The Cooper Café and Restaurant in Palm Beach Gardens is a Farm-to-Table concept that offers a cool, trendy and comfortable dining room with plenty of outdoor seating. The lunch menu is a pared down dinner menu with lower prices. But our recent visit for lunch left us feeling like we maybe our visit today was just an ‘off day’ for The Cooper.
The Cooper Restaurant is one of the coolest looking restaurants we’ve been to in Palm Beach Gardens. Add to that the fresh Farm-to-Table concept and you might think they have a winning combination. Walking in the place is quite stunning.
A very upscale/rustic look brings to mind Restoration Hardware in a way. The large bar to the left can accommodate lots of people for Happy Hour and the additional space to the right has lots of booths with various splashes of color.
Walking to our table we passed a blackboard that lists all of the local farms that provides produce to the restaurant. It’s an impressive local touch. Too bad the staff never mentioned anything about it to us (see below).
Our server was quick to greet us and take our drink orders. They have a short list of some craft beer so we splurged a bit and ordered a few. The menu is split into small bites, meat & cheese plates, salads and main entrees. They cover the bases from burgers to pasta and they do a great job with the descriptions. When our server returned we asked “so what’s good on the menu” thinking we would get some recommendations. Nope. His response was “it depends on what you are in the mood for” and just waited for us to order, missing his opportunity to educate us about the Farm-to-Table concept and maybe some of the more popular dishes. A bit disappointing. We ordered and our appetizer was the first to arrive.
FRIED OLIVES ($5). Green large olives stuffed with some kind of cheese, breaded and fried. These were amazing with a great salty flavor. Very simple and very tasty. They were lightly breaded with panko, giving a slight crunch. This was actually the highlight of the lunch.
THE “MAX” GRILLED CHEESE ($12) – Serrano ham, manchego, aged cheddar, Gruyère, tomato jam, multi-grain bread, hand-cut fries or coleslaw. When the dish was dropped off, we were both quite disappointed with what we saw. The thick bread used was a multi-grain as stated on the menu, but this was where the ‘max’ came in. I guess we didn’t expect all the seeds in the bread and we had a hard time really finding the cheese in this ‘grilled cheese’ sandwich’. This should have really been called a “tomato jam sandwich with a little cheese”. The bread was a bit on the greasy side as well, but did have a crunch (or was it from all of the seeds?). The fries were probably the worst we’ve ever had, dry and hard mostly inedible. These had to be sitting under a heating lamp for quite a while, which was strange considering we arrived shortly after they opened for lunch.
GRILLED ALL-NATURAL CHICKEN & ARTICHOKE SPAGHETTINI ($13) – Extra virgin olive oil, shaved garlic, shallots, cherry tomatoes, fava beans, white wine, arugula pesto, rustic bread crumbs. I guess we should have known by the description on the menu this would be a pasta dish, but maybe expected something to look a bit more elevated. It was quite a larger potion for lunch and it did look really tasty with the pesto added almost on the side so you could mix as you liked. The chicken was tender and vegetables were fresh but the sauce was a bit one note. If you held off mixing in all of the pesto, you could give the dish a different layer, which worked well. We liked the heavy garlic flavor and suggest you swear clear of this dish if you are not a fan.
Overall, we really loved the décor and the concept of The Cooper Cafe, but felt that the food didn’t really stand out as much as expected. The service, while friendly, didn’t really add to our visit. Being in an area near many hotels, there are lots of first timers that could really benefit from a more engaging experience, especially if the restaurant expects repeat visits. The menu descriptions are very enticing, but leave off some key items that might end up leaving diners disappointed as well. We do suggest giving The Cooper Café a try and make sure to ask lots of questions.
The Cooper Café and Restaurant is located at 4610 PGA Boulevard, Suite 100, Palm Beach Gardens, FL 33418