If there’s one thing the pandemic taught the restaurant industry, it’s that to pivot is to survive. In the post-COVID era, we’ve witnessed prominent restaurants alter course for reasons ranging from strategic and economic to creative and philosophical — Eleven Madison Park’s 2021 transition to a plant-based operation, and 2025 transition back to serving some animal products in 2025, being a prime example. Point is, there’s no shame in reinventing one’s business, or oneself. It takes a lot of courage, in fact. In the case of Chayote Barrio Kitchen in Winter Park Village, the striking restaurant was the pride of chef Mario Pagan, a place where he showcased his “Nueva Mesa Latina,” or “New Latin Table,” with dishes celebrating the foodways of all Hispanic cultures. “Chayote was very, very special to me,” the Puerto Rico-born chef says.
But numerous factors — namely, a competitive market, the rising cost of procuring ingredients from Latin America and the Caribbean, and the need for a more familiar menu for the Winter Park gentry — forced his lechón-slicked hand and, thus, The Grove Bar + Kitchen was born. For Pagan, shifting to a Florida-centric restaurant not only allowed him to spotlight the bounty of the state, but presented a full-circle moment as well. The Grove’s dishes are an interpretation of the fare he cooked while living in South Florida in the ’90s, so, yes, tropical flavors are still very much present, but they’re now applied in dishes that are, to use a term simultaneously loathed and respected by many a classically trained chef, “approachable.”
So, it’s a good thing that “irresistible” and “approachable” aren’t mutually exclusive, because we couldn’t get enough of beautifully deconstructed crab cakes ($26) with a potato croquette-latke base on which lay Pensacola blue crab with a spread of dry mustard aioli and a mango-papaya-mint salsa garnish.
Pagan was an architecture student prior to pivoting and becoming a chef, so no surprise that caviar-dressed Gulf yellowfin tartare ($27) layered on a disc of avocado-wasabi and puffed jasmine rice was so meticulously assembled, as if he and executive chef Monica Ortiz were channeling Bertrand Goldberg. The 12-layer brisket lasagna ($27) is a brutalist superstructure of shredded beef, with domes of ricotta and cherry tomato and spires fashioned from fried basil; the carpaccio ($23), a Roman mosaic floor of translucent Angus beef centered around a hillock of artichokes.
There’s nothing overly engineered about The Grove’s honey biscuits ($12). When I first tried them, they were a bit too dense. On my next visit, the fluffy rounds served with a pimento cheese spread, in addition to a Winter Park Honey butter because of an allergy at our table, made short work of dining protocol and etiquette. “Please, you have the last biscuit.” “Don’t mind if I do!” That honey butter, BTW, needs to be bottled and sent away into space for future societies to study and enjoy.
Indeed, an emphasis has been placed on comfort, and the deeply caramelized, luxuriously marbled Kurobuta double pork chop ($39), with a sensible side of local greens, oozes with it. A tropical smoked hibiscus barbecue glaze only enhanced the chop’s porcine decadence. Pink trout ($27), butterflied, panko-breaded and seared in brown butter, is served with a grain mustard emulsion which we opted to have on the side. Pouring it over the fish would’ve compromised its texture and mild flavor, a suggestion offered by our refined and experienced server.
There’s pizza as well (see: “approachable”), made with a sourdough crust, like the margherita ($19). It’s a weighty pie, and if that’s your thing, go for it. For us, it sat kinda heavy and, besides, we had all begun preparing our bellies for pastry chef Janelle Rodriguez’s pancreas-pushing creations. If you’re asking me to choose between her Key lime Basque cheesecake ($14) with warm blueberry marmalade, or the warm chocolate cake ($15) with Gianduja ganache, hazelnut ice cream and butterscotch crunch, you’d be asking someone whose stomach demonstrates a reckless disregard for load-bearing walls. I will say that I nearly toppled over after a bite of the warm croissant pudding ($14) with dulce de leche ice cream.
Perhaps that’s the best way to think about The Grove: not as a demolition of Chayote, but a renovation. Pagan hasn’t abandoned his Latin roots so much as opened things up to let Florida’s ingredients shine through. The restaurant’s name may have changed, but its foundation remains the same.
The Grove Bar + Kitchen, 480 N. Orlando Ave., Winter Park, 321-343-3003, thegrovebarandkitchen.com.
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This article appears in Oct. 7-13, 2026.
