Outstanding Dining at Salt, Ritz Carlton Amelia Island Florida

I do apologize for the long delay in keeping up the blog.  It has been a combination of Covid, medical issues, and no travel with anything to report.  As time goes on I am hopeful to provide you with some good recommendations going forward and I do have upcoming trips to provide you with good information on wine, travel, and fine dining.

Today I have a recommendation for all of you who might have a chance to travel to Northeast Florida in the coming days.  I am pleased to recommend Salt, the fine dining restaurant at the Ritz Carlton Amelia Island.  Salt has for many years been a Mobile 5-star place and I have dined there many times but over the years but as with anything the quality of the experience has been a sine wave.  This past year Salt brought in a new chef so my wife and I with a neighbor decided to test drive the new chef and have dined there now twice in the past couple of weeks.  I have to say that Salt is back to its 5 Diamond status.

Presentation, quality, and taste are all 5-star experiences.  The new chef is Okan Kizilbayir who comes to Amelia Island from La Bernadine from NYC.  My wife and I have dined at La Bernadine multiple times over the years and try to go every time we go to NYC.  For years it has been rated one of the top restaurants in the world and the executive chef there is Eric Riepert who is one of the most famous chefs in the world so Okan has been an apprentice and sous chef under Eric and has acquired Eric's fund of knowledge.  Chef Okan is now able to showcase those skills along with his own food knowledge to produce an outstanding dining experience.

For dinner this week Chef Okan prepared a shrimp tostada for our appetizer which was a special crispy tostada with his own special sauce.  The next course was octopus presented as florets in again a special sauce.  The main course was a prime ribeye tenderloin served with a potato pancake with shaved black truffles on top.  Dessert consisted of a passion fruit sorbet complemented by a crispy cake with a soft meringue topping.  All in all, it was a memorable meal.

I definitely plan to return soon with friends and I can verify today that Salt at the Ritz Carlton on Amelia Island Florida has become again the top #1 dining experience on the island.