Beirut

An escape from Beirut's dreary restaurant grind, St. Elmo’s serves elevated pub grub in a retro-urban seaside setting. The restaurant owes it’s name to St. Erasmus of Formiae, the patron saint of sailors who is affectionately known as St. Elmo’s.

Attempts at culinary categorization are futile since St. Elmo’s is more seasonal and inventive than Beirut’s best brasseries but cheaper and more accessible than what you find at the great bastions of haute cuisine. Specializing in down-home dishes like rich and gooey 'Mac & Cheese', the 'Classic Fish & Chips' and a plethora of other sudo-traditional foodstuffs, St. Elmo’s has managed to capture the elusive mix of style and spirit of ‘the perfect day at the beach’.

Designed by 'Enfant Terrible', Joey Ghazal and Interior Architect, Aal Chammaa Batal the space is slavishly decorated with the kind of carefully distressed nautical vintage stuff that Joey and his friends scavenged at back alley garage sales and flee markets. This calculated clutter, gives the space the sense of character and neighborly belonging.

The bar lounge scene at Elmo’s is a phenomenon unto itself, rising to a fever pitch, as diligent boozehounds work their woozy way through bone-warming specialty drinks, like the ‘Dark and Stormy’, the ‘Captain’s Daughter’ and the ‘Bloody Mess’. The cure for the common meal, St. Elmo's has managed to capture the elusive and style and spirit of the 'perfect day at the bay'.