I’ve been to St. Elmo’s four times already, twice with friends, once on a tweet-up and the last time on a personal invite and I’ve enjoyed my meals and drinks every single time. I was planning to review the place earlier but they have so many items I wanted to try that it was hard to post about it after a single visit.
Located on Beirut’s Zaitunay Bay, St. Elmo’s owes its name to St.Erasmus of Formaie, the patron saint of sailors, and is decorated with nautical vintage stuff to offer a retro-urban seaside setting [Taken from Website]. The restaurant is divided into three parts, one outdoor area overlooking the Zaytounay harbor, an indoor lounge/pub area overlooking a more formal dining area suitable for lunch and dinner.
Before you order any food, there is a long list of drinks and cocktails that you can choose from, ranging from a rich selection of white/rose/red wine, beers and champagne to Sangrias, Mojitos, Bloody Marias and House Elixirs. I am not a big fan of Bloody Marias but one of my friends had the Bloody Mess (see below picture) and he loved it. I recommend trying the Sangria Pitchers, Lynchburg Lemonade (Sour drink), and the Caribbean Shrub.
You can check out the list of drinks and cocktails [Here].
BLOODY MESS: Vodka, Elmo’s clamato juice, giant shrimp & fresh oyster
Moving on to the starters and salads, I recommend the fresh Summer Rolls, the Black Carpaccio (see below picture), the Grilled Calamari and the Tataki Tuna Nicoise salad. All are healthy and delicious choices. The Smoked Salmon Bagel is a must-try in the Sarnies section. It’s a real shame that we don’t have any bagel shops in Lebanon, or at least none that I know of. The only one I used to go to was Euro Deli on Bliss Street during my AUB years but last time I checked, it was closed.
If you want to start with something rather unhealthy, I recommend you go for the Mac & Cheese as a starter. Just don’t have it by yourself because you won’t have any space left for the main dishes.
BLACK CARPACCIO :Cold-cured Black Angus Tenderloin topped with arugula, fresh artichoke hearts, fennel & shaved parmesan with truffle oil
Speaking of main dishes, St. Elmo’s is the place to visit if you are a Fish & Chips or Lobster fan. I haven’t tried the Poached 750g Nova Scotia lobster yet but heard good reviews about it, but I can assure you that the Fish & Chips are the best you can have in Lebanon. The dish is big enough for two people and is awesome! For those of you who don’t drink alcohol, watch out though because they are beer-battered. (All items that contain alcohol are pointed out in the menu).
Fish & Chips: 275g of Beer battered Mediterranean bass served and our home-made tartar sauce & parmesan fries
Last but not least, the desserts offered at St. Elmo’s are the perfect ending to your lunch/dinner. If you are feeling full, order an apéritif and take a small break because some of them are not to miss, especially the Chocolate chip cookie and Nutella Cheesecake.
SOFT CENTER CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIE Oven baked & topped with vanilla bean ice cream
All in all, St. Elmo’s is Beirut’s only English SeaFood Brasserie and is located at the most suitable place, the Zaytounay bay. It’s a new concept that I encourage all Lebanese to try and is rather affordable given its location and when compared to some restaurants around it. (30-50$ per person for a full meal)
If you wish to read more about St. Elmo’s:
[St. Elmo’s Facebook page]
[St. Elmo’s website] [Menu]
The outdoor area overlooking the yachts and boats
PS: St. Elmo’s also serves brunch from 10am till 1pm, check out their brunch menu [Here].
Great decoration & location but the food sucks big time!
Dear Fonzie,
I am very sorry to hear that you did not enjoy your experience at Elmo’s. There are many avid fans and loyal patrons that would probably disagree with your comment (Blog Baladi included it seems). I would really like if we could speak in person, to help me understand what exactly you did not like. We appreciate all comments, good and bad, especially the bad because they help us grow and improve.
Please get in touch with me on my email at joey@tastebuds-flavorworks.com.
Look forward to hearing from you,
Joey Ghazal
C.E.O
St. Elmo’s Seaside Brasserie
If the alcohol in the beer batter, which evaporates at 79 degrees Celcius, is still there after deep frying (the boiling oil is about 200 degrees Celcius) then somebody needs to get in there and fix the deep fryer :p
Dear Thoralya,
Very Good Point :), but we have to mention that we use beer in our batter.
Hope to see you at Elmo’s soon,
Joey Ghazal
C.E.O
St. Elmo’s Seaside Brasserie
3ajib!
Bcharafak adeh nos7an 3a kill hal akel!
Last time I went to St. Elmo’s they were out of Diet 7up, Diet Pepsi, Bloody Mary and the warm cookie.
Too bad they weren’t out of paper to print a bill summing to 60$ per person for mediocre food that took 30 minutes to prepare.
Hi Antoine,
I am very surprised to hear that we were out of those items. It is obviously a very rare occurrence. I hope this experience has not turned you off visiting us again. Please feel free to get in touch with me on my email at joey@tastebuds-flavorworks.com and I will be happy to offer you a cookie on the house the next time you’re there!. As Blog Baladi already mentioned, it is ‘Not to be missed’!.
Look forward to hearing from you,
Joey Ghazal
C.E.O
St. Elmo’s Seaside Brasserie
Food looks great, especially the fish and chips. Thanks for the review
i’ve been there. Food is very average but the service was the worst I’ve ever had in Lebanon. never stepping foot there again.
Hi T,
I cannot imagine what happened for you to have sworn off Elmo’s forever. Please get in touch with me and let me know what happened on your last visit.
As I mentioned before we welcome all comments, good, bad, even terrible ones. We count on our clients to help us identify service mistakes. It is the only way that we can correct them.
Please get in touch with me on my email at joey@tastebuds-flavorworks.com.
Hope you will take the time to write to me,
Joey Ghazal
C.E.O
St. Elmo’s Seaside Brasserie
Went there once and will definitely repeat it..the place was packed, we didn’t have a reservation, still the staff was super friendly and managed to have us seated within 15 mins. The ambiance is very nice, the variety of food is good so basically you gotta know what to order, of course the food will suck if you order something u don’t like! (I don’t like angus, doesn’t mean their angus isn’t good)
Overall a nice place, would definitely go there again.
Rachel, I work in the food business 😉
Fonzie, I am a big fan of eating food. 🙂
s2al mjarrib w ma tes2al 7akeem:P
Since you work in the food business, how about being more specific on how the food sucked? Was anything served rotten? did you find something in your dish? What did you order?
Because from your comment, you are just sounding like a hater 🙂
Hi Rachel,
So happy to know that you are an Elmo’s fan. Please do introduce yourself the next time you visit. Would love to put a face to the post :).
Joey Ghazal
C.E.O
St. Elmo’s Seaside Brasserie
This is our experience in St Elmos back from May which we also wrote on their facebook group
Fadi: “Decided to go with a group of friends to St. Elmo’s Seaside Brasserie at Zaitunay Bay, I visit this place on a regular basis.
The guys have a huge promotion campaign for open mussels on Monday. And that’s what happened:
– The manager was not sure they can serve us mussels.
– After waiting for 10 minutes he said that we can take the open mussels offer.
– We ordered 2 open mussels orders along with many others and waited another 22 minutes for our orders.
– The mussels smelled like pee and completely tasteless.
-The waiter kept insisting that they receive the mussels on Saturday and it’s still fresh.
– I sent one mussels dish back and requested the fish and ships. The fish and ships arrived completely raw .
– After the apologies of the waiter I got another fish and ships after a while.
– I asked to see the manager and he didn’t know the fish came raw ( what a communication)
– We order a chicken dish that came so dry.
-we ordered ketchup (just simple ketchup) 3 times ! and the dip came when it was too late.
-The waiter finally admitted that the shipment of mussels was no a good shipment. (if the shipment was at their restaurant 2 days ago it’s kind of late to discover it’s damaged already by today)
I was asked by our server if I will come again. I will never step into this place again! I can’t imagine that it’s for the same owners that own the number one steakhouse in Lebanon.
I visited TripAdvisor.com and researched the restaurant out of curiosity terrible reviews.
I love this place and I am so sorry for the guys! ”
I also commented on Fadi’s post with my own comments about what happened that day:
Taline : “I was with Fadi that night. He decided to take me to St Elmo’s the same day I came back to Lebanon as he previously kept talking to me about it and raved about the food. I ordered the grilled chicken breast and it was extremely dry. I decid
ed not to say anything and not to complain to the waiters seeing how there were many other problems going on with the mussels and fish on the table and the service was very slow. at one point, I turned to talk to someone for a couple of minutes, turned back and the waiter had taken my platter without asking me if i was done, which i did not appreciate because i was very hungry after my long flight. Fadi also forgot to mention that our friend ordered the 40 000 open moules and she only got 1 plate. when she asked for another one they kept telling her it will take them a few more minutes as “the chef was picking out the GOOD mussels” (from the bad bunch). she got extremely pissed because she had an operation to do the next day and she couldnt eat beyond a certain hour. In the end, they didnt end up bringing her another plate and made her pay the whole 40 000 for ONE plate “open moules”. I understand a restaurant sometimes making mistakes or messing up orders but i think this experience was completely unacceptable. I will definitely not be recommending this restaurant to my friends.”
Now THAT sucks….
Hi Taline,
I have been in touch with Fadi on several occasions regarding this post from 4 months ago. I have even had the pleasure of meeting him and discussing the unfortunate incident with him at length. I think re-posting this again after 4 months sounds more like ‘hate mongering’.
I am happy to report that since that incident, we have served Mussels to hundreds of happy customers who keep coming back for more. I have to give credit to my kitchen team that is in constant contact with our supplier to source the best quality mussels in the market. And to our managers that are constantly training the staff and learning from their mistakes so that they can improve the overall guest experience.
Best regards,
Joey Ghazal
C.E.O
St Elmo’s Seaside Brasserie
Hi Joey,
I don’t live in Lebanon so Fadi and I don’t really discuss such matters. I just wanted to post my experience seeing how the reviews on blogbaladi were raving about the place and my visit was completely different, and I think I am free to do that.
I’m glad to know the service is getting better and that the staff is better trained now.
Best of luck
Taline
Wow! Mixed Feedback.
I’m known to be a very picky eater and yet my experience at St. Elmos was Excellent!
I simply loved the place as the food was delicious, the service was very friendly and all my friends left voting to visit again. I don’t only recommend it, I encourage you to go try their desserts !
!
I read “and all my friends left vomiting”
Lol vowing vowing 🙂
Smoked Salmon Bagel for 32,000?!?! God bless the US, most expensive I’ve ever had was $6.99 🙂
Sorry, Rick. It’s now 34,000LL.
Did they pay you for this review?
I don’t do paid reviews and I chose freely to review the place just like I do many other places.