Comments (0) Best Restaurant in Fort Lauderdale - 2006

3030 Ocean

It's time we admitted we've been scooped: New Times readers last year voted 3030 Ocean as Fort Lauderdale's best restaurant. Let us shout it loud: Readers, you were totally on top of it! You had the savoir faire and gastronomical chops to know a mean plate of Australian butterfish when you tasted it. But we've spent the past year catching up, and while we were at it, we sampled milk-fed veal loin with wild mushrooms and wine truffle broth; we inhaled sweet plates of roasted coach farm goat cheese with baby beets and balsamic vinegar. There was a memorable meal of wahoo sashimi, a symphony of black grouper with jewel-toned vegetables. We learned that Chef Dean James Max, a homegrown Florida boy, is one amazing dude, devoted to seafood, committed to simplicity, effortlessly elegant in idea and presentation -- a modern master at the top of his game. We sampled his carpaccio of fluke with gribiche-stuffed Spanish pepper, the Maine lobster bisque, the smoked duck breast with baby greens and sour cranberries, the bouchot mussels. Our ignorance, we're happy to report, yielded hours of bliss. We ate, along with our crow, enough jumbo gulf shrimp and whitewater clams to choke a whale.