“I SERVED a 1920 Château Margaux last night,” the sommelier said to the two Frenchmen at the table behind me. It's the kind of remark you might expect to overhear at some classy Paris restaurant, but not at a steakhouse in Tampa, Florida.

Bern's is no ordinary steakhouse. As well as a menu that has four pages devoted to the sourcing and preparation of its steaks, Bern's has the largest wine cellar of any restaurant in the world.

There are half a million bottles to choose from, a vinous nightmare for the indecisive.

According to Wine Decanter magazine, Bern's nearest rival is the Tour d'Argent in Paris, which has about 450,000 bottles.

Since the Tour d'Argent opened in 1582 in the capital of the greatest wine-making nation in the world, and Bern's dates back all the way to 1956 in a city whose main claim to fame is the Tampa Bay Rowdies, you have to raise a glass to its founder, Bern Laxton.

Laxton was a missionary for wine. When he began collecting seriously in the 1960s he toured France, buying up stocks of vintages. He acquired more from auctions at Christie's, and today about 65 per cent of the list is still French. Laxton also believed that good wine should be affordable, so the mark-ups are low. At Bern's, wine is for drinking, not worshipping. The cheapest on the list is $14 (£7) a bottle, and there are 200 wines by the glass, including a 1979 Côtes du Rhone for $5.

“People come from all over the world to sample the wines,” our waitress, Lisa Shell, tells us. The conversation at the next table is proof of that. “Are you sure you want to drink a vintage so young?” the sommelier asks. “We do have them going back to the 1980s, if you wanted to try one that's more mature.”

Before any Francophiles sneer and say that size isn't everything, bear in mind that on Bern's wine list (a hardback book of 182 pages from America to Switzerland) there are 38 vintages of Château Mouton-Rothschild beginning with 1901, while the Château Latour goes back to 1920 and the Chateau Lafite Rothschild to 1881. The oldest wine in the cellar is an 1802 Madeira, and there are 300 Madeiras, ports and sherries by the glass.

Our own foray into Bern's list is more modest, as we're driving, and Lisa suggests three glasses we might sample to go with the different courses. None of them costs more than $9, but they're all wonderful and perfect matches for the charcoal-grilled scallops and the best steaks we have had in our lives.

The decor is more French classical than all-American steakhouse, but the wine cellar is surprisingly modest since it is split between the restaurant and two more warehouses near by, with the rare vintages behind locked doors. By contrast, the kitchen is vast. At Bern's everything is home-made, including the breads and cheeses. Produce comes from their own organic farm, and even the pots and pans are made in their own stainless-steel workshop down the street.

After our tour, we make it upstairs to the dessert room, to our private booth in the shape of a wine cask. There's a piano bar, and a phone to call for requests. We're not done with decisions, however, as the dessert menu runs to 65 pages. I order the banana cheese pie, while my wife tries the macadamia nut sundae, which took Bern seven years and 300 recipes to perfect. Both are disgustingly rich and tasty.

When we toddle out into the warm Tampa night it's gone midnight, and we've been at Bern's for almost five hours. Sadly, Bern Laxton is no longer with us, but I would have loved to have met him. Cheers, Bern.

NEED TO KNOW

British Airways Holidays (0844 4930758, www.ba.com/holidays) has four nights at the Hampton Inn and Suites in Tampa from £733pp, including return BA flights from Gatwick, B&B and car hire.

Bern's Steak House (001 813 251 2421, www.bernssteakhouse.com).

Info: www.visittampabay.com .

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