Guilt sucks: it eats away at your psyche, has you stopping at red lights, and worst of all, makes you feel bad about eating $70 worth of nachos in one sitting, even if you're not a woman. For a resto promoting guilt-free gluttony, hit Essensia.
Set in a neo-colonial dining room and poolside garden that feel kinda like a West Palm mansion, Essensia blends Mediterranean and "Floribbean" cuisine via organic produce, hormone-free meats, and sustainable fish, all crafted to give you peace-of-mind knowing that 1) you're not destroying the planet, and 2) if you really pig out, at least you'll be no more stuffed with hormones than when you walked in. On the light side, there're wilted greens (detoxifying organic mizula, arugula, spicy cabbage) with a miso dressing naturally full of amino and fatty acids for digestion, and all-organic pastas like fusilli arrabbiata with organic tomato, spicy peppers (boost immune system, packed w/ antioxidants and vitamin C), and lobster (makes you want to eat it). Entrees include wild, local Catch Of The Day fish with your choice of healthy prep (pan-roasted, poached, baked, or grilled) and finishes (Fla citrus aioli, blackened, meuniere, roasted red pepper coulis); hormone-free, rum-/spice-marinated pork tenderloin in a rum-raisin sauce, served over protein-packed quinoa; and duck breast glazed w/ thyme and local Tupelo honey, topped w/ grilled peaches -- which despite what the Presidents of the United States of America would have you think, are not for free.
Even the booze gets in on the guilt-free act: the Huckleberry Fizz rocks organic lemon vodka/agave nectar and another vodka flavored with wild huckleberries from Idaho, and the Palm Spa Cocktail is made w/ organic agave, antioxidant-rich blueberries, and Veev Acai booze -- which's carbon neutral thanks to a guilt-assuaging rain forest charity, although that's not accounting for the greenhouse gas emitted by you.
