Season’s 52 represents Darden Restaurants’ (Red Lobster, Olive Garden, Smokey Bones and Bahama Breeze) foray into the semi-upscale dining experience. As the name suggests, the menu is built around seasonal foods and vegetables but additionally the cooking is also styled to produce flavorful meals with fewer calories than normal. There are two locations in the Central Florida area; one in Altamonte Springs and one in the Dr. Philips area on Sandlake Road overlooking Lake Sand.

My wife and I enjoyed our anniversary dinner at the Sand Lake Road location this past Saturday night. We arrived about ten minutes prior to our 6pm reservation (accepted, but not required) and the dining room was full, so we sat in the waiting area with our assigned “GlowMaster” alerting device and perused a menu while waiting for our table.

When you walk into the restaurant from the entrance on the Sand Lake Road side, the bar is on your left, the open-cooking area on the right, the main interior dining area is directly in front of you and the outdoor dining area is beyond that on a deck overlooking Lake Sand. The restaurant is constructed in subdued wood and glass materials with a cathedral style wood-beamed ceiling rising to reveal two skylights over the interior dining room. Directly beneath the skylights, in the midst of the dining room tables, two live trees extend upward from planters in the floor to brush against the glass of the skylights. The wall facing Lake Sand is made of glass panels, allowing a nice view of the outdoor dining deck and of Lake Sand. Easy-listening jazz music plays softly in the background, heard just above the din of conversations at the tables.

After about 5 minutes our alerting device began flashing and our host escorted us to our table. With the exception of the host and hostess, all the service personnel (servers, bartenders, cooks) wear black tee shirts and black pants. It’s an interesting “dress down” effect that works well within the atmosphere of the restaurant.

Our server, Derek, arrived at our table within 15 seconds of our being seated to take our drink order. My wife decided on a domestic white wine while I chose a Spanish red wine I had never tried before. I was not displeased with the Spanish wine; it was full-bodied and possessed a good flavor, but it was a very strong flavor and not as smooth as others I have enjoyed.

As an appetizer we ordered the Vine Ripe Tomato Flatbread with sweet basil & Parmesan cheese. The flatbread was very thin and very crisp, with an excellent mixture of thinly sliced tomatoes, sprinkles of Parmesan cheese topped with just the right amount of basil to bring out the flavors of the bread, tomatoes and cheese. I don’t want to say we fought over it, but there was definitely a point where knives were brandished before a compromise was reached.

We each ordered a salad, with mine being a Spring Greens Salad with toasted sunflower seeds and light aged balsamic dressing and my wife enjoying a Grilled Romaine Salad served with Parmesan dressing. I was pleasantly surprised at the light tartness of the balsamic dressing on my salad, as my experience has been that balsamic dressings are usually very biting in their flavor. But after tasting my wife’s Grilled Romaine salad, I believe that will be my choice on subsequent visits. The combination of a full head of Romaine lettuce lightly grilled so that just the green leaves are browned or slightly blackened combined with the excellent Parmesan dressing proved to be absolutely delicious.

For entrees my wife ordered the London Broil with rich mushroom sauce & rustic garlic mashed potatoes while I chose a Premium 6 Oz. Filet Mignon with cracked peppercorn sauce & grilled crimini mushrooms. The vegetables of the day for both dishes were grilled asparagus mixed with grilled glazed carrots. My wife ordered her London Broil cooked medium-well and received it as ordered, which was easy since the steak was served thinly sliced with the mushroom sauce spread across the slices of meat. I had order my Filet Mignon cooked medium-well also, but had to ask Derek to return it for a little more cooking since it arrived more medium than medium-well. I wasn’t upset with having to send it back, since I’ve come to expect that being necessary with such a thick cut of meat. I probably should just order it well-done from now on. When it arrived back from some extra cooking, it was just right.

Both entrees were delicious. The meats were tender (mine practically melted in my mouth) and flavorful, my wife’s potatoes were to her liking (she’s a mashed potato connoisseur) and the vegetables were grilled to perfection. Our satisfaction, both taste-wise and volume-wise, was such that we were wondering if we would have room for desserts, but there really was no question that we were going to get them.

Fortunately all the dessert offerings are small, identified on the menu as “Mini Indulgences … individual servings of classic desserts”. We ordered a Key Lime Pie and a Rocky Road, then each of us ate half of each one. The Key Lime was some of the best I’ve had in restaurants and the Rocky Road was full of chocolate goodness. An excellent end to an excellent dining experience.

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