Photo: The Georgian Room at Sea Island. Contributed by Sea Island

“Look!” I exclaim to my dining companion. Her eyes follow my gaze across the dining room.

We’re seated at a round, white linen-covered table in a windowed alcove beneath a large crystal chandelier.

Across the room, we watch George Gaal, our gallant server with the charming Hungarian accent, head our way. In his hands are two tiny stools upholstered in blue velvet. Being short of stature, my feet sometimes fail to touch the ground when I’m seated in oversized chairs, so I assume they are footstools. But to our delight, George places the stools on the floor beside us and indicates we are to place our handbags on them.

And so begins my first Forbes-rated five-star meal, a chef’s menu of six courses with wine pairings served with panache at the Georgian Room at the Cloister at Sea Island.

Photo: The Cloister on Sea Island. Contributed by Sea Island

A small, hatchet-shaped island wedged into the side of St. Simons, Sea Island is an exclusive, gated enclave of luxury resorts, golf courses and private homes.

Established in 1928 by Hudson Motor Car Co. co-founder Howard Coffin and his business partner Bill Jones, Sea Island began with a single Mediterranean-style inn called the Cloister. Today it is a sprawling compound of luxury accommodations and amenities that have received four five-star commendations from Forbes. In addition to the Cloister, which was replaced with a new, 267-guestroom structure in 2006, there is the Lodge at Sea Island, featuring 40 guestrooms in an English lodge-style setting, and the Inn at Sea Island, a more casual, 85-room hotel, both of which actually are on St. Simons Island. There is also an intimate sporting club and lodge called Broadfield, and a variety of homes, townhomes and condos for rent.

Photo: A progressive dinner at The Georgian at Sea Island. Contributed by Eliot VanOtteren.

Then there are the restaurants and bars — 10 in all. But the crowning jewel is the Georgian Room.

Courtesy of chef de cuisine Julian Scheibel, our dinner starts with an amuse-bouche featuring a dab of pimento cheese and a sliver of crisp pork belly on a bite-sized steamed bun. That’s followed by a delicate miso-seasoned seared diver scallop topped with caviar and then a bite of cooked egg on spinach with shaved white truffle, playfully served in an eggshell resting in a small egg carton. Foie gras follows, and then the entree, a column of NY strip accompanied by oxtail and bone marrow.

Each course is accompanied by a wine selected by sommelier Christopher Lodge, including a bright, dry Luna Mater Frascati Superiore from the Fontana Candida winery in Southern Italy, and a dark, decadent New York Malmsey Madeira from the Rare Wine Co.’s historic series. The way each one complements and elevates each course, not to mention the volume, makes us giddy with pleasure.

The dinner takes more than three hours to unfold, and when we excuse ourselves to visit the ladies’ room, a server falls in beside us and escorts us to and fro. At the risk of TMI, all that wine has to go somewhere and the escort situation soon grows comical as I find myself trying to dodge the servers on subsequent trips to the loo.

Photo: Red velvet pancakes at The Georgian at Sea Island. Photo by Eliot VanOtteren.

Finally the artisanal cheeses arrive, some from Georgia’s own Sweet Grass Dairy, rolled out on a cart and sliced as we watch. Each one is so distinctively flavored, but I can’t manage more than a nibble. Regretfully, I watch the servers clear our nearly full plates and wonder just how gauche it is on a scale of one to 10 to ask for a doggie bag.

The gastronomic orgy ends with what appears to be a small inverted chocolate colander sprinkled with gold dust. Beneath it are dibs and dabs of Valrhona chocolate cake, cherry and nougat. As if that weren’t enough, little bags of chocolate candies are delivered with the check. I supposed it’s meant to take the sting off the tab — $337.21 per person, tax and gratuity included.