Berns Steakhouse - Tampa - Love.Laugh.Explore.

When your best friend used to be a sous chef at one of the best steak restaurants in Tampa, you are bound to be treated pretty darn special when you stop by with her to take a trip to the dessert room. Berns Steakhouse has been around since 1956 and shows no signs of slowing down as a culinary staple in the bay area.

What I thought was pretty unique is that all guests can take a tour of the kitchen before or after their meal, which is where we started on our visit. You are able to see all the hustle and bustle behind the beauty of your meal – almost following your perfectly aged steak from the meat room to the grill, with all the sides (and your drinks) in between. The meat room (meat locker?) is probably pretty impressive to a meat connoisseur … it was kinda gross and creepy to me though.

With the kitchen tour, you also get to tour the wine cellar of one of the largest wine collections in the world, and there are some pretty pricey bottles locked up down there! It is pretty fun walking around the rows of thousands of bottles of wine…makes you want to work on your own collection a bit!

We were not there for the steak though and headed straight up to the famous dessert room, where each table is inside its own private wine barrel (yes, you read that right) decorated with old cookbook recipes and with your choice of music piped in and a phone to call the live pianist and request a song to hear.
We started with a glass of champagne and a small cheese plate before moving to a dessert wine (that I wish I remembered the bottle of) and desserts. We capped it all off with a Cappuccino Berns – a combination of their very-finely-ground, freshly-roasted 8-bean coffee marinated in Kahlúa and flavored liqueurs for an average of ten weeks with coffee and vanilla cream. Don’t mix it though – the waiter tells you to drink it slowly so you can appreciate each layer of this drink as they mix in your mouth!