December 2, 2013 — At the Fontainebleau in Miami Beach, its gilled guests have accommodations nearly as posh as its two-legged ones.
The resort recently poured $100,000 into its “Water World,” an underground stack of pristine aquariums that hold live fish and seafood for the Fontainebleau’s nine on-site restaurants. It also spent six figures on a 43-foot boat docked at Dinner Key Marina that delivers hundreds of pounds of fish daily.
Designed and built by Fort Lauderdale’s Living Color Aquariums, Water World includes fish-friendly amenities like temperature-controlled water — Florida spiny lobsters like the thermostat set to 70 degrees; Maine lobsters prefer to chill at 50 degrees. An artist painted a blue-hued sea mural on the walls, and the tanks’ lights are kept on timers to mimic the ocean’s patterns.
“We want them to feel as much at home as possible,” said Thomas Connell, the Fontainebleau’s executive chef. “The less stress a fish feels, the fresher it’s going to taste when we pull it from the tanks.
“And that’s the whole reason we did this: to give guests the freshest seafood experience possible.”
Connell said the ideas to invest in a Torres commercial fishing boat, christened the BleauFish, and to upgrade Water World came from Fontainebleau owner Jeffrey Soffer. “He’s very into the culture of food and the mystique of the ocean,” Connell said.