Greatest golf course meals and drinks: A journey author’s favorites

As a author who travels the globe protecting golf, journey and all issues meals and beverage — and who racked up 110,000 frequent-flyer miles in 2025 — GOLF contributor Shaun Tolson has visited a few of the world’s most well-known golf golf equipment, resorts and best-kept secrets and techniques. Below, in Clubhouse Eats, he shares a few of his favourite bites and sips from his most up-to-date travels.

Pork Milanese at Isabella’s Kitchen at Grayhawk Golf Club

When I consider Phoenix, Ariz., neither my mind nor my style buds land on Italian meals. Usually, I find yourself reflecting on spectacular tequila collections or reminiscing about world-class tacos — each of which I’ve loved there through the years.

On my most up-to-date journey to the Valley of the Sun, nonetheless, I had the great fortune to eat at Isabella’s Kitchen at Grayhawk Golf Club. More particularly, I used to be fortunate sufficient to order the Pork Milanese.

Now, I do know what you’re most likely considering. It’s a pork cutlet, pounded skinny, and deep fried. How memorable might it actually be? For starters, the plate of meals that was positioned in entrance of me was large. I’m all the time a quality-over-quantity man, besides, this was spectacular. Furthermore, a wonderful Milanese is as a lot in regards to the contemporary salad garnishing the meat as it’s in regards to the protein itself; and Isabella’s mixture of arugula, pickled pink onions, fennel, and grated Parmesan — all tossed in a brilliant lemon French dressing — was phenomenal.

Tacos at Tingum on 5

Speaking of tacos … On a current go to to the Abaco Club within the Bahamas, I heard discuss of a taco truck parked out close to the seashore, simply past the golf course’s fifth gap. I additionally heard that these tacos had a cult following amongst the membership’s members. Frankly, that was all I wanted to listen to.

Hopping in my golf cart, I coasted down the entrance 9. It took a little bit of time — I drove for nearly a mile and 1 / 4 — however I finally arrived on the Tingum meals truck. If I didn’t have already got tacos on the mind, the cheese-crusted lobster quesadilla nearly assuredly would’ve ended up on my plate. But I reminded myself that the truck’s tacos had been the treasure.

Classic choices like grilled rooster and blackened fish had been juxtaposed by extra artistic choices, akin to buffalo shrimp (with pickled onions, jalapeno ranch, and coconut slaw) or dry-rubbed flank steak (with fried cherry peppers and a tacky crema). The steak got here really helpful by the prepare dinner, in order that settled it: two steak and one blackened fish. Both had been pretty much as good because the hype and proved some issues are value going the additional mile for — actually.

The Saint James Cocktail

While staying on the Abaco Club, I saddled as much as the bar within the personal residential neighborhood’s new Bay Club. I instantly noticed a well-recognized bottle — St George Spirits’ Aqua Perfecta, a basil eau de vie that’s scrumptious however, in my experiences at house, considerably difficult to combine with. I requested the pinnacle barman, James Vil, how he usually incorporates it into drinks, solely to find he hadn’t tried to make use of it but.

One sip of it later, he was keen to provide it a whirl.

Vil contemplated for a second, then broke out a cocktail shaker and promptly poured in two ounces of the vexing eau de vie, which instantly stunned me. (On the spirit firm’s web site, the few cocktail recipes that use Aqua Perfecta by no means deal with it because the foundational spirit. Not Vil. He was going to make it the star.) The younger bartender then added an oz of lemon juice, half an oz of blackberry liqueur, and 1 / 4 ounce of agave nectar.

After vigorously shaking the concoction, he extracted a small pattern to style check, then double-strained the remainder right into a coupe glass and pushed it my means. “Let me know what you think.”

Sweet and subtly tart, the sour-style cocktail was pleasingly herbaceous, albeit in an understated means. It appeared the proper libation for an early night within the Bahamas. “It’s good,” I informed him, nodding as I took one other sip.

“Now you have to name it,” he replied.

Fortunately, I came across it nearly as rapidly as Vil settled on the drink’s recipe. “The Saint James,” I declared.

He smiled.

Negroni on the Orient Express La Minerva

If nothing jumps out to me on a cocktail menu, my go-to drink order is a Negroni. It’s been that means for years. I really like a very good old style, however I’m specific about how they’re made, and, if I’m being utterly sincere, I make a rattling good one at house. So I’m choosy.

A Negroni, however, is sort of foolproof. Equal measures of gin, candy vermouth, and Campari, the ratios are simple and constant. Sure, I’ll lean slightly extra into my gin pour once I make one at house, however a normal Negroni isn’t going to disappoint.

So, you possibly can think about my delight when my host on the Orient Express La Minerva in Rome requested if I’m a Negroni fan. The La Minerva bar, he informed me, makes one of the best one within the metropolis; and a particular model of vermouth is the bar’s secret weapon.

Unlike Carpano Antica Formula — a go-to candy vermouth for boozy, spirit-driven cocktails — Mancino Rosso Vermouth, I found, is extra savory-sweet (assume sundried tomatoes). That bodes nicely in a bitter-forward drink just like the Negroni. The drink that I used to be served was wealthy and sturdy, and whereas the intense citrus notes present in Campari had been much less current, an expression of lemon oils from a twist added simply the correct quantity of acidity.

How significantly better was it than a Negroni made with a extra widespread candy vermouth? Let’s simply say that once I bought house, I went out of my technique to hunt down a bottle of Mancino, dropping $50 for it, which is lots for vermouth. But it’s value each penny, as long as you’re a fellow Negroni fanatic.

Farwell Shot Aboard La Dolce Vita

At the conclusion of the Orient Express’ first golf journey throughout Italy simply earlier than the top of the 12 months, I approached the practice’s bar supervisor, Giuseppe Carillo, and requested him if there was a customary shot or drink that Italians would have collectively to bid one another a fond farewell. It solely appeared applicable to lift a glass with him and his workforce after a stellar 4 days aboard the luxurious rail-liner, La Dolce Vita.

The query had barely left my lips and Carillo was already nodding and reaching for a cocktail shaker. In it, he poured a gradual stream of Campari. Seriously, he poured a variety of Campari. To that, he added a beneficiant splash of balsamic vinegar, then a sprinkling of salt. If I didn’t know he was making a spherical of drinks for his total workforce, I might’ve thought I used to be about to be punked.

After loading the container with ice and giving it a vigorous shake, the younger barman poured off a row of ruby-hued photographs. We all reached for one and both sipped or knocked it again, and what I tasted was in contrast to something I had had earlier than. A satisfying mix of bitterness, sweetness, and salinity, it evoked Italian flavors and the Italian technique for concocting them — easy development, but stunning depth.

If the shot has a reputation, Carillo by no means shared it. Fortunately, it’s easy sufficient to recreate with out having a recipe. Admittedly, I haven’t nailed the ratios simply but, however each try has been tasty in its personal means. That’s worthy of a “salut!” of its personal.