Guess what, Winter Park? If you answered “I don’t care, ‘cuz how about that stock market!?” I’ll let it slide. But if you said “Uhh, I dunno, we’re getting another steakhouse?” you’d be as right as Maldon salt on a medium-rare ribeye.
Yes, Paradox — billed as a “modern steakhouse” and one where “indulgence exists without compromise” — will open this summer at 326 S. Park Avenue where Blu on the Avenue stood for 13 years before closing last September.
The restaurant will offer two distinct rooms in a completely reimagined space — a main dining room with a touch of Gatsby opulence, and a members lounge “designed for those who value discretion.”
A “Michelin-starred chef” will helm the kitchen, but the mysterious folks behind this mysterious restaurant haven’t revealed who this mysterious chef is. Someone who knows Paradox’s owners should probably tell them that Michelin stars are given to restaurants, not chefs.
Stylistically, the interior of the members lounge is a lavish collision of a 1930s supper club aesthetic and a Wes Anderson-designed whorehouse. Oh, and a warning for all you leggy influencers: Once members have entered the private space, photography will be forbidden.
Save your duck lips for, perhaps, the duck that may or may not be on Paradox’s menu.
Membership pricing hasn’t been announced. Nor has a menu been unveiled.
Paradox will mark Winter Park’s sixth high-end steakhouse, joining Corner Chophouse, BoVine, Ruth’s Chris, Fleming’s and Christner’s. Filling seats, of course, will be the main priority for Paradox — which won’t be too hard, I’m guessing. At least in the early going.
But for a restaurant touting its private members lounge, Paradox may very well find itself in the midst of an actual paradox — the more popular its exclusive space becomes, the less exclusive it will be.
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