Palm House Hotel

This is only a review of the dining experience. As locals, we are happy the Palm Hotel is finally open. The lobby is charming and the pool area is cute. However, only hotel guests are allowed to dine in the pool area. (So go to Swifty’s at the Colony or to Lola41 at the White Elephant) The main restaurant experience was totally absurd. The lighting needs to be changed; super bright LED track lighting makes one feel they’re eating in a hospital cafeteria. Our server explained the menu as, “family style” with everything meant to be shared. We ordered a seafood soup-like dish which contained a single small shrimp, a single tiny portion of fish, 2 mushrooms, and 2 one 1” minuscule pieces of crab. It was $95.00. I’m not sure how a group of any kind could possibly share this. We ordered one sushi roll. It came with 6 pieces, and was below average. The ceviche was quite good and was large enough to share with one other person as an appetizer. These three items, with a bottle of water and one glass of champagne came to $236.00. The fact that locals aren’t welcome to dine outside, coupled with the comically high priced, tiny portions mean that this place will struggle to survive. We won’t be back, which is too bad because we were really excited about the re-opening and having a new place to go. We stopped by Publix on the way home because we still needed to eat dinner!