What: Mastro’s Ocean Club
Website: Click here
Where: 15045 North Kierland Blvd, Scottsdale, AZ, USA
Rating: 
Why:
If you’re up for a romantic, swanky, fine dining experience in Scottsdale, Arizona, then look no further than this fabulous restaurant and club.
Perched on the corner of North Kieland Boulevard and the entry drive into Kierland Commons (diagonally across from the Westin Kierland Spa and Resort) is Mastro’s Ocean Club.
This restaurant, lounge and club opens as a lounge from 4pm but is otherwise for dinner only. It unashamedly tries to be a glitzy affair and achieves that in spades, perhaps even going too far if you’re the cynical type. From the pretty, tanned and precociously aloof model in the LBD who took our booking at the door that afternoon (and who joined several other equally gene-blessed hosts at the reception area inside that evening), to the silver service from the male and female waiters all dressed in black tie complete with white coats and black bow ties — this is unabashed swank in all its glory.
Even if that’s not your thing, it is difficult not to be entirely impressed because this Club pulls all of that off really well. The restaurant is beautiful inside, the wait staff know the extensive food and wine menus, as well as the night’s multiple specials, in significant detail, and they do absolutely everything they can to make your stay just that bit special.
As you enter the restaurant, to the right of reception and down the stairs is a large wine bar with some standing and seated tables where you can enjoy whatever drink takes your fancy while you listen to the live band entertaining the more energetic visitors on the dance floor. The restaurant itself (which is to the right of reception, not down the stairs) is indeed optional as many locals visit the venue for the glitzy club feel it offers. If we are going to be picky about it, the band were actually cheating a little as they had a backing track with music and vocals on it that they were singing and playing to, and really only the drummer was the professional musician. However, they sang in tune enough and appeared entertaining enough to delight the 20-30 people constantly on the dance floor, while the rest of the room, comprising at least 100 people, were happily singing or tapping along while enjoying their cocktails – no musical purists here.
Being a Saturday night, the restaurant and club were both inordinately busy, which is a very good sign, so while we had a reservation, we were still quite happy to wait and listen to the music for 10 minutes or so. It passed by swiftly and we were ushered to our table by another model-esque host, and were met by our waiter hardly a moment after the host glided serenely back to reception to join the other hosts.
This is where you come to set the bar really high on a first date, or to celebrate something really special, or when you are on holiday (like we were) and just want to do a bit of safe splashing out on some great quality food and service. Once again, this fine restaurant does not disappoint.
As you might imagine from its name, the restaurant specializes in seafood. As is expected in a fine dining restaurant that actually does provide a fine dining experience, the “usual suspects” on the menu are all there, and then some, but are also specific to a given region or breed of fish, and of course there are varieties of crab, shrimp and lobster. As well-fed Australians we have been spoilt multiply with large and beautiful prawns, but the shrimp we were served as an appetizer were enormous and nothing short of impressive, not to mention extremely tasty.
The excellent menu also includes an impressive array of meat cuts and other proteins, a variety of tasty sides, sauces and dressings, as well as multiple gluten free, vegetarian and vegan options.
Our waiter was attentive, friendly and down to earth. However, she was certainly able to switch on the “glam” if her customers appeared to want that – she was having a very different conversation with us from that she was having with the customers a couple of tables down, but never skipped a beat.
Being a very busy night, the food was delayed but only very slightly – we were eating our appetizers within 15 minutes of ordering and our entrees (remember main courses are called entrees in the US) within 30 minutes of finishing our appetizers.
Our appetizers (and, we noticed, a number of other dishes on the menu) came with a bit of theatre, with our shrimp cocktails served in a glass cocktail bowl surrounded by concealed dry ice, leaving the cocktail bowls smoking away as they arrived and for a few minutes afterwards. It’s a well-known restaurant gimmick, but it is still impressive and is totally in line with the product they sell, which is fine quality food with a fine quality presentation.
The seafood we were served for main course – a thick swordfish steak for me and B enjoyed lemon sole with vanilla in tempura batter – was impeccably cooked and presented and tasted every bit as good as it looked. As seems to be the case in this part of the world, the serves were very generous – you will certainly not go hungry.
If you’re smart, you will not finish what’s on your main course plate (assuming that was physically possible) and leave room for one of the scrumptious desserts on offer. We saved some space to share some creme brulee for dessert and it was equally as impressive as the main course.
As expected, the wine we were recommended towards was perfectly matched with what we ate, and rounded off what was in our view a very impressive fine dining experience.
Being as impressive as it was, you do not expect the bill to be any less impressive, but even without under-doing it, you might expect a bill total for two (pre-tip) to be around or just under the USD$300 mark. To minimize it, we suggest minimizing how many cocktails you order. They’re quite delicious and won’t break the bank, but that’s no reason to invite them to do so.
This is a place to which we will most definitely return.
