The centre of Key West and the Duval St area is saturated with restaurants which cater for every palate and budget. If, however, you are spending a day at the beach or are staying near the beach in Key West, particularly in the Casa Marina area, then you could do far worse than choose to dine at Salute, a casual restaurant situated right on Higgs Beach.
The humble exterior of this place belies the quality of food, drink and service on offer here, and the fact that it is a favorite dining establishment for locals as well as tourists speaks volumes.
The restaurant, which is open for lunch and dinner serves food which it describes as Italian with a Caribbean influence. Salads, pasta dishes, seafood and fish feature heavily and as well as the regular menu, both lunch and dinner feature daily specials.
The cocktail menu is extensive, I only wish we had been staying longer in Key West so that I could have worked my way through it!
We had three meals, two lunches and one dinner, during our three night stay in Key West, that'' s just how good it was!
The first time we ate lunch there we got a table straight away despite the place being extremely busy - I guess we were just lucky, the second time we had a 30 minute wait, time to sample several cocktails in the large bar area out at the back.
Although there were appetizers on the menu none of our party wanted them at lunch time and we all ordered salads or sandwiches which were a huge meal in themselves!
I ordered the shrimp salad sandwich and my sister chose the spinach salad with grapefruit, purple onion, mushrooms and feta cheese to which she added a portion of shrimp. They were both delicious and the presentation was an absolute riot of colour. My brother in law opted for the yellow tail snapper sandwich and my husband had the hamburger. I accused him of being boring but when it arrived it looked so goo that I chose it myself on our second lunchtime visit and it was really tasty.
None of us really had room for desert but our excellent server urged us to try the Key Lime pie topped with a deep layer of meringue, one portion and four spoons assured us that it was indeed a sweet treat to behold.
After such a lovely lunch and all those cocktails its no surprise that the afternoon was spent sleeping it off on the beach!
Continued in part 2
The humble exterior of this place belies the quality of food, drink and service on offer here, and the fact that it is a favorite dining establishment for locals as well as tourists speaks volumes.
The restaurant, which is open for lunch and dinner serves food which it describes as Italian with a Caribbean influence. Salads, pasta dishes, seafood and fish feature heavily and as well as the regular menu, both lunch and dinner feature daily specials.
The cocktail menu is extensive, I only wish we had been staying longer in Key West so that I could have worked my way through it!
We had three meals, two lunches and one dinner, during our three night stay in Key West, that'' s just how good it was!
The first time we ate lunch there we got a table straight away despite the place being extremely busy - I guess we were just lucky, the second time we had a 30 minute wait, time to sample several cocktails in the large bar area out at the back.
Although there were appetizers on the menu none of our party wanted them at lunch time and we all ordered salads or sandwiches which were a huge meal in themselves!
I ordered the shrimp salad sandwich and my sister chose the spinach salad with grapefruit, purple onion, mushrooms and feta cheese to which she added a portion of shrimp. They were both delicious and the presentation was an absolute riot of colour. My brother in law opted for the yellow tail snapper sandwich and my husband had the hamburger. I accused him of being boring but when it arrived it looked so goo that I chose it myself on our second lunchtime visit and it was really tasty.
None of us really had room for desert but our excellent server urged us to try the Key Lime pie topped with a deep layer of meringue, one portion and four spoons assured us that it was indeed a sweet treat to behold.
After such a lovely lunch and all those cocktails its no surprise that the afternoon was spent sleeping it off on the beach!
Continued in part 2