With an award-winning French chef and a beverage director who looks beyond the big labels on board, the revamped Palm Court restaurant is promising to bring the one thing to the table that most delights diners ? passion.

Executive chef G?rard Beyer and food and beverage director Anthony Santucci toldthat the restaurant in Grotto Bay hotel will be offering a globally-competitive menu and an extensive wine list to pair it with.

Mr. Beyer?s experience as a chef was a lifetime in the making and he spent almost two decades working for the Four Seasons group, as well doing as stints at the French Embassy and the famed Cordon Bleu cooking school.

?I loved to cook from when I was very young and I would always stir the pots,? said the Frenchman.

?So when I got older I went to an apprenticeship in Strasbourg and I did my Masters degree as well. I then went to Germany and Switzerland and I worked my way around Europe for a couple of years. I then got the opportunity to go to Canada in 1976.?

It was there that he started a 19-year career with the Four Seasons.

?I later worked for the French Embassy for four years, and then the Radisson Hotel, and later with the Cordon Bleu Cooking School.

?So I travelled around the world with them to Argentina, Portugal ? it was very interesting.?

Mr. Beyer said the experience of training to be a top chef was very different when he was coming up than in today?s softer environment.

?The discipline of learning to make something from the beginning to the end and the consistency was great,? said the father-of-three.

?Today you see a lot of people working in the industry, but when I was an apprentice you got a kick in the ass, today you don?t.?

He added: ?Today they say, ?oh, that chef is too hard?, but before it was like that and we had no choice. And if you went to work somewhere else, the chef would make a phone call, and if you didn?t have a good reputation, then you won?t find a job anymore.

?But today they (young chefs) want to come and they want to know how much are you paying me, and they want a top salary, of course, but it doesn?t work like that.

?But when you come you have to show what you can do and that you work with the heart as well ? a lot of people don?t work from the heart.?

Mr. Beyer?s own training did not lack for hands-on elements.

?I remember with my apprenticeship we had to do everything from scratch and now you can buy everything,? he said. ?We had to learn how to kill the chicken or the beef ? whatever. Make pasta ? everything.?

For beverage director Mr. Santucci?s part, he said the hospitality industry is in his blood.

?I?ve been in food and beverage, which, for me has been a lifetime, I don?t know if it is a passion, but clearly it has to be,? he said.

?It is what my family has always done ? my grandmother used to work at the Waterlot Inn and ? at 80-something ? she is still there.?

The duo feel ready and eager to take on the challenge of bringing Palm Court to the top of diners? ?must go? lists.

?We were hired to take the food and beverage component to the top, and as the only Bermudian owned establishment ? really to another level,? Mr. Santucci said.

?When it comes to food and wine pairings, we think we are not competing with the Fairmont Hotels or the Elbow Beach, when we talk about food and beverage and delivery techniques ? we are talking about competing globally.

?And we need to think that, when we create local foods, we have to present them in a global perspective. It needs to be innovative and the way we do that is by using natural products.

?We compete globally with a product that is fun, snappy and exciting with prices that make sense to everybody.?

At the moment the restaurant is offering its fall menu.

?There are lamb chops with couscous and mint, and he does rustic meat balls with a tomato sauce and pasta, and it is really meant to cater to that family market,? said Mr. Santucci of Mr. Beyer?s creations.

?You can come here and have some fun, good and exciting food that won?t cost you an arm and a leg. So, that is what Palm Court is about.?

Throughout the season meals will be served both inside and on the outer court.

?We will light the fireplace and fill a crock pot with a warmed beverage ? not soup,? said Mr. Santucci.

?I am thinking of an herbal liqueur and a lug of this stuff will get you pleasantly inebriated.

?It?ll be a warm, cosmic, holistic and medicinal experience. I am also looking for additional recipes from traditional healers.?

The cooking business is always changing and you always have to come up with new ideas, or old ideas that you give a touch to, added the executive chef.

?I work seven days a week to get the consistency right, as with hotel guests, you can?t have them come one day and the next day it is not good,? Mr. Beyer said. ?It is a very demanding job, but I love it.

?You have to constantly be thinking, ?what can I do next???

The new menu offers a fusion between north and south ? rather than East meets West ? and it is based it mainly within the realms of North African and European cuisines.

?Rosemary gives different dimensions and it is also good for you,? said Mr. Beyer, who added that two of his favourite spices are lemongrass and fresh parsley.

?There are so many options and you just have to utilise them to make the most of it,? he said.

Cooking food from within the family also helps you to talk and ?make friendships? and he hopes to share this joy of cooking with the local community.

?That is one thing that I am looking at doing here with offering the Cordon Bleu cooking classes,? he said.

?We will get fish from the fishermen and I will teach them how to fillet fish, how to grill them, and prepare them in different ways.

?What I like to do is go to a fresh food market, go there, come back and cook it together.

?I think this is what people look for more and more.?

In France, he said, there are 92 different departments (states).

?In each one there is different food and different wine ? it is amazing,? he said, savouring the memory.

?In less than 100 kilometres, you are in a different town and people think ?I?ll try this or that?, and that is how they develop a palate.

?It is important to balance your body with good wines without all the chemicals. When you are used to good, natural food, you feel good.?

The fall menu will eventually be followed by spring and summer menus ? but the executive chef promises these too will be full passion.

?A lot of people think, food is food, but you have to create ? a chef has to know what is the flair, it is not the quantity ? it is the quality that you put into it.

?Even the simple things must be done to the top, because if you go to a restaurant, you know it (when) is not right.?

?I know that because I have been to competitions in Germany, Luxembourg, France and Switzerland, and I brought the silver medal home, a gold medal in a banquet competition.?

?I got also the l?Ordre Chevalier du M?rit from France. I am also a member of the Carte Blanche Club and we do fundraising dinners.?

To complement Mr. Beyer?s creative, passionate dishes, Mr. Santucci said Palm Court has added a new 500-bottle wine cellar.

?The wines are from not only traditional wine areas, but also from exciting new regions of the world,? he said.

?I have some absolutely scarily amazing Chilean wines that are on our list.?

Mr. Santucci hopes to gently introduce the clientele to his offerings, however.

?Let?s accept that most of my guests are North American and they come in and they ask for a glass of Merlot, but in their minds they are asking for an American Merlot,? he said.

?In my perspective, and to my associates, I say, ?when that person comes in and asks for a Merlot, say we have an amazing Saint Emillion, which is predominantly Merlot, would you like to try that??

?And for them (the guest) there is a pivot and all of a sudden they are drinking French wines that have a lot of depth and history to them.

?Whereas I can?t say ?would you like to try the Chateau Whatever?, because they will get intimidated by that. All of a sudden I have allowed my customers to try something that they normally wouldn?t have tried and they have a new perspective, a new venue and ultimately a new avenue.?

Mr. Santucci added that it is not all about the mega houses that produce 100,000 bottles of wine a year.

?It is also about the small, little, eclectic boutique houses that produce maybe 100 cases a year... and we are lucky if we get a case here in Bermuda.

?And that is the wine that we want to taste and experience, because that guy?s passion is in the soil, it is in the wine and it is all about him.?

He added: ?A lot of people say, ?my mom is the best cook in the world,? I say, ?you know why ? it is because, she does it with love and it is strictly from her heart because she loves you unconditionally and that is what you taste in that food?.

?And that is what we are trying to put in here ? the creativity and the passion.?