Tampa: Berns

Here's how exacting Bern's is: Its waiters, who train for a year before they're allowed on the floor, have been known to apply the vermouth to your martini with an eyedropper. For 51 years, the Laxer family has painstakingly dedicated itself to building the Bern's kingdom, which now includes a 100,000-bottle wine cellar, a coffee roaster, a retail wine store, an organic vegetable farm and a whole room upstairs devoted to dessert. The garish décor of mahogany paneling, hulking chandeliers, marble and velvet recalls a turn-of-the-century bordello, but it only adds to the over-the-top vibe. The menu is so insanely large—27 types of caviar?—that steaks don't make an appearance until page 17, and they're accompanied by an exhaustive beef manifesto. The beef is dry-aged for as long as two months, sold by weight and thickness, and it is astounding across the board. Try the crusty chateaubriand, cut to order, and pair it with potatoes basically any way you want (try them garlic-fried). Then take your waiter up on his offer of a tour of the cellar and the kitchen; in both, you'll glimpse perfection. If the devil is in the details, then Bern's is hell.