New rooftop bars offer spectacular vistas, swanky vibes & strong cocktails

It’s suntanning season again, and waterways from Fort Lauderdale to Delray Beach to West Palm Beach have gained a new suite of swanky rooftop bars with stupendous vistas and strong cocktails.

Arguably the highest new rooftop lounge of the heap is the aptly named Nubé, the Spanish word for “cloud,” which crowns the 26th floor of the Hilton Fort Lauderdale Beach Resort. Opening to the public on Friday, April 12, this restaurant-bar features nightly DJs, Wagyu steaks, cocktails served in hand-shaped glassware and a three-sided wraparound alfresco patio that overlooks the ocean and the Intracoastal.

 

It’s no surprise that Tim Petrillo, the nightlife guru responsible for Fort Lauderdale’s first rooftop bar — Rooftop @1WLO on Andrews Avenue — is also behind the city’s tallest one. The project, 12 years in the making, is a collaboration between Petrillo (YOLO, Java & Jam), Andreas Ioannou, the CEO of Orchestra Hotels + Resorts (which operates the Hilton) and Hilton developer Jose Luis Zapata. While exploring the Hilton’s top floor looking for storage space for his downstairs S3 Restaurant, Petrillo saw beyond the jumble of air conditioners, storage boxes and ductwork.

 

He saw promise, craft cocktails and global tapas.

 

The Restaurant People’s Tim Petrillo, and Andreas Ioannou, CEO of Orchestra Hotels & Resorts, pose at their newest venture Nubé. (Mike Stocker/South Florida Sun Sentinel) “I was like, why aren’t we doing something up here?” recalls Petrillo, whose hospitality group The Restaurant People runs nine Fort Lauderdale restaurants and clubs and two more in Miami. “I literally walked outside on the balcony and thought: This is the most amazing view of the water. Why is the Hilton using it as a storage closet?”

 

He says he persuaded Ioannou and Zapata to gut and relocate the plumbing and electrical units to make room for a “top-floor shell that we could actually build,” Petrillo says. The result, what he describes as “the hardest project I’ve ever worked on,” involved four years of permitting and rezoning, then $4 million and several more years to move giant HVAC systems. To funnel new traffic to the 26th floor without inconveniencing resort guests, the Hilton built a second direct elevator to Nubé for an extra $400,000, he says.

 

“This passion project was a great white whale,” he says. “It took so long that we even got tired of talking about it. I’m glad it’s finally done.”

 

The view of the surf and sand of Fort Lauderdale beach from Nubé at the Hilton Fort Lauderdale Beach Resort. (Mike Stocker/South Florida Sun Sentinel) The 4,000-square-foot bar (60 seats indoors, 60 outdoors) is accented with marble countertops, red rattan chairs and zigzagging green floor tiles that continue outside to the alfresco patio. The patio’s centerpiece: a rectangular, glassed-in fire pit and a hand sculpture throwing up a peace sign.

 

“At night, the money shot is straight down there,” Petrillo says during a recent tour of Nubé, pointing south along State Road A1A. From this high vantage point, looking down a serene, palm-dotted stretch of the beach, the rolling shoreline seems to caress the rooftops of neighboring hotels.

 

The inside of Nubé, a new 26th-floor rooftop restaurant bar atop the Hilton Fort Lauderdale Beach Resort. (Mike Stocker/South Florida Sun Sentinel) The menu, mostly bar bites with Asian flourishes, includes a Singapore Salad ($15) with tropical fruits, crispy noodles, red plum sauce and crunchy taro; charcuterie trays ($26); blistered shishito peppers ($11); and oysters in yuzu foam ($21); along with larger plates such as smashed double Wagyu cheeseburger ($24) and Wagyu steak frites ($36) in shallots and garlic confit.

 

Wines and Champagne are offered by the glass or bottle ($15 to $590), and there are 12 cocktails ranging from Whisk Me Away ($16, with Bulleit Rye Whiskey, spiced pear liqueur, lemon, club soda) to Deuces, a $60 splurge that serves two to four and comes in peace-sign glassware with Grey Goose, St-Germain, prosecco, curaçao and lemon.