At NORMAN’S every 6-8 weeks we debut a new ‘Tasting Menu’. I have loved doing them since the late 1980’s while still working in Key West at MIRA within the very pretty Marquesa Hotel at Fleming and Simonton Streets. With our ‘a la carte‘ menu guests choose an assortment of items that they are intrigued by or love already. With the Tasting Menu what have is a ‘set piece’ my teams and I work for weeks to make it more like a play with a natural and fitting progression of flavors, texture, presentations and such. The wine team then comes to the process and makes the decisions on which beverages will work ‘hand in glove’ with each course. From that point it goes into the training for our ‘front of the house’ which includes not only our dedicated server but additionally our equally dedicated servers assistants, the bar team and right on through to our hosts who also are fully informed as to each particular. It is, admittedly, a lot of work but even more, it is a labor of love.
| Ironically it was growing up in the Midwest that gave me my first tastes and subsequent, enduring love of Spanish Cuisine. A humble ‘bodega’ opened across the small lake that I grew up next to. A person could swim across that lake and my sisters and I did many summers. In that bodega they sold the first flavors of Spain we experienced. Cod fritters. Upon moving to Key West that love flourished in major and disparate ways. Traveling in Spain was the most powerful way I came to learn more and adore more. Here we pay homage to Spain in the ways that touches our hearts. No passport required.
— Norman
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