Square One – New American Table

I’ll make this brief… Got sat right away, restaurant was about ¹⁄₃ full, waiter filled waters, left for about 10 minutes maybe more… had to ask host to get her… still took a few minutes… ordered and waited for drinks/​food. 3 beers and a soda took a lonnnnnnng time to be delivered. I mean! Really? Same time the food was being delivered a table of smokers was sat right next to us. Why on Earth would a restaurant allow smoking inside their patio where people are eating? I don’t mind people who smoke, but not when I am trying to eat an $ 18.50 burger. Moved tables and that was that. If you are looking for American fare please walk down the street and eat at Five Brothers where you are sure to get better service, better price, same food, and no one smoking on your meal. Service here SUCKS!!! Step it up you guys! It’s not that hard!
P. s. When we asked for our check it was dropped in SECONDS! Interesting, huh?

To be fair we didn’t eat here, but had a reservation. Got seated by a hostess with an attitude, sat a few minutes, looked at the not very exciting menu for a Key West restaurant, didn’t even get acknowledged or water or anything so got up and left and found La Te Da which was awesome!

I’ll cut to the chase. The food was excellent. We had the pork pot stickers, devils on horseback, sweet potatoes fries, and key lime pie in a cup. I could have and would have had more if there was any service to speak of. The place was empty but yet it took forever to order drinks and once the first courses came, the server completely disappeared. We resulted in flagging down other servers and the managers to order desert and get the check. We weren’t in a hurry so it wasn’t the end of the world but very disappointing.

Had a pleasant dinner on the patio with big Cobb Salad and glass of wine. Our waiter was very attentive and we didn’t have to wait long for drinks or dinner. Would go back again!

Pros: watching lovebird parrots groom each other, quiet off street location
Cons: tourist trap, wrapped in pretty bistro clothing. terrible food, insultingly so. My salad had rotting leaves, practically none of the advertised ingredients, and annoying substitutions like stale sunflower seeds instead of pumpkin seeds.

Half-​off happy hour on sign for drinks. Fine print «at bar». Seated in restaurant and of course charged full price. We loved it was veg and vegan friendly but wow. Hoodwinking tourist trap. Boo.

Dinner was wonderful. Seafood Risotto was fabulous.
Same owner of Banana Café! Wonderful staff and food.
Would definitely eat here again.

Six of us went here for brunch. Although the place was empty (it was Christmas eve), we enjoyed the food and our server was great. Most of us ordered a version of the eggs benedict– salmon benny, original benny, square root benny– and loved it. We also ordered salads, which were fresh and original (one had fried kale, which was nice and crispy!). We also enjoyed the fresh brewed tea, which was a nice treat.

Just a few blocks from the hotel we were staying at. And another great recommendation from Nicole and Sabrina
We came in to try their happy hour because we weren’t hungry enough for a big dinner, we were also saving room for Better Than Sex later. Disappointed that happy hour is only inside at the bar, would have really enjoyed their large outdoor seating area. But the bartender Jason was a great guy. His drink suggestions were delicious. The food we had was also lip smacking good. Enjoyed the unique duck dumplings, the soy sauce was a tad salty for me. The seafood flatbread– hubby and I fought over the last delicious piece– just the right amount of chunks of fresh crab, scallops and shrimp with a thin crispy crust. Mmmm
If we just had a longer stay we could have ate there again.

If I could give this 10 stars I would. Been craving a place like this since moving to key west a few months ago. A much needed reprieve from the tired bar fare. We stumbled upon this place, which is set back in Duval square, because we heard live music coming from a wedding reception next door. We were greeted at the host stand outside by Mark who also ended up being our server. We asked to see the menu and Mark gave us some recommendations on dishes and apps. The drink menu drew us in also as they offered a variety of craft cocktails which is hard to find on Duval. Loved the décor and ambiance, trendy and yet warm/​romantic. There is outdoor seating on a nice patio as well. Ordered the recommended items from server Mark and were blown away. We shared Duck dumplings and the vegetarian special which was a gnocchi dish to die for– some kind of red pepper cream sauce from heaven. Clearly made fresh in house everything tasted absolutely delicious and flavor combinations I hadn’t had before. Foodies rejoice! This place is not overpriced either I found it very reasonable. Will be coming back regularly.

While I can’t say this was the best meal of our honeymoon it did come very close. I would argue though that this was the best meal of Key West.
An upside to doing our honeymoon during the off season was less tourists. The down side to doing out honeymoon during the off season was less tourists. Less tourists means places are not open or have different hours to account for the lack of business. We had been wandering around trying to find some place to eat. We hit a dead spot on our phones so Unilocal wasn’t much help. We looked at the menu for SQ1 and said sounds good.
We started with some cocktails. Their cocktail menu is quite extensive. One thing I really appreciated about the menu though was that it breaks it down by type of glass with a picture of each glass. It gives you a sense of what this drink is. I cannot tell you the number of times I ordered a drink expecting it to come in a old fashion glass and it comes out as a martini. Personally I have been going through a bit of a bloody Mary kick myself. SQ1 had some of the most creative twists on bloody Mary’s I’ve ever seen. I started with an Orange, which is a bloody Mary made with carrots and beets instead of tomato juice. They also add other things to give it spice and flavor. It was really different and quite refreshing. Earthy, spicy, but also a bit sweet. I then tried the Green, which was more tomatillo/​spinach/​poblano based (again no tomato). It had more of a kick, but was also very good and unique.
For food, we weren’t terribly hungry so we wanted to split a salad and maybe a small entrée. We asked our waitress her feelings on the salads. She turned us towards the Beet Carpaccio. It was a wise choice. My big complaint when you go somewhere and get a beet salad is there is never enough beets. Here they made sure that a beet dish actually had plenty of beets. It was also a salad that had all the textures and flavors you would want. There was crunch, creaminess, chewy, juicy, etc. The beets were sweet and earthy, the arugula was the right level of bitter, the goat cheese just complex enough, and the citrus brightened it all up. Superb.
We also did the Devils on Horseback, which I guess is a Key West thing because we saw it on some other menus. Now I love bacon wrapped dates and Devil’s on Horseback seem to be a variation on that. Googling it, most recipes seem to call for oysters or dried fruit. I think they used sun dried tomatoes here, but maybe it was dates? Either way it was fantastic. We practically inhaled them. They were rich and full of flavor. Honestly some of the best bacon wrapped anything I have ever had. It was so good we ordered a second round.
We ended the night with a key lime pie. Probably the second best key lime pie we had our entire trip, but the best in the Keys for sure. Now I’m sure it wouldn’t fly with a purist like my dad, but it was served in a glass. I think serving it in a glass was really smart on their part. It helped limit the amount of needed crust and they could focus on the filling and home made whipped cream. It wasn’t overly sweet or tart, and the custard wasn’t too firm (we had one that was like a cheesecake). If we could have we would have licked the glass clean.
Our waitress was also such a nice woman. She was there when we needed her and gone when we didn’t. Nothing too long and it all came out just right. At the end of the night she stopped my husband and told him that we were the best types of customers and we should come back. He laughed it off, but she told him she really meant it. It touched us to know that the waitress thought so highly of us.
Great service and fantastic food!
⁸⁶⁄₁₀₀

Cute outdoor patio and a fun graphic menu with lots of options. However, it took a long time to get drinks when we were the ONLY people there and then they brought out our two apps but one was wrong and we had to wait for them to bring the right one.
Also, the staff were hanging Christmas tree lights on the patio when we were seated and instead of taking a break, they continued to do so DIRECTLY above our heads and in the mean time broke two or three bulbs and they kept crackling all over us. I thought this was SUPER strange and tacky.

Nice ambiance but a bit «cold» for key west.
It also could have been because we got there an hour before it closed.
Food was good but nothing to boast about. I would say it was a solid meal. We ordered the mussels with vermouth sauce the mushroom and grits and the veggie sliders and for desert doughnuts and café.
Our waitress was sweet and it is a nice restaurant tucked away off duval street.