FLORIDA
Inside Elliott Aster, St. Pete’s Flashiest Bid for Michelin Attention
Written by Eric Barton | June 9, 2025
AUTHOR BIO: Eric Barton is editor of The Adventurist and has reviewed restaurants for more than two decades. Email him here.
There’s a certain tell when a restaurant is aiming for a Michelin star. Maybe it’s the perfect searing and slicing of a 48-ounce Bistecca Fiorentina. Maybe it’s the crudo, arranged with the kind of geometric precision usually reserved for lunar landings. Or maybe it’s the fact that the chef behind the whole thing used to run a kitchen at El Bulli.
All of this is true at Elliott Aster, the new flagship restaurant inside the freshly renovated Vinoy Resort and Golf Club in downtown St. Petersburg. Open just a month, the place already feels like it's angling for a spot in the inaugural Florida Gulf Coast Michelin Guide.
Chef Lee Wolen
It’s a strategic play. Michelin doesn’t hand out stars to restaurants tucked behind generic lobbies with uninspired menus. But Elliott Aster—helmed by chef Lee Wolen, whose Chicago restaurant Boka has held onto a Michelin star since 2011—has the kind of pedigree the inspectors tend to notice. Wolen trained at Eleven Madison Park. He worked at El Bulli, for god’s sake. If anyone knows how to engineer a dining room for the tire-kickers, it’s this guy.
The menu reads like a greatest hits compilation of northern Italy, filtered through Wolen’s fine-dining sensibilities. There’s beef cheek tortelli glazed in aged balsamic and flecked with Sicilian oregano, the sort of dish that makes a case for pasta as high art. A tuna crudo comes dressed in blood orange, basil, and olive oil—vivid, acidic, and unmistakably Floridian. On the heartier side, there’s ricotta gnocchi tossed with spring peas, pancetta, and pesto, and the aforementioned Bistecca Fiorentina, which arrives pre-sliced like a love letter from a Tuscan butcher. And at the end, an olive oil torta with lemon and fennel pollen.
Bistecca Fiorentina
The space itself leans theatrical. Designed by the Rockwell Group, whose credits include TAO and Nobu, the dining room features an open antipasti bar where prosciutto is sliced to order and marinated peppers glisten under artful lighting. The whole production plays out just steps from the marina, with a patio for aperitivos that suggests you should probably arrive early and linger long.
Tuna crudo
Olive oil torta
And while Elliott Aster is new, the intention here isn’t subtle. This isn’t just a hotel restaurant. It’s a moonshot. A mission statement. A sign that St. Pete’s culinary ambitions no longer end at the Gulf.
Michelin may be just getting to know the city. Elliott Aster is already posing for the yearbook photo.
