant was born from very humble beginnings, created by Bern and Gert, with one eating room in a small strip buying heart (which at the moment is the steak home’s Bordeaux eating room), Bern’s ultimately grew to eight eating rooms, an enormous wine cellar that first-time guests simply need to tour, and the fabled second-story Harry Waugh dessert room (inbuilt 1985 and named for the famend English wine service provider who supplied the redwood wine casks for the dessert room’s 48 personal suites) — taking on the entire adjoining strip of companies and turning into the world-famous steak home it’s at the moment.
A Grand Entrance
Pulling into Bern’s below its basic porte-cochère, visitors are greeted by an environment friendly valet service — a chic first contact. Strolling within the door, you’re transported into a distinct period, and a sense of classic class envelops you, set by the dim lighting and daring colours, textures and luxurious paintings. It’s instantly clear that is going to be greater than only a dinner — it’s meant to be a novel expertise.
As soon as seated within the Rhône eating room, I ordered a 2004 Silverado Sangiovese — a Napa Valley model of one in all my favourite Italian varietals (the grape behind Italian Chianti Classico), which I discovered by trying out Bern’s 200-page wine record on-line earlier than all of us visited. Our affable waiter Nick opened the bottle subsequent to a lit candle, which not solely supplied illumination that permits sommeliers to see if there’s sediment within the wine and cease pouring earlier than it might probably enter the decanter — which none of us really knew was a factor. It additionally provides to Bern’s romantic atmosphere.
On their earlier go to, Joel and Jessica shared the distinctive “Tuna and Wagyu” starter (left), a high-end fusion of Wagyu steak tartare wrapped in sashimi-grade tuna, topped with Osetra caviar. Joel says the 4 giant items have been visually beautiful and scrumptious, absolute perfection even — a robust advice for individuals who like uncooked Japanese-style meals. (Notice- After they requested for chopsticks, they have been informed Bern’s hadn’t stocked them in years).
However, talking of you caviar followers (Jannah and I aren’t amongst these), Bern’s gives practically two dozen varieties, plus a number of high-end cheeses (from French camembert to Italian Fiore Sardo produced from sheep’s milk).
For this go to, we began with an unbelievable lump crab cake (proper), which was largely crab, grilled to crisp-edge perfection, with charred corn, tomato, basil and mustard seed French dressing.
Different appetizers on Bern’s in depth menu embrace a dry-aged particular chateaubriand carpaccio, seared foie gras, dry-aged beef rib empanadas, shrimp cocktail, oysters on the half shell, coal grilled octopus, escargots, black truffle steak tartare and baked clams, which we did order (left). They have been good, however small and I didn’t suppose the addition of sheep’s milk cheese to the stuffing was an excellent (or crucial) addition. There are also two large shellfish “Plateaux de Fruits de Mer,” with the whole lot from shrimp, lobster and oysters to king crab, octopus and extra. Not for me, however nonetheless.
And, though each entrée at Bern’s is served with salad and a tasty, tacky French onion soup and each steak entrée is also served with crispy onion rings and the vegetable of the night, Joel determined to substitute Bern’s She Crab soup, which featured a big portion of lump crab, with candy peppers, corn and fino sherry. Nick poured the creamy soup over the opposite elements (proper) and naturally, I needed to a minimum of pattern it and located it to be a novel mix of flavors.
You Have To Strive…
And naturally, the must-order while you go to Bern’s, regardless of the actual fact the restaurant has 30 totally different steak choices, is the signature chateaubriand (prime photograph), which is a young, giant, cylindrical minimize of tenderloin roasted to a crisp crust outdoors whereas staying extremely tender inside. We ordered one 14-oz. and one 9-oz. minimize of chateaubriand for the 4 of us to share and nobody left hungry or disenchanted.
Among the many different steak cuts are three sizes of filet mignon, two delmonicos, three sizes of dry-aged strip steaks, two porterhouses, two T-bones and 5 totally different types of A5 Japanese wagyu, together with a wagyu tasting with 4 oz. every of tenderloin, strip and sirloin cap. There are also “large-format” steaks just like the 36-oz. wagyu tomahawk, 40-oz. bone-in tenderloin and a 60- oz. porterhouse. Perhaps subsequent time.
Different entrées embrace the well-known Hen Gert (with roasted garlic rosemary butter), forged iron-roasted grouper, roasted quail, dry-aged rack of lamb, coal-grilled cobia, roasted salmon, halibut and sansho pepper-glazed sea bass. However, if you happen to’re a steak lover and wish the total Bern’s expertise in your first go to, go together with the chateaubriand — it’s the steak that made Bern well-known and it was nonetheless great.
Along with the facet dishes served with the entire steak and a lot of the different entrées, there are also a la carte, shareable greens and sides, together with parmesan truffle fries, thrice-baked potato, an Okinawan candy potato purée, steak home mushrooms, roasted asparagus, white truffle mac & cheese and the tasty creamed corn we ordered for the desk (and extra).
The Tour & The Dessert Room
When you’re making your first go to to Bern’s, you merely need to take the tour of each the kitchen and the superb wine cellar. Whereas many eating places will mean you can go to the kitchen, only a few invite each visitor to see for themselves the scale, scope and high quality management that goes into creating your meal (left), however the crew at Bern’s needs you to know the pains taken to make sure you take pleasure in an excellent meal and eating expertise.
The completely legendary wine cellar, that Bern himself initially curated, homes about 110,000 bottles of pink, white, rosé, glowing and dessert wines on the premises at any time, which in accordance with our tour information, is simply about 15% of the restaurant’s whole wine stock. When you can’t discover a bottle you need on the restaurant’s world-famous record, ask your sommelier to suggest one thing comparable…or higher…or fully totally different — they may all the time have you ever lined.
The remainder of the massive variety of bottles are saved in an off-site facility and the record is consistently being up to date. Among the rarest and costliest bottles of wine on the planet are housed right here.
The precise photograph on this web page exhibits only a portion of the lots of of wines out there by the glass, if you happen to don’t wish to decide to a full bottle. It’s deliberately actually darkish within the wine cellar, so it’s robust to get nice footage of something apart from this space, however imagine me, the tour remains to be very a lot value taking.
The Harry Waugh Dessert Room is so well-known that you just don’t even need to have dinner at Bern’s with the intention to make a reservation for simply the dessert room. Redwood doorways and partitions separate every dessert room, so that you and your visitors can take pleasure in privateness as you indulge within the largest number of premium cocktails and dessert wines of any restaurant I’ve ever been to— and sure, I’ve been to a couple.
The desserts themselves are so decadent that regardless of how full you might be from dinner you sort of type of nonetheless need to indulge. Joel, Jessica, Jannah and I every acquired our personal dessert and there was a number of sampling happening.
Jannah’s Dutch apple pie, with Granny Smith apples, brown sugar crumble and caramel ice cream, was nice, as was my single scoop of roasted banana ice cream with scorching fudge.
However, Joel and Jessica made even higher decisions — Jessica’s creme brulée, topped with recent combined berries (left) was spot-on and Joel beloved his macadamia nut sundae in a house-made waffle bowl (beneath).
All of us loved a well-deserved after-dinner cocktail and left Bern’s glad and fascinated by making one other go to to attempt another wine, steaks, fish and desserts there.
In different phrases, Bern’s remains to be Bern’s. Is it nonetheless one of the best restaurant in Tampa? Attempt to make a reservation and determine for your self, however it’s nonetheless an excellent expertise that everybody ought to have a minimum of as soon as.
Bern’s Steak Home (1208 S. Howard Ave.) is open on daily basis besides Monday for dinner at 5 p.m. To order a desk, go to BernsSteakHouse.com or name (813) 251-2421 for extra info.
