Virginia Beach Restaurant Guide

The space is nicely designed and includes an entry that is tiled and rippled in undulating sea colors establishing an aquatic mood. This provides a grand entrance to a large open dining room with a water view. Dark woods provide a muted ambiance that moves your attention to the outside during the light times of day, and give an elegant feeling at night. The main dining room has demilune booths on a lower level and a large seating area on a higher second level. We took advantage of the outside seating and the cool salt-scented breeze coming in off of the beach.

We started off with an assortment of salad and appetizers.The golden heirloom tomato gazpacho ($5) was a beautiful cold summer soup. It consisted of curried shrimp, capers, yellow and red pepper and chopped tomatoes served in a bowl with a small chilled carafe of the curried tomato gazpacho on the side. I enjoyed pouring the soup over the ingredients and the cool refreshing taste. Since the evening had a slight chill, we were also enticed into trying a hot soup. The roasted lobster and crab chowder ($6) was rich, creamy and filled with lobster sweetness. While the menu description called for white truffle sea foam, I could not detect the taste of truffle. Even with this omission, the soup was still tasty and enjoyed by all at the table.

We finished off the appetizer course with wild coastal shrimp and calamari ($8). I liked the perfectly fried combination. It was served with a Thai-inspired, slightly sweet and hot dipping sauce with a dash of fish sauce. This dish was quite nice, and I noted a "wow" in my notes.