Thanks to a telephone call from a movie star, two local upscale restaurants are turning Bermudian comfort food into fine dining.

?We have been working on introducing more Bermudian dishes to our menu for a long time,? said Claudio Vigilante who is part owner of Fresco?s Restaurant and Wine Bar, Aqua Restaurant at Ariel Sands in Devonshire and Thai restaurant Silk.

?The idea started when we got a call from actor Morgan Freeman?s publicist,? he said.

Mr. Freeman has been in countless movies, including ?Batman Begins?, ?Long Walk to Freedom? and ?Million Dollar Baby?, among many others. He is now turning his sights to the culinary world with a book about the traditional dishes of the Caribbean. The book is being compiled to raise money for hurricane victims on the island of Grenada.

?They wanted us to do something traditional for Mr. Freeman?s book,? said Mr. Vigilante. ?Apart from the chowder or the fishcakes there wasn?t a lot else that we could think of. So we started talking, and saying maybe we should have something more on the menu at Fresco?s.?Actor Morgan Freeman came to Bermuda recently to get a feel for Bermuda?s section of the book.

?The book?s production team loved the area,? Mr. Vigilante said. ?They came down and took pictures. They were really excited by the whole thing. They came to Fresco?s for a photoshoot for the introduction of his book which comes out at the end of the year.

?Mr. Freeman was great. He was very nice to deal with and very gracious. We are going to do Bermuda recipes in the book which is great exposure for Bermuda, as well as for our restaurant.?

Aqua head chef John Wason said he and Mr. Vigilante and restaurant manager Sander Slinkamn frequently brainstorm about food.

?We generally get together and come up with different things,? Mr. Wason said. ?Then we try it. Then the next day it would be the special of the day. From there we are creating and adding until we get the right flavour.?

Mr. Wason is from Barbados. To create recipes with a Bermudian flavour he telephoned several of his Bermudian friends to ask for their advice.

?I called a lady from St. George?s called Peggy,? he said. ?She gave me a few ideas. Then we went from there.?

He said that Fresco?s is trying to give Bermuda a place on the fine dining map.

?We are trying to bring back some things that Bermuda had,? he said. ?There aren?t many places that create things that could be attributed to Bermuda. This is the whole thing that we are trying to do.?

Mr. Vigilante said typical Bermudian food can be called home-made comfort food.

?We were trying to bring that into mainstream high-end restaurant high-class cuisine,? said Mr. Vigilante.

One of the typical Bermudian dishes that has been jazzed up would be Johnny bread.

?When a customer comes in and is seated they are right away given our Johnny bread with olive oil and vinegar, sun dried tomatoes and jerk seasonings,? said Mr. Vigilante. ?We added these things to make it a little bit different.?

There is also a rock fish dish with a yellow bird sauce, a gratin Cassava dish, a loquat tart and a paw-paw and shrimp salad, among other things.

?I think other restaurants are doing the same thing, just not under the one umbrella,? said Mr. Slinkamn. ?Twenty years ago or thirty years ago you didn?t have a lot of regional cuisine. Now places like Louisiana or Hawaii are known for their cuisine.

?With the talent that there is in Bermuda we could develop something like that. So we want to bring Bermuda ideas into our restaurant menu. We want to hopefully do a whole menu one day. We have this Johnny Bread. We are introducing a rock fish in a yellow bird sauce.?

Mr. Vigilante said today?s tourists are looking for authentic Bermudian cuisine and are often disappointed if they don?t find it on the menu.

?We absolutely find that when tourists come in they are looking for authentic Bermudian cuisine,? Mr. Wason said.

Mr. Vigilante dreams of one day having a famous television personality, such as Emeril Lagasse of ?Emeril Live? do a programme in Bermuda.

?There is so much in Bermuda to offer,? he said. ?I think a programme like that is long overdue. We have our own style of cooking.?

He said that Fresco?s tries to work with local fishermen and farmers to get the freshest produce.

?We would like to use them more,? he said.

Not all the dishes your grandmother used to make are on the menu at Fresco?s. For instance, there is no scalloped paw-paw.

?We were told to do it one time but we never have,? said Mr. Wason. ?The thing about papaya is that is so hard to get. We have it on the menu, but with shrimp salad. It is hard to get it in Bermuda, because Bermuda paw-paw trees are not going well right now.?

Mr. Vigilante said not only do tourists like the Bermudianised menu, but locals also appreciate it.

?Bermudians have reacted great,? said Mr. Vigilante. ?They are impressed when we give them Johnny Bread for lunch.

?Here and at Aqua Restaurant in Devonshire we have things on the menu under Bermuda cuisine that we are introducing to tourists. They ask about the food and it is a great opportunity to talk about Bermuda and its background.?

Mr. Wason said many customers ask for recipes after sampling the food.

?Mr. Wason is famous for his rotis at Aqua,? said Mr. Vigilante.

Mr. Wason said he had just sent a recipe for one of his rotis to England.

?We have this guy who lives in Canada,? said Mr. Wason. ?He comes here every month, and he comes directly from the airport to stop for a roti.?

Since incorporating the Bermudian food into the menu, the loquat tart has proved especially popular.

The tourists don?t know what loquats are,? said Mr. Vigilante. ?We have to explain it to them. The tart is great. It is really really good.?

Mr. Wason said the restaurant sells a lot of the tarts.

?We freeze the loquats, so we have some in the freezer in the summer months,? Mr. Wason said.

When asked if he collects the loquats the traditional way, by climbing up a tree after them, he just laughed.

?Wason shows up with a bag or two of loquats, but I don?t ask him any questions about where he gets them,? said Mr. Vigilante.

?Where I live there is a lot of them,? said Mr. Wason. ?You just start picking them when the season begins because there is no price on them. Anything in this world is freezable.?

Before freezing the loquats, Mr. Wason skins them. He removes the seeds and then cooks them, slightly.

?If you don?t cook them a little, they will go mushy in the freezer,? he said. ?When you bake the loquats that will finish them off.?