City: Delray Beach, FL

Category: Restaurants

Telephone: (561) 279-2300

Address: 900 East Atlantic Ave.

Description: Old Calypso feels more like a redoubt of the old British Empire than it does a waterside restaurant in Delray Beach. The architecture is definitely British colonial. But the furniture and decor is actually evocative of Ernest Hemingway’s wonderful house down in Key West, with its tile ceilings, floors of Brazilian walnut, and chairs with intricate tapestries.This is a three-star restaurant, serving traditional tropical cuisine in an upscale atmosphere. To start your dinner off, try some bimini bread, sweet and fresh from the oven. Then move on to the oysters on the half shell or the crawfish and spinach dip. The Stilton bleu cheese salad is excellent. If you love good soup, don’t miss the roasted corn and crabmeat chowder. The crispy fried lobster tails are stuffed with crabmeat and fried with a tempura batter, then served with butter, mustard sauce, and soy ginger sauce. The seafood paella has lobster, shrimp, scallops, mussels, andouille sausage, fish, and spinach, and it’s blended with calypso rice. The Best Damn Chicken is exactly that, roasted French-style and served over a bed of potatoes, carrots, and tomatoes. There are some excellent champagnes and Chardonnays here. On weekends there’s live Caribbean music to get you in that Island mood, mon. Open 365 days a year.