New restaurants open despite state of economy

It's heartening to see that, despite all the gloomy news about the economy, restaurants continue to open. Let's hope it's a sign of better times to come.

Natural café opens in Fort Myers

When Ada's Natural Foods closed in February, it took with it the healthy cuisine that chef Brooke Wagenheim conjured up daily in the store's café. The drought ends Friday when Wagenheim expects to open Chef Brooke's Natural Café at 1850 Boy Scout Drive, Fort Myers.

The former coffee shop (next to Danny Suero's hair salon) will offer a menu full of organic and gluten-free fare for breakfast, lunch and dinner seven days a week. Organic raw juices, such as the Hippie Skippy (wheat grass and orange juice) and Green Goddess (kale, dandelion, chard, spinach, cucumber, lettuce and celery) will be available along with soups, smoothies, coffees, gluten-free vegan muffins, scones, cookies, salads, sandwiches and hot entrees. There will also be some sugar-free items and some raw ones.

Chef Wagenheim also plans to offer custom cakes, including wedding cakes, which can be tailored to customers' diets, whether it's eggs, flour, sugar or some other ingredient they wish to omit.

WAGENHEIM Once the café is up and running, she hopes to add a grocery area, catering and food delivery as well as cooking classes and live entertainment such as acoustic guitar, drumming and belly dancers.

"I was absolutely born to do this," says Chef Wagenheim as she stands in the middle of the café decorated with ornate fairy houses from her personal collection. "This is the best thing that's ever happened to me."

Works by Naples artist Elizabeth Williams will add vivid splashes of color to the walls and a flat-screen TV will broadcast the Food Network or home-improvement programs.

Chef Wagenheim plans to offer customers the opportunity to order organic produce, which they will be able to pick up a day or two after ordering and paying for it.

The café will be open 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. daily. For more information, call 332-CHEF (332-2433).

Familiar face returns to downtown

Michele Romano and Marco Caparelli plan to open La Trattoria in the location formerly occupied by Moretti's on First Street in downtown Fort Myers sometime in early May.

PHOTOS BY KAREN FELDMAN / FLORIDA WEEKLY Andy's Island Seafood in Matlacha held its first customer recipe contest this season. The winners, from left, are: Karla Trabone, second place; Terri Melna, first place; Linda Windham, third place. Customers who have frequented the downtown dining scene for a while are likely to recognize the hospitable Mr. Romano from his previous stints at Delicious Things and, before that, an Italian restaurant that occupied the very space over which he'll soon preside.

Having worked in restaurant for many years, "we decided it was time to work for ourselves," Mr. Romano says.

The casual restaurant will offer the usual assortment of dishes Americans expect — Parmesans, spaghetti and meatballs, etc. — but will also feature specialties from Basilicata, the southern Italian region in which Mr. Romano lived, as well as dishes from other parts of the country, including Sicilian rice balls (arancini), lobster ravioli, broccoli rabe with fava bean puree, stuffed calamari livornese and panna cotta.

For two weeks of every month, La Trattoria will feature dishes from a particular region. Customers will receive a card that will get stamped when they order something from the month's special selections. At the end of the year, those who have collected 12 stamps will be eligible to enter a drawing to win two roundtrip airline tickets to Italy.

Mr. Romano hopes people will be attracted to the variety of dishes on the extensive menu, which range from pasta marinara at $9.90 to filet mignon with truffles and duck pate for $28. There's also a large catering menu.

Most bottles of wine will run $25-$30 and there's a full bar. Customers can dine in the dining room or outdoors along First Street or on the patio behind the restaurant. The restaurant, at 2226 First St., will be open from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. daily.

Angelina's slashes wine prices

In celebration of its first birthday, Angelina's is offering some impressive half-price specials. All bottles of wine priced at $150 or less are half price. That means you pay $75 for a bottle that ordinarily sells for $150. In addition, all appetizers and flatbreads are half price when ordered in the lounge.

The restaurant also offers a three-course prix fixe menu for $27.50

Angelina's International Wine Dinner Series continues in May with a Mediterranean theme. Wines and dishes will come from Spain, Italy and France.

Highlights include: cherry wood-smoked duck breast with warm chorizo and potato salad and almond and manchego relish paired with Numanthia-Termes Tinta de Toro 2006, a 100 percent tempranillo wine with a 93 rating from Wine Spectator; and herb-roasted chateaubriand with cocoa-truffle carrot gratin, pommes noisette and foie gras-Madeira jus paired with 2004 Vieux Telegraphe Chateauneuf-du-Pape 2004, rated 94 on Wine Spectator and ranked 20 in the magazine's 2007 list of the year's top 100 wines.

Future dinners are as follows: June 24, South American wines; July 29, French wines; Sept. 23, Italian wines; and Oct. 28, American wines.

The dinners are $89 each, but those who purchase two pay only $59 for a third one. Angelina's is at 24041 S. Tamiami Trail, Bonita Springs. Call 390 3187.

Roy's offers new prix fixe meal

Roy's restaurants are offering a threecourse prix fixe meal for $35. The spring menu features a choice of three appetizers (crispy vegetable spring roll, tamarind glazed salmon or curry citrus shrimp), four entrees (pecan-crusted spring trout, sage and thyme roasted double chicken breast, Pulehu style sirloin and Maui onion jus or mojo grilled pork chops) and two desserts (Anakalia's passion, which is an orange and lemon cake, or Roy's melting hot chocolate soufflé). The price excludes tax and gratuity. Roy's Bonita Springs is at 26831 S. Bay Drive. Call 498-7697. Roy's Naples is at 475 Bayfront Place. Call 261-1416.

Pollo Tropical helps charities

Pollo Tropical has a program geared to help charities raise money. The restaurant chain and the Girl Scouts recently teamed up for a benefit night that raised more than $900 for Girl Scout councils around the state.

Charities wishing to hold a benefit night submit an application to the company. If approved, Pollo Tropical designates a restaurant location convenient to that group to host the event. The organization then distributes vouchers for the event to supporters who present them while dining at Pollo Tropical on the designated night and the restaurant donates 15 percent of those sales to the charity. Check for details at www.pollotropical.com.

Pollo Tropical is at 1652 NE Pine Island Road, Cape Coral.

Andy's Island seafood recipe contest

Terri Melna of Cape Coral is the winner of the first customer recipe competition at Andy's Island Seafood. The Matlacha fish store owned and operated by Andy Meltz held the competition through the winter season, narrowing the field to three finalists who cooked their entries for the judges (Drew Sterwald, food writer and columnist for The News-Press, and me) last week.

Ms. Melna's outstanding shrimp Creole won for its wonderful montage of flavors that included bacon, stone crab stock and canned San Marzano tomatoes along with big, sweet shrimp from Andy's.

Ms. Melna says you can substitute vegetable or chicken stock but that she prefers the stone crab stock, which she makes from the leftover shells and then freezes.

Other winners included Karla Trabone of Cape Coral, who took second place for her version of stuffed mushrooms, and Linda Windham of Cape Coral, who placed third with a marmalade-topped snapper.

Andy's, at 4330 Pine Island Road, sells super-fresh local seafood as well as Meltz's homemade crab cakes, chowders and smoked fish spreads. Comings and goings

Olives Mediterranean, Hops and Miami Connection in Fort Myers have closed. So has Denny's in North Fort Myers.

Bruce Laboda, owner of Miami Connection, continues to offer his homemade whitefish salad, chopped liver, bagels, lox and nova to Jake's Deli, 12140 Metro Parkway. Call 225-7592.

Stevie Tomatoes Sports Page has closed on Del Prado Boulevard but Cape customers can head to its new location at 814 SW Pine Island Road in Cape Coral. The Fort Myers sports bar on U.S. 41 is also open.