Retro Chic: Surf Club Miami Beach Review

The Surf Club, located inside the Four Seasons Hotel in Surfside, Florida, is just a short 20-minute ride from South Beach Miami. My second trip of the year to this Thomas Keller Michelin-starred restaurant was in early May to celebrate my anniversary with my wife, Betty. We were greeted at the host stand with a cordial “welcome back,” acknowledging our previous visit, and were ushered into the Bayan Room to a charming corner banquette table. Walking into The Surf Club is like stepping into a time portal back to the 1950s. The room itself looks like a time capsule with retro murals and glass chandeliers, though it dates back to only 2018. The front-of-house staff is dressed in formal uniforms reminiscent of a bygone era, and carts peddling various tableside menu items roll about the room.

The menu is very traditional, with most offerings part of the same time capsule experience as the décor: iceberg salad, vegetable Louie, crab cakes, oysters Rockefeller, and steak tartare among the appetizers we didn’t try. The entrees included a steak and chop-heavy menu that would fit right in circa 1955. Surprisingly, there were also some simple Italian selections, including four pastas and eggplant parmesan.

The cocktail menu had many interesting choices with whimsical names. I chose the “Room with a Vieux,” a clever take on a Manhattan with Mezcal and Bourbon, and it hit the spot.

First to come out, which was sadly the best thing of the night, were the impossibly perfect warm dinner rolls—so light and delicate, with the gentle aroma of yeast wafting out as I tore one open. The butter for the roll came with a presentation of its own. A short metal stand, apparently empty save for five holes in the center of its flat top, was placed in the center of the table. A quick press from the server resulted in five perfect butter curls emerging from the aforementioned holes. Upon first seeing this, I did a double take. Where did that butter come from!? I even made the server bring another so I could watch it slowly unfurl…very cool.

Recalling our previous trip to The Surf Club, we had impeccable service, delicious modern presentations of foie gras and Nantucket bay scallops, and a wonderful Dover sole prepared tableside. We were anticipating another great meal.

Seeing caviar service for $300, I imagined that somehow Chef Keller would transform this into something unique. On a small plate, there was a glass jar with 50g of Royal Osetra caviar on a short stand, and surrounding it were four ramekins with chopped egg, crème fraiche, chopped onions, and chives. On a separate plate were about ten tiny warm blinis. Nothing to complain about here, but nothing to write home about either—about as plain and straightforward as it could be. It was not bad, mind you, but hardly unique.

Our next course was a tableside Caesar salad. The one thing I can clearly recommend about The Surf Club is to get as many tableside dishes as possible; it really makes the experience great. Our server, who expertly prepared our salad in front of us, also provided us with details of each step and a history of the famous salad. The salad itself was a very solid Caesar salad, but of course, how great can a Caesar salad get? The presentation was the best part.

Here is where we started experiencing a breakdown in service. As the restaurant filled, our captain and server, who were so attentive initially, became elusive. My wife asked for a glass of Sancerre, and the server said they would come with a taste. The taste arrived somewhat delayed, and my wife said it was good. Ten minutes later, still no glass of wine. I tried to get the attention of someone in the now bustling room to no avail. Several times, the server and captain came close but never made eye contact with our table so we could call them over. This type of breakdown is unusual for a Michelin-starred restaurant, and I did not experience it during my first visit, so I must give them a pass here, as the restaurant business can sometimes throw curveballs at its staff. We did eventually get our wine, but there were some other service problems. We received an intermezzo of a beautifully presented crudité. It was several pieces of raw vegetables: endive, cucumber, carrot, and others, cut into vertical spears and stuck into a bed of ice and served with a crème fraiche dipping sauce. It looked lovely, but just as I was about to take my first bite, our entrees arrived, so it was pushed aside.

My entrée choice of eggplant parmesan was a bit disappointing. Seeing it on the menu, I had the idea that Thomas Keller would elevate this simple dish. Instead, it was presented in a red-hot crock that made it inedibly hot for a good five minutes after landing on the table. When I could eat it, I found chunks of eggplant in a heavy, overcooked tomato sauce, topped with breadcrumbs (something a self-respecting Italian chef would never do!), and garnished with grated parmesan and a “basil cigar.” The basil cigar, while a cool presentation, did not help the dish. My wife had a perfectly crispy piece of Branzino with a side of sauce vierge—a chopped fresh tomato and basil sauce, more like a salsa. This being the old-school place that it is, there were no sides included with the fish, so we ordered the buttermilk whipped potatoes and the green beans amandine. The potatoes were ethereal and were everything for the fish. Combined with the chopped tomato salsa, it was delicious. The beans, however, were very 1950s—overcooked for contemporary tastes.

We finished our meal with a perfectly retro chocolate layer cake, and it was a wonderful treat to end the meal. They comped our dessert as an acknowledgment of the breakdown in service, I believe, and we left happy. Despite being less than perfect on this outing, I felt confident that the service glitches were an abnormality, and the food problems were due to my ordering choices. However, for $300 per person, you deserve perfect service and the ability to order whatever you want and be happy with it! Nevertheless, I will return. Similar to the appeal of retro movies and TV shows, I can’t help loving the schtick that Thomas Keller and The Surf Club are offering up.