BEST CULINARY DEBUT
When the sizzling vegetable fried rice hits our table at Tigress Restaurant & Rooftop Bar, the four-month-old restaurant at equally new The Perry Hotel in North Naples, the people next to us stop and stare. Around the edges of the platter, the grains sputter and crackle in a savory soy sauce butter, throwing off plumes of steam scented with winter black truffle. As the sizzle dies down, our spread still seems to be a point of fascination—maybe because our table, composed of two former Gulfshore Life dining editors, has ordered an ungodly amount of food. Two people don’t usually try to take on half the menu.
Tigress has many markers to pique a food editor’s interest. The Cantonese chophouse is the latest opening from multihyphenate celebrity chef, restaurateur and television personality Dale Talde. Another of his Cantonese restaurants, New York’s Goosefeather, earned him a James Beard Award nomination and a coveted spot on Esquire’s 2020 “Best New Restaurants in America” list. The adjacent, open-air bar, dubbed Easy Tiger, features a modern Asian cocktail list by master bartender Lynnette Marrero, the force behind some of New York City’s top cocktail programs. Set atop a hot new hotel, both have sweeping views of tangled mangroves that stretch toward the Gulf. Fittingly, both are also perpetually packed.
Yet somewhere around the sizzling vegetable fried rice it occurs to me that Tigress is more than the big names behind it. It’s the rare dining experience that fosters a sense of connection with the people around the table—passing plates of sliced hamachi topped with pineapple and chili crisp, striking up conversation about whether you should order the dry-aged beef or spicy chicken dumplings with the neighboring table, mutually agreeing it’s OK to use your hands to pick the last fatty bits from the best-I’ve-had lamb chops. “Cantonese cuisine is meant for sharing,” Dale tells me a few weeks after our dinner at Tigress. “In a [screen-oriented] time when dining can feel disconnected, we wanted to create a space that naturally fosters conversation and connection.”
Courtesy The Dana Agency
Courtesy The Dana Agency
Courtesy The Dana Agency
Courtesy The Dana Agency
Broward County-based design firm Casa Conde & Associates conceived the restaurant to encourage diners to gather in groups. The dining room has almost no two-tops—a rarity for restaurants that want to leave no seat unoccupied—opting instead for a series of horseshoe-shaped banquettes, softly lit by galvanized steel mesh chandeliers. Envisioning the restaurant as a jewel box, they filled it with little, eye-catching gems—a large mural of tropical flora with miniature tigers tucked among the foliage, vintage ginger jars and collections of Chinese opera characters.
But the real treasures are meant to be consumed. Every meal should start with a drink from Easy Tiger. Lynnette has built her reputation around tapping into varying regional identities with cocktails, garnering a James Beard Award nomination for the South American spirits program at Brooklyn Peruvian restaurant Llama Inn. For Easy Tiger, she looked to Hong Kong’s vibrant bar scene for inspiration, infusing Asian ingredients into classic cocktails, like a riff on the Gibson made with Japanese gin and pickled shiitake mushroom or a Cognac highball with Szechuan peppercorn, coconut and dragon fruit. “It’s really calling out things being used on the food menu,” she says. “We’re leaning into those Chinese ingredients [for] a surprising twist on flavors.”
Dale similarly riffs on the pillars of Cantonese cuisine through a modern, global lens. “I love the combination of dim sum, noodles and barbecue pork,” he says. “Through technique and creativity, we bring elements together in a way that honors tradition while offering a fresh take.” Pillowy bao are stuffed with chilled lobster salad or Nashville hot chicken; the lacquered, dry-aged crown of duck teeters on a stack of Hong Kong-style French toast; and the classic char siu is made with richly marbled, heritage-breed Berkshire pork belly. Everything arrives neatly sliced or individually portioned to share.
Courtesy The Dana Agency
easy tiger rooftop bar cocktail
The restaurant and bar mark the newest additions to Naples’ recent Asian restaurant renaissance, with places like Ichi Togarashi, Tong Yin and the forthcoming Blackbird Modern Asian. These establishments showcase a more nuanced, region-specific approach to the continent and its myriad flavors, with Tigress devoting itself to the dim sum, barbecue and wok-fired traditions that define the cooking of Hong Kong and southern China.
As the evening wears on, we pack up the last of our feast to take home. But first, dessert. Tigress has only a few house-made options. Naturally, we get them all. As we taste the different items, we debate the merits of each. Do we prefer the warm mochi waffles with sweet, almost floral mango sorbet? Or is the tart, shaved calamansi and yuzu ice the perfect foil to all that buttery rice and meat? The debate never gets settled. As we pass the plates back and forth, the conversation gradually shifts away from work to discuss friends, family and, of course, food. It’s exactly as Dale intended—a genuine connection spurred by the sharing of cocktails, dim sum, sizzling fried rice and the discovery of a new favorite restaurant.
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Courtesy The Dana Agency
easy tiger rooftop bar layout
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Courtesy The Dana Agency
tigress rooftop bar and restaurant dish closeup
Dale honors Cantonese cuisine’s communal spirit with shareable plates that riff on dim sum and barbecued meats, like the dry-aged crown of duck on a stack of Hong Kong-style French toast.