Essensia Restaurant at The Palms Hotel & Spa — Restaurant in Miami Beach

Essensia is the restaurant and lounge in the Palms hotel, located between the chaos of South Beach and the chaos of the Fountainbleau hotel. Parking was easy (valet) and the restaurant validates your ticket so you'll pay 5$ plus tip.

The hotel itself is adorned with beautiful palms and other tropical plants and trees and has an old Florida feel to it. I expected Ernest Hemingway to walk in at any moment, smoking a Cohiba and wearing a guayabera. There are quite a few interesting photos of various famous people that have presumably spent some time there.

The restaurant has outside and inside seating, we elected for outside seating on the porch overlooking the pool and palm area. It was quite nice, and definitely has an old Florida/Key West feel to it. Except for the large family next to us whose 8 or 9 year old daughter was intent on informing the entire restaurant that she "had to go upstairs and take a dump" repeatedly, it was nice. I guess the moral of this part of the story is, ask to be seated away from the massive family with 14 screaming children and parents who clearly cannot be bothered (they are on vacation, after all).

The cuisine was superb and service was excellent. They had an interesting and eclectic wine list, without being overwhelming. I opted for one from Cornas - from which I've never seen available in Miami before. Pleasantly surprised to see a northern Rhone wine instead of just the standard southern Chateauneuf-du-Pape GSM blend.

What we ordered: Thai lemongrass lime soup (excellent), chilled local lobster with palm hearts and local avocado (just ok, the lobster was not super fresh), beet and heirloom tomato salad with local Burrata(excellent), kale and citrus salad with almonds (excellent), Peruvian Paiche with spinach and a celery root puree (excellent) and a grass-fed Filet Mignon with a radicchio risotto (good).

We originally ordered the short ribs and then the diver scallops wrapped in bacon, however they were out of both (no big deal - it happens when you use locally sourced small batch ingredients). The short rib dish in particular was described by our server as being the best thing on the menu.

I love the fact that that the menu is farm-to-table and uses local, organic and seasonal ingredients as much as possible. Miami needs more places like this - we'll be back for sure. I can't wait to see what other creations Chef Julie puts on the menu...

First off, I'm absolutely astounded by the negative reviews. I've been to this restaurant numerous times and this place is amazing. I'm tough to please, ask many picky questions, and a perfectionist. This restaurant is one of my favorites in all of Miami and with good reason.

Last night, we had a group of 10+ guests to celebrate my birthday. I was a bit sad to see that the gnocchi was removed from the menu, but it basically gave me an opportunity to try every other tantalizing menu option. My husband had some of our usual favorites, like the kale salad and lemongrass soup. I took the vegetarian Miami Spice menu set. They gave me a birthday cake dessert in addition to my spice dessert - which is extremely generous of them!

The service was perfect. Our waiter was on point in terms of availability and food course timing. He handled our group very well with no order errors, a super friendly professional attitude, and efficiency. No management issues either. Everyone, as our previous experiences at this restaurant are superior to many Miami restaurants.

A really cool tidbit about Essensia is that they grow their herbs and other veggie food products on site. They even give tours of their gardens. It doesn't get any fresher than this! The cuisine theme, in my humble opinion, is asian fusion. It's delicious. Comparing it to many of the other higher-end restaurants in the area, this restaurant is actually fairly reasonable (again, this is Miami - also, I don't eat meat out).

If I could give this place a thousand...

I really don't understand how the Palm's management let's this place be so rude so often to all their guests. I would say the hotel is amazing, except you pretty much have to deal with this restaurant during your stay. They refused multiple times to sit groups of hotel guests in a restaurant that had maybe 2 small tables out of 145 total seats in use at the time.

The restaurant manager and assistant manager are so condesending on a regular basis. They thought it was crazy for 35 people, broken into small manageable table of 8 or under (not one large one) to want to eat around 11:30AM. Of course they we're able to finally do it in the basically empty restaurant, but not before insulting basically everyone in your party. They really don't want yours or my business, and they will let you know.

I will briefly mention the insanely priced and pretty lackluster breakfast and slightly overpriced, but generally fine lunch.

While the rest of the Palm's hotel was great and the staff were enjoyable, if you are doing an event at the Palm's, you pretty much have to deal with Essensia at some because of the lack of nearby easy options. They know this, and the restaurant management will treat hotel guests like trash, because they know they have and enless supply of customers.

This place turned a beautiful 5 day trip, where we had 40+ rooms booked at the Palm's, and really left a bad taste. Please choose a venue that will give you 100% great experience and...