Hearing stories of “doom and gloom” about Puerto Rico in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria, I wondered before going  if the crime rate was up, the service down, the drinking water potable, the beaches clean, the golf courses in good condition and whether all the good chefs were still on the island. To my delight, during a recent week-long stay, what I found was a relaxing experience with great weather, no crime, fine water, scenic beaches, great golf, flavorful fare and generally accommodating service (albeit not without some minor glitches).

  

The Wyndham Grand Rio Mar 

 

  As they say in real estate, it’s “location, location, location!” And the reasonably priced,  400-room Wyndham Grand Rio Mar (about a 40-minute car ride east from the San Juan Airport) is set on prime real estate. It overlooks the El Yunke rain forest on one side and a number of pools, scenic beaches and turquoise ocean on the other. In addition to a spa, tennis courts, two well-maintained golf courses and a small casino, it features a number of dining options, like La Marbella for breakfast, and the four notable dinner spots (open nightly) discussed below.

 

 

Iguanas

    Situated a short shuttle ride from the main door, above the recently built golf shop,  this large, casual eatery offers salads and a range of appetizers like sweet plantains stuffed with tasty beef  and zesty garlic shrimp doused with lemon and rum. Also, there are a dozen main courses available, particularly a moist, meaty Caribbean lobster, served with either a spicy Creole or tangy garlic sauce, and, of course, a variety of flan creations for dessert.
    Of note, the wine list (shared by two of the other restaurants) features a number of top-producer bottles from California. And, while pricing is generally three times retail, on Wednesday evenings all bottles are half-price, making an excellent, cassis-flavored, velvety smooth 2014 Jordan Cabernet Sauvignon all the more enjoyable at $89 a bottle.

 

Palio

    Located on the ground floor of the east wing of the hotel, this is an upscale steak and seafood establishment, with white-clothed tables, good china and stemware and friendly, professional service.  Starters include fresh spinach and burrata salad, meaty jumbo crab cakes and a seafood tower of bivalves and crustaceans. Classic main courses run the gamut from perfectly prepared prime rib to a dry-aged New York strip steak, from grilled or broiled whole Caribbean lobster to sautéed jumbo gulf prawns served with a flavorful onion and heirloom tomato confit. Also available are the usual steakhouse sides like creamed spinach, sautéed mushrooms and baked potatoes.
    For wine we chose a 2013 MUGA Reserva that showed rich flavors of ripe plums and strawberries with a hint of chocolate in its finish and we concluded our meal with a honey-scented popcorn crème brûlée.

Roots Coastal Kitchen

     This very casual spot, also located on the ground floor of the hotel, features “build-your-own” gourmet pizzas and burgers, as well as slow-roasted spare ribs coated in a tangy guava barbecue sauce and a whole deep-fried crispy snapper (for two) served on a bed of crisp arugula topped with slices of “flame throwing” peppers. And desserts like banana bread accompanied by ice cream and a chocolate peanut butter banana split are very popular.

 

Caicu Bar & Tapas

     As part of the hotel's main lobby and providing bar, table and outdoor seating, this casual spot offers “bar bites,” ranging from shrimp tacos topped with slaw and a spicy chipotle sauce to tender shrimp bathed in a garlic-infused lobster sauce to chicken potstickers served with pickled ginger and a soy sauce enlivened by ponzu and sriracha. In addition, there’s a salad of heirloom tomato and baby spinach as well as one made of shaved Brussels sprouts; large plates include a grilled prime tenderloin and catch of the day.
    For wine we chose a cassis- and strawberry-flavored 2015 Hess Select North Coast Cabernet Sauvignon that had notes of vanilla in its finish and we concluded our meal with creamy flan atop rich chocolate cake.

Expect dinner for two at any of the above restaurants to cost $110-$130 (perhaps a bit less at Roots), not including wine, tax and tip.

 

Rio Grande and Loquillo

Don Pepe
Highway #3
787-888-7373

    This small, unpretentious roadside storefront, just down the road from the entrance of the Wyndham, is a room with a bar on one side and a wall with colorful local prints on the other. It offers prompt, knowledgeable service with a large selection of well-prepared Puerto Rican favorites. We enjoyed appetizers of a tasty mix of fleshy octopus and potato atop a basket of mofongo (fried green plantains) and a large portion of greaseless deep fried chunks of fresh grouper served with a variety of mild and spicy sauces.

From over a dozen main course choices we selected a whole fried red snapper (above)  stuffed with local lobster and an order of a trio of garllicky, breaded shrimp on  brochette served with a mound of yellow rice and crisply fried bits of pork.
    We accompanied the meal with a 2010 easy drinking Don Pepe Rioja and concluded with a slice of chocolate cake topped with vanilla flan.

Open nightly for dinner. Expect dinner for two to cost $90-$100, excluding wine, tax and tip.

 

Terruno
Kiosko #20, Kioskos de Loquillo
787-889-8989

    Located in a large, nondescript space among a row of “kiosks” along Loquillo beach, this locally popular establishment serves Puerto Rican food with an emphasis on seafare. From an extensive selection of appetizers, we chose an order of crisp, grilled octopus tentacles and one of a large, tender squid stuffed with a tasty blend of lobster bits and bread crumbs and coated with an herb-infused cream sauce.
    Our main courses were less enjoyable. An order of langoustines came floating in a rather gloppy tomato-based, Creole sauce, while an order of whole Caribbean lobster was overcooked and served with a bland garlic-butter sauce.

Open nightly for dinner. Expect dinner for two to cost $110-$120, excluding wine, tax and tip.

 

 

A BIT OF GOLF (at Wyndham’s Grand Rio Mar Country Club) 

    Managed by Troon Golf, both courses were in excellent condition, with manageable rough and divot-free greens. And while only one hole (the long par-3 16th) of the 45 year-old Ocean Course—par 71, 6,700 yards from “the tips”—is actually on the ocean, it offers an enjoyable experience for seasoned long hitters as well as the average golfer. In fact, designed by George Fazio, it has plenty of ponds alongside the fairways as well as elevated greens surrounded by sand traps to require accuracy by all player levels. And, adding to the experience, there’s lots of wildlife on and alongside the course, like colorful iguanas and birds ranging from herons, to egrets to wild ducks. On the other hand, the River Course—designed by Greg Norman and measuring over 6,900 yards from “the tips”—features rather narrow fairways and a number of forced carries over water and marshy barancas, providing even the best golfers a memorable, invigorating experience.
    Play on either course is open to all, with an average daily fee of $215 per 18-hole round. (Special rates are available to Wyndham hotel guests and Troon members.) 800-424-6627  

NEW YORK CORNER
By John Mariani

NOTES FROM THE WINE CELLAR

    Winemakers come in different shapes, sizes and sexes, but all share a passion for what they do—turning grapes into a wonderful beverage. In the case of Dan Petroski, winemaker at Napa Valley’s Larkmead Vineyards, he is of a tall, large size, bearded and looking like he’d be a good choice for a Judd Apatow comedy as a sidekick to Seth Rogan.
    Petroski  (left) met me for dinner at New York’s Union Square Café and, despite just having come from a prodigious industry wine exhibition, he bounded into the dining room, immediately ordered a martini (I drank a daiquiri) followed by dinner for four of us with three bottles of Larkmead Cabernet Sauvignons. Then he was off to have a drink with a friend uptown—the true image of the passionate gourmand.
    Petroski arrived at Larkmead, which is considered one of the most prestigious and priciest wineries, by a circuitous route. Born and bred in Brooklyn, he attended Columbia University, where he played football, got his MBA from NYU, then worked at Time Inc. managing advertising clients, a job that required expense account meals at New York’s finest restaurants on a regular basis—this at a time when magazines were flush. He recalled one night dining with Time Inc.’s publisher, who blew $4,000 at the wine-centric restaurant Veritas. But the evening that changed his life, as well as his career plans, was at the French seafood restaurant Le Bernardin in 1999.
    “We were drinking Sean Thackrey’s Pleiades,” he said, “and it completely blew me away. I begged to get on his mailing list, and I was hooked on fine wines, especially the romance surrounding them. For me, great wines always have romantic vignettes attached to them, not just technical stats and chemical analysis.”
    The result of that evening was his moment of falling in thrall to great wine. Five years later Petroski turned down an offer to work at the Wall Street Journal in favor of moving to Sicily for a year, where he interned at Valle dell’Acate, then returned to the U.S. to work for Andy Smith at DuMOL Winery in Sonoma Valley for the 2006 harvest.  Smith thereupon offered him the job of cellar master at Larkmead and by 2012 he’d been appointed winemaker. In 2017 the San Francisco Chronicle dubbed him Winemaker of the Year.
    Petroski, now 46, is especially known for big, muscular Cabernet Sauvignons at Larkmead, which is owned by Cam Baker and his wife, Kate Solari (right), who revived the vineyards as of 1995—a century after Larkmead was founded—now encompassing 110 acres of vines in southern Calistoga.
    Over a meal of pasta and pancetta and a massive ribeye, Petroski spoke of California’s “Golden Age of Wine” being 2000 to 2010. “It’s the time we really changed the way wine is bought, sold and enjoyed by Americans. The wineries opened some pretty impressive, beautiful tasting rooms, where people could buy the wines or have them shipped home. You can stop by a chateau in Bordeaux, but you have to load the cartons of wines into your trunk. We also have our mailing lists for our faithful customers.”
    At Larkmead, the tasting room is open daily, with tastings at $75 to $90, “depending on the experience.” Memberships range from a guarantee of 10 to 12 bottles per year at $1,400-$1,500; 20 to 24 bottles at $2,800-$3,000; and 30 to 36 bottles for $4,200-$4,500. Some wines, like The Lark, are allocated.
    None of Larkmead’s wines are made in large supply. Only 3,029 cases were made of the 2016 Cabernet Sauvignon ($120), made from 94% Cab and 6% Petit Verdot, aged for 19 months. The 100% Cabernet Dr. Olmo 2013 ($180) production was only 1,635 cases, aged for 17 months; and the 100% Cabernet Solare 2015 ($240) only 565 cases. (Consider that Petroski’s favorite Bordeaux, Château Haut-Brion, produces about 9,000 cases annually.)
    These were all deliciously bold Cabs, unquestionably in the brawny Napa Valley style, but their complexity and spice kept giving up more flavors as they mingled with the ribeye’s, with tannins already softened up.
    My tolerance for high alcohol stops at 14.5%, but though these were 14.7%, probably higher, by meal’s end they still showed finesse over mere power.
    As I do whenever I speak to winemakers, I asked about the effects of global warming on the wine industry in California.
    “It’s very real,” he said, “and we in Napa and Sonoma have problems with drought and now chronic wildfires. If I had to guess, I’d say that within the next 20 to 30 years the industry and the vineyards will have to shift 250 miles to the north, where it will be cool enough to grow wine grapes.”  Which, I calculate, would put them just south of the Redwoods National Forest, where temperatures currently range from 40 to 80 degrees through the year.
    Knowing Petroski, I imagine him pulling up stakes whenever he gets a great notion and go wherever he thinks he can make better wines. I’ll check back with him in twenty years.