The Library - inspired by the George Peabody Library — Restaurant in Saint Petersburg

I was staying with a friend who's living in St. Petersburg, and I wanted to try a brunch place. I looked for options on Yelp, and found this place. They only do brunch on the weekends, and that's a shame, because their brunch is great. I only saw street parking with meters, but I didn't struggle to find one. The inside of the place is decorated like a library, with book shelves and all. I didn't take pictures, as I needed a reservation to sit inside, and chose to sit outside instead of waiting an hour. The outside seating doesn't have anything to shield you from the sun or rain, but fortunately it was overcast, so it wasn't too bad that day.

I knew what I wanted to eat, as I had checked out the menu beforehand. I started with the truffle fries as an appetizer, and they were nice and crispy. I had to stop myself from eating them to leave space for the the rest of the food. Try them if you like truffle fries. My main dish was the French Toast with Nutella, and I it was so savory and delicious, that I'm looking forward to coming back and ordering it again. I ordered the Cinnamon roll and took it to go, as I was full from the truffle fries and French Toast. I decided to check out the dessert menu, and the Cookies and Milk caught my eye, as it was a dessert I could take to go. The cookies are Brown-Butter Toffee Chocolate Chip Cookies made in-house, and they come with a cup of milk. The cookies are sprinkled with crystal salt, combined with the toffee, you end up with a sweet and salty cookie. Very good, but I would've preferred it without the toffee. I ordered the Strawberry Rosé Tea, and found it to be too watery for my liking. I ordered the lemonade (from the fountain, not made in-house) and found it to be watery as well.

My experience at The Library was great. I wish I could've sat inside, and now I know that next time I need to make reservations ahead of time. When they give you the check, you're able to scan the QR code to pay online using your preferred method. I used Google Pay. The service was also good and attentive. There were a couple of other things on the menu that peaked my interest, though I would have to share with someone, as I wouldn't be able to resist ordering the French Toast again. I would highly recommend checking...

What makes a restaurant worth 5 stars? In my somewhat jaundiced viewpoint, a 5 star restaurant should fit perfectly into the niche it is aiming at. Thus there ae 5 star cafes, 5 star mass market steak houses and 5 star barbecue joints as well as 5 star fine dining restaurants. I’m not sure where The Library fits, ‘though I think they are trying to be a fine dining restaurant, and this is where they don’t quite measure up. We have no complaints about the food, quite the opposite, the bread on the bread and butter board was delicious as was the meat and cheese plate, especially the whipped feta, though the Thomasville Tomme is a difficult cheese to cut. My wife’s New York strip and my filet were delicious, and we shared truffle fries, which were also good. The food was great. And the service was OK. I ordered an IPA and they brought a can, I expected a draft but they explained they don’t have any draft beer only cans, the maitre D was kind enough to take back the can and not charge us even though the can was opened. We ordered glasses of wine and received two glasses of the same wine when two different wines were ordered. They corrected the order yet the incorrect wine appeared on the bill. They corrected this issue as well. So what am I griping about? First our table. It was two feet square and only just big enough to hold our two appetizer boards, we had to use the window shelf to hold our wine and water glasses while we ate our appetizer. Second, the restaurant is supposed to have been inspired by the George Peabody library at John Hopkins University in Baltimore, except why are 90% of the books on the shelves in the restaurant blue. If you are going to emulate a fantastic library then at least make an effort to make it look like a library. Last, if you publish a dress code on your web page, then make an effort to follow it. Apologies for the rant, the food was excellent, the wine expensive and less good, but we had a good time anyway for the $163.18 my wife and I spent on...

We reserved a table a few weeks ago to celebrate my Mom’s 74th birthday at The Library. This is a restaurant we have been considering going to experience for a while and this was a surprise for my Mom. Prior to our visit, I knew that this was going to be a pricey experience but I was a little surprised that fir three of us having breakfast it was right at $100. We ordered Avocado Wedges-fried avocado slices ($14) to share, The Library Classic which featured eggs, breakfast potatoes, bacon and toast ($13), Lemmon Poppyseed Pancakes ($18)with an extra side of bacon ($4) and the Eggs Benedict ($20). To drink we ordered a pineapple mimosa ($12), cappuccino ($3.50)and a coffee ($3). The only negatives we experienced were the avocado wedges were very salty, the breakfast potatoes and bacon seemed over cooked. I like my bacon a little less crisped than it was. My husband didn’t care fir the Benedict and would pick something different next time. The most positive dish was the Lemon Poppyseed Pancakes. There were 5-6 of them and they were so very flavorful and perfectly textured with a nice cream and both strawberries and blueberries topping them. The portion size was too much for one sitting and could definitely be shared. I have leftovers fit tomorrow. Our server was Madison and she was friendly and attentive. All of the staff was friendly and helpful. I got up to go to the restroom and another server asked if that’s where I was going and he gave me clear instructions (proactively) so I would know where to go. The restaurant is decorated very nicely with shelves of books covering most off the walls all bound in blue. Tables fir two feature beautiful high back, blue upholstered chairs against a wall with a painting, tables seating more were away from the walls throughout and there is also...