Palm Beach Restaurants to Know: Vineta & Tutto Mare

Look up while you're seated at Coco's this fall and you might notice something in the ceiling above the dining room: a leopard, worked into the plaster as a private joke for anyone who remembers what this room used to be. For thirty-three years, this address was The Chesterfield, and its bar was the Leopard Lounge, a fixture of island nightlife that plenty of residents still remember by that name. The animal is gone from the room's name. It never quite left the room.

A few blocks away, inside what's now called Tutto Mare, a different kind of memory got restored rather than papered over. The 1950s mural on the wall, "Venetian Festival," spent decades as the backdrop to the old Celebrity Room, its painted caricatures of Clark Gable and Joan Crawford watching over whoever was dining underneath. The building's new owners didn't repaint it. They cleaned it and kept it.

These are the two biggest hospitality openings on Palm Beach Island in 2026, and neither one is actually new. Both are restorations of buildings that already had names, wearing those names again after decades of going by something else. If you live here, that pattern is worth understanding before you decide where to book dinner this month, because it tells you exactly what you'll find when you walk in the door: not a concept built from scratch, but a space that already knew what it was.

A Hotel That Went Back to Its Own Name

The building at 363 Cocoanut Row has worn four names in a hundred years. It opened in February 1926 as the Lido-Venice Hotel, became the Vineta two years later, was renamed the Palm Court Hotel in the early 1980s, and became The Chesterfield around 1989, the identity most residents grew up with. In late 2022, new owners Reuben Brothers and Oetker Hotels reverted the name to the Vineta, and after a three-year renovation the hotel reopened in early 2026 as Oetker Collection's first property in the United States.

The renovation cut the room count from 53 to 41, spreading guests into more space per room rather than adding square footage to the building. Paris-based designer Tino Zervudachi led the interiors, working with architects Spina O'Rourke & Partners to bring in terrazzo floors, Venetian plaster, and shell motifs that lean into the property's 1926 Mediterranean Revival bones rather than against them. Rooms currently start around $1,900 a night, which puts the Vineta in the same conversation as Oetker's other addresses: Hotel du Cap-Eden-Roc in Antibes and Le Bristol in Paris.

Coco's, the hotel's restaurant, draws its menu partly from that Antibes connection. Executive Chef Brian Rodriguez worked with Hotel du Cap-Eden-Roc's Sébastien Broda to bring dishes like steak Diane and sea bass with fennel puree across the Atlantic. The Pool House next door serves Giovanni's pizza, the first location of that Antibes trattoria outside the original property. The Bar, attached to Coco's, runs the hotel's cocktail program today, but the clearest nod to the old Leopard Lounge is the one already mentioned: that leopard worked into the ceiling plaster directly above the dining room.

Oetker CEO Timo Gruenert told Afar that "Palm Beach has always had a strong sense of its own identity," a line that reads less like marketing copy and more like an explanation for why the company chose restoration over rebranding.

The Room That Used to Be the Celebrity Room

At 70 Royal Poinciana Way, inside Royal Poinciana Plaza, Tutto Mare opened in January 2026 as the only restaurant on the island sitting directly on the Intracoastal. The space is built inside the historic Royal Poinciana Playhouse, and the dining room that anchors it, the old Celebrity Room, still carries its restored mural of mid-century stars who used to eat there. It's the kind of detail that only matters if you already know the building's history, which is exactly the point.

Gabby Karan de Felice, daughter of designer Donna Karan, and her husband Gianpaolo de Felice designed the space and run the kitchen concept, building on the Tutto il Giorno restaurants they founded in the Hamptons back in 2008. Chef de cuisine Carmine Nozzolino oversees a menu that leans into coastal Mediterranean dishes: branzino acqua pazza, fritto misto, paccheri con frutti di mare. The room itself blends vaulted oak beams, travertine, and teak, with the main dining area opening onto a 65-seat outdoor deck facing Lake Worth Lagoon and the Palm Harbor Marina.

Getting in is its own project. The restaurant books through Resy, and tables have been described by more than one reviewer as nearly impossible to land on short notice, especially for a Friday or Saturday evening. Dinner service runs seven nights a week, generally from around 5 to 10:30, with valet and self-parking available at the Plaza. There's no sign marking the entrance from the walkway, which either reads as understated confidence or a small inconvenience, depending on how many times you've already looked for it.

Same Move, Different Century

Put the two projects side by side and the pattern isn't subtle. Both are the largest hospitality investments the island has seen this year. Both occupy buildings with real history, one from 1926 and one tied to a theater and social club from the mid-twentieth century. And both owners, when faced with the choice of building something new or bringing back what was already there, chose the second option and said so explicitly. The Vineta didn't pick a fresh name to signal a fresh start. It picked the name it had before The Chesterfield ever existed. Tutto Mare didn't repaint over a fading mural to modernize the room. It restored the mural and built the modern restaurant around it.

For a resident, that tells you something more useful than a list of new menu items. It tells you these aren't pop-up concepts testing the market before a quiet exit. Multi-year renovations, imported executive chefs, and a hospitality group opening its first American address don't happen if the plan is to leave in eighteen months. The bet both ownership groups are making is that Palm Beach's history is the asset, not the obstacle, and that residents will recognize what's been restored even as they enjoy what's new about it.

If You're Trying to Get a Table

A few practical notes for planning an evening around either address:

• The Vineta / Coco's, 363 Cocoanut Row, two blocks from Worth Avenue. Room rates start around $1,900 a night; dining reservations are best made in advance given the hotel's high profile since reopening.
• The Vineta Bar, attached to Coco's, open to hotel guests and outside visitors, run as a seated venue rather than a standing bar.
• Tutto Mare, 70 Royal Poinciana Way inside Royal Poinciana Plaza, open nightly from roughly 5 to 10:30. Reservations run through Resy, and weekend tables are the hardest to secure.
• The Pool House at the Vineta serves a more casual daytime menu, including Giovanni's pizza, for anyone who wants the Antibes connection without the dinner reservation scramble.

Both spaces reward knowing the building's backstory before you walk in, which is really the case for most of the island. If you're curious about what else has changed on Palm Beach this year, or what hasn't, our Palm Beach neighborhood guide keeps a running account of the addresses worth knowing.

For anything beyond dinner reservations, from questions about the island's property market to a conversation about buying or selling here, Lisa Cheponis is always glad to talk. Schedule a Private Consultation whenever the timing is right.