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The secret's out: Sea Grill offers diners a plate full of creative, satisfying food.
By CHRIS SHERMAN, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times, published September 12, 2002
Some of the best-eating fish hide under the stumps of cypress knees and under rock ledges, which is why some of the best holes are known to only a handful of fisher folk.
Finding good seafood tucked in a Sheraton on U.S. 19 is like anchoring a bassboat under an interstate highway bridge next to a nuclear plant. Don't laugh, sometimes it pays off.
So does the fishing at the Sea Grill, one of the best places for seafood in north Pinellas for a decade until it lost its lease a few years ago and disappeared.
The Grill and chef-owner Bobby Clark resurfaced two years ago a couple of miles away at the Four Points just as the hotel itself was coming to life after a long-delayed opening.
Now the Sea Grill has a water view, or at least a couple of picture windows onto a spit of a channel that leads to Lake Tarpon, but it glistens prettily at night. More important, the food is better and much more modern.
It's still a place where familiar finfish are fresh, rarely fried and often sparked with fruits and odd sauces. And Clark and sous chef James Carlson, formerly of the Blue Heron, add spice and imagination to the side dishes.
Grilled salmon comes on corn ragout; other fish on warm spinach salads. Mashed potatoes mingle with more than roasted garlic. Mashed potatoes with feta is a great companion to lamb chops, and I love the idea of firing up sweet potato mash with jalapeno to contrast with the sweetness of a rum sauce on the plate.
Mark my words, good side dishes made with fresh ingredients and fresher ideas are and will be the distinguishing feature of good restaurants.
There are three grouper dishes here, and although each is made with black grouper, I'd normally say "Boring" and quickly look elsewhere. These were hard to resist: Pan sauteed picatta style with lemon, capers and crab-potato cakes? Grilled and rum-glazed with plantain mash, spinach salad and jerk shrimp?
I chose one with a nutty pistachio crust, the hot sweet potatoes, crisp green beans and a mountain of those wonderful onion straws. Sea bass, also in danger of over-dining, here came on oven-cured tomatoes with haricot verts and a light herb sauce of thyme and truffle.
Tuna disappointed because it wasn't as rare as I like and the coriander crust timid, but the crispy fried cake of jasmine rice almost made up for it.
The most enjoyable circus of flavor was on a modest entree, a $15 pork tenderloin with souffleed sweet potatoes, toasted pecans, a port sauce and for a not-so-sweet counterpoint, a slaw of shaved apple and tart celeriac.
There's quality and surprise in most of the trimmings too, starting with the bread, sliced from a crusty loaf with black olives and rosemary.
Best of the appetizers were scallops with a creamy boursin cheese on raspberries and plump raviolis packed with lobster tossed with shaved Parmesan and a truffle broth that was sweet, delicate and still earthy. Baby squid stuffed with white beans and olives were almost too clever, but I just wanted more. Tempura shrimp stuffed with pork were just skimpy and dull.
Desserts stuck to the classics, made in house, and I can vouch for an intense chocolate mousse and a slippery chocolate chip cheesecake.
Not everything worked, but ultimately the Sea Grill sported finer and more creative cooking than I expected in a small dark room off a hotel lobby. Maybe it's more than North Pinellas wants; fresh seafood, thick steaks and cocktails would probably suffice.
On one visit, the handful of customers at the bar exceeded those of us at table, but another night the room was two-thirds full with people glad to have an uptown night out with stylish food and a bottle of wine. On both nights, however, service was interminably slow; food came quickly from the kitchen, but getting a menu, bill or attention from the lone waiter was a chore.
The old Sea Grill had its fans; the new Sea Grill deserves more. A bigger crowd will put more energy in the room (and the service) and encourage them to keep giving fish and its surroundings extra care and style.
When you find a good fishing hole, wherever it is, you keep going back.
Four Points by Sheraton
37611 U.S. 19 N
Palm Harbor
Phone: (727) 942-0358
Hours: 5 to 10 p.m. Sunday through Thursday; 5 to 10:30 p.m., Friday, Saturday
Credit cards: Most major
Reservations: Suggested
Prices: Dinners, $14 to $24
Details: Full bar; wheelchair accessible; smoking permitted at bar.