Sant Ambroeus

Sant Ambroeus runs the island's most convincing Italian bar ritual: espresso and cornetti at the counter in the morning, risotto and cotoletta in the pink-and-green room later, gelato on the way out. The Palm Beach house of the Milanese caffè-ristorante name, with rooms in Milan and New York, sits in the Royal Poinciana Plaza and takes its look, in the group's own words, from Italy's gran caffès of the 1950s.

It is the Plaza's social engine and the island's default second office. Weekend brunch draws the longest lines; the bar is the faster way in.