Review: New Menu At 1609 At The Princess
[Written by Mikaela Ian Pearman]
A gorgeous restaurant next to a marina, incredible food, fabulous drinks and a beautiful sunset: that’s exactly what you get when you dine in 1609 at the exquisite Hamilton Princess & Beach Club.
Yes folks, 1609 has reopened for the season with a brand new menu featuring elevated Mexican cuisine and plenty of tequila/mezcal drinks to match. Think open air restaurant and fresh guac and smokey drinks. Basically, my idea of heaven.
I was invited to sample the new menu over the weekend and, of course, I had to say yes immediately. My guest and I arrived just before sunset and were quickly ushered to our table with a prime view of the orange and pink sky. It was a wonderful start to a fab evening.
Before we could order anything, our server Jaswyn offered us two glasses of Veuve Clicquot to kick off the evening. Again, I couldn’t say no to that [y’all know I love my bubbly].
While sipping our drinks, we perused the new menu to decide what to devour and saw amazing new options: guacamole made with grilled avocado, a whole ceviche section, golden fried shrimp, piri piri chicken wings, southwest veggie quesadilla, plantain chips, shrimp moqueca stew, beef short ribs a la birria and so much more.
With a ton of options, we decided to sample as much as we could. For starters, we enjoyed Golden Fried Shrimp with mango salsa and lime crema, catch of the day ceviche with onion, lime and tomato and kale and manchego salad with candied cashews, goji, manchego, grapes and creamy garlic dressing.
Everything was incredible! The shrimp was the winner – crispy but plump, a nice bite from the salsa and the crema pulled it all together. It was a pretty perfect appetizer for me. The catch of the day for the ceviche was wahoo, which was fresh, tart and went well with house made tortilla chips. It was a light yet flavourful dish. Finally, the kale and manchego salad might be my new favorite salad. It felt healthy but decadent at the same time thanks to the manchego, cashews and delicious dressing. This salad hit all the notes of a salad you want to eat on repeat.
By now, we were on to drinks. I tried the Tequila Cucumber Mule – blanco, cucumber fever tree, lemon juice, ginger beer and green chartreuse. It was refreshing and a little sweet, basically a perfect springtime drink.
Okay, back to the food. For mains, we ordered pan seared snapper fillet a la talla with fresh herb and chili marinade, fennel salad and fried plantain and stew shrimp moqueca with coconut milk, sweet pepper, Mexican rice and cilantro. We also got a side of jalapeno cornbread with honey butter.
I know I raved about the appetizers, but these mains were everything. The snapper was perfectly cooked and full of smokey tomato flavour. The fennel salad was refreshing and tart with the fried plantain added a nice crunch. Overall, an excellent dish with complex flavours. The moqueca was another winner – creamy and a little bit spicy with delicious rice.
By now it was time for another drink. This time I tried Flor de Bermuda – mezcal, vanilla syrup, lemon juice, St. Germaine and lavender bitters. This drink was smokey, sweet and tart at the same time. I enjoyed this better than the first drink. It was perfect for my palate.
For dessert, we had a chocolate tart with dulce de leche, hazelnut cream and ganache as well as semifreddo with horchata cream and puffed rice.
The tart was the clear winner – decadent, creamy and nutty thanks to the hazelnut cream. I wasn’t a big fan of the semifreddo because horchata isn’t my favourite, but the texture was great and the puffed rice added a nice crunch.
Overall, this was an excellent dinner. The ambiance is likely the best in Bermuda while the menu was innovative and the service was impeccable [massive shoutout to Jaswyn]. What I enjoyed the most was that the food wasn’t heavy at all. Everything was flavourful yet light so it’s not the Tex Mex style food you might be thinking of.
I highly recommend checking out 1609 before they get super busy as the season kicks in. I’ll be back very soon.
1609 opening hours:
Thursday through Sunday: 11:30am to 11pm [last reservation at 9:45pm]
Sunday: 11am to 3pm Brunch only [last reservation at 2pm]
