Food Editor: Stone crabs, fancy Frito pies, new restaurants and other October finds

Before the 10th month of the year calls it a wrap, let’s recount the gifts of October:

The swelter surrendered. The dip in temperatures may not have brought us sweater weather but it gave us sunny-and-mild reasons to dine al fresco and maybe venture out for weekend brunch.

Here are some new brunches to put on your radar.

Stone crab season arrived. It opened despite Hurricane Ian’s best efforts to devastate the Fort Myers area and its fishing businesses. Palm Beach County seafood markets and restaurants, who source their stone crabs from Florida and Bahamian waters, managed to stock their display cases and kitchens with the meaty, early-season claws.

Here’s where to find those meaty claws!

Speaking of Hurricane Ian, we were reminded that there are tremendously generous souls in our local restaurant world as some Palm Beach County chefs headed to the west coast to serve up relief.

Green market season returned. It kicked off Oct. 1 with the opening of the county’s centerpiece market, the downtown West Palm Beach GreenMarket, which is sprawled along the waterfront commons area on eastern Clematis Street.

Here’s our guide to local green markets, including the dog-friendly ones.  

Hispanic Heritage Month brought its flavor. And by flavor, I mean everything from specialty doughnuts to Bad Bunny cookies.

Here are six of my favorite Latino bites/restaurants in Palm Beach County.

Farewells and hellos

Sadly, we also said goodbye to a couple of favorite local restaurants.

The iconic Pizza Girls closed its last remaining location in Palm Beach Gardens. In North Palm Beach, Nonna Maria announced what its loyal customers had feared for months – it was permanently closed, and here’s why.

But we said hello to a buzzy, new restaurant. In northern Jupiter, the team behind Papichulo Tacos debuted a Chinese-inspired restaurant called Blackbird Modern Asian. And several weeks earlier, Boca Raton’s Mizner Park welcomed a newly relocated and expanded Kapow Noodle Bar.

Here are five new and newish restaurants to try!

Tasty happenings ahead

We also have new food-and-dining events to look forward to. Soon it will be farm dinner season at Swank and Kai-Kai farms.

Also coming up: new restaurants. Miami star chef José Mendín plans to open a location of his popular Pubbelly Sushi in downtown West Palm Beach. (More on this soon.) Not too far from Pubbelly’s Banyan Boulevard location, Harry’s, Adrienne’s Pizzabar and Felice – part of a wave of New York restaurants opening Palm Beach County outposts – are expected to debut.

In nearby Flamingo Park, the team behind Fern Street Wine Bar and Kitchen plan to open Rueshaw, a restaurant that will highlight meats from the owners’ American Wagyu ranch in Okeechobee.

Hot, haute deal

And speaking of Wagyu, have you tried the fanciest Frito pie in town? West Palm Beach chef Emerson Frisbie tops this “high-low” dish with Wagyu chili and other cheffy touches.

Read all about this Wagyu Frito pie, which is $5 (half-price) on Wednesdays. 

This cookbook is ‘a real trip’

Chef Lisabet Summa is the corporate culinary mind behind restaurants such as Elisabetta’s, City Cellar and Rocco’s Tacos, all part of the Big Time Restaurant Group. She’s also the most enthusiastic collector of cookbooks I’ve ever met.

Her cookbook collection is lovingly displayed on shelves, tables and counters throughout her West Palm Beach home library, kitchen, sewing studio and other relaxing nooks.

Lisabet once told me she reads cookbooks “like they’re novels, cover to cover”.

So with October, National Cookbook Month, coming to a close, I asked her to tell me about her current favorite cookbook. What’s caught her fancy this month?

She’s smitten by Phaidon Press’ 2021 book “Septime, La Cave, Clamato, D’une île” by chef Bertrand Grébaut and partner Théophile Pourriat, the duo behind Paris’ groundbreaking, refined/approachable restaurant Septime.

“This is a fascinating book. A recipe cookbook but it reads like a novel,” Lisabet said via email. “It is as beautifully photographed as it is styled. It is unique in its storytelling.”

The storytelling is in the hands of the duo behind Septime, which as Lisabet puts it “turned one of the world’s greatest dining cities, Paris, on its head.”

The book, she says, “chronicles a very important development in modern Parisian cuisine that offers an alternative experience to the guest of an unfussy atmosphere, but one that is dripping in style and technique and in quality.”

“Not having been yet, the book has fulfilled my armchair travelers' curiosity about their quest and accomplishments in Paris and outlying areas,” she says. “It’s a total immersion in a genre that I love. It’s a real trip.”

Read recent columns by Liz Balmaseda

◾ Best reasons to visit Florida's oldest steakhouse in Palm Beach County.

◾ I'll miss this neighborhood gem, but there's some "joy" in its closing.

◾ Goodbye to a beloved and iconic pizzeria's final location.

Liz Balmaseda is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist for The Palm Beach Post, part of the USA Today Network. She oversees The Post's daily food coverage. Follow her on Twitter, Instagram and Post on Food Facebook. She can be reached by email at lbalmaseda@pbpost.com. Support local journalism by subscribing to The Palm Beach Post.

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Stone crabs, Wagyu Frito pies, new restaurants in Palm Beach County