Farm-to-Table Verdea Opens in PBG Embassy Suites

​Road warrior staple Embassy Suites isn't usually in the forefront of culinary trends, but the Palm Beach Gardens hotel is going for it with the debut of its fine dining restaurant, Verdea (4350 PGA Blvd.; 561-691-3130), which touts itself as a farm-to-table eatery that promises "ingredients that are sourced as locally as possible, offering a healthy, fresh, environmentally friendly product that eliminates ingredients passed through middlemen."
That's quite a mouthful, and so are the dishes from chef James King, whose résumé includes stints at the Breakers and Four Seasons resorts in Palm Beach, as well as the Four Seasons Silicon Valley. Among his locally sourced creations are a salad of baby beets and Loxahatchee goat cheese with curried mint vinaigrette and stone crab with avocado, piquillo peppers, cilantro, and sweet corn.

What doesn't come from local purveyors comes with a serious pedigree, from Berkshire pork and Mishima Ranch beef to Colorado lamb and Pacific halibut. 

The other side of Verdea's personality is its 65-seat wine bar, which features some 250 mostly boutique domestic wines, including such relative rarities as Chimney Rock Elevage Blanc, Vine Cliff Cabernet Sauvignon, and Paul Dolan organic and biodynamic wines. 

Both restaurant and wine bar are full of dark wood and plush leather, a posh, elegant look that definitely does not say restaurant in a generic, middle-brow hotel chain you stay at mainly because it's cheap and near the airport.  

Who'd have thunk it?