Last
weekend was my friend Maddie’s bachelorette party in St. Augustine. Her maid of honor Tessly’s family has a cute
beach place up there, so we spent the weekend relaxing at the beach (and unfortunately
getting very sunburned!) We enjoyed some pretty great food while we
were there!
Tessly
had the place all prepared with cute buckets of goodies for all of us and some
incredible cupcakes from a local bakery (I need to find out which one…)
The
forecast said it was going to pour all weekend, but we lucked out and got some
nice perfect beach weather.
Saturday
night, we headed for an early dinner at The
Ice Plant – a new local bar and restaurant.
Since they don’t take reservations and it’s such a popular spot, we
decided we’d rather just eat early than chance waiting a few hours for a table.
The
design reminds me of a blend of Ciro’s
Speakeasy and the Oxford Exchange. The building was adapted from an old ice plant
(which is how it gets its name…) Back in
the 1920’s, the large crane that sits over the bar used to pick up enormous
blocks of ice to be broken into small pieces and sold to shrimp boats. They have managed to retain the vintage factory
feel, but upgrading it to today’s popular industrial modern design.
In
keeping with the “ice plant” tradition, they hand carve their ice each day from
large blocks of slow frozen filtered water into specific shapes depending on
the drink you order. The cocktails are a
bit pricey, but impressive. I would much
rather spend $12 on a really fantastic drink than $6 on a rum and coke I could make
myself. You can tell that they take
price in crafting their drinks just right – and the presentations were very
pretty too.
The
waiters dress like they belong in the 1920’s – our waitress had a vintage
looking apron with cats printed all over it.
She must have really liked cats because I got a cute kitty drawn on my
receipt later.
My
Briar Rose cocktail was fantastic – with sherry, bonal, lemon, peach &
blackberry jam, and mint. I know most
everyone enjoyed their drinks too, but the Kokomo cocktail was way too strong,
even after the bartender watered it down with some club soda.
For
appetizers, we started with some soft pretzel bread, served with beer cheese
fondue and dijonnaise dipping sauces.
The bread was actually a bit sweet and denser than a normal pretzel,
coated with coarse salt.
We
also ordered a side of their hand-cut truffle fries for the table, served with
a house ketchup and malt vinegar aioli.
They were topped with freshly grated parmesan and were delicious!
For
my meal, I had the valbreso feta gnocci – served with confit tomatoes, summer
squash caponata, pine nuts, and wild oregano.
The most popular entrée that night was their half pound grass-fed
Georgia beef burger with bacon-chive aioli, lettuce, tomato, onions, and their
house curried pickle.
My
gnocci was really great – but I probably shouldn’t have eaten the whole
plate. It was a pretty generous
serving.
We
made a stop afterwards down the street at Scarlett O’Hara’s bar – which I thought
was a bit of a disappointment after having such incredible drinks at the Ice
Plant. We ended up heading back to the
beach place since the long day in the sun had worn most of us out.
The
next day, a few of the girls had to head out early, but the rest of us went to
brunch at a little hole-in-the-wall breakfast place called Sea Oats Caffé. It was in a shopping plaza, and we lucked out
that a table was just leaving as we walked in, because there weren’t a lot of
seats.
They
had dozens of pancake flavors (some sounded really interesting like the chili
chocolate lime and the jalapeño bacon cream cheese). I ended up getting one of the specials,
French Toast made with slices of angel food cake and topped with berries. It was definitely more like dessert than breakfast,
but it was really amazing.
Our
server was very friendly and the restaurant had a calm beachy atmosphere – it felt
like we were down in the Keys. Every
time someone opened the front door, a pick strummed the guitar hanging
above. It was the perfect laid-back way
to end our beach weekend.
The
Ice Plant is located at 110
Riberia St, St. Augustine, FL 32084.
They are open 11:30am – 2pm
Tuesday – Saturday and 11:30am – 12am on Sunday – Monday.
Sea
Oats Caffé is located at 1075
A1A Beach Blvd, St. Augustine, FL 32080.
They are open 7:30am – 2pm every
day.
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