The Nibbler

Change has come to Bern's

[Photo: John Pendygraft] Jeannie Pierola, Bern’s executive chef, along with David Laxer, son of late founder Bern Laxer, is updating many aspects of the 50-year-old steak house.

Change, that most dreaded of visitors to South Tampa, comes to its most venerable institution, Bern's Steak House.

Old customers will shake their heads, and older waiters will have to learn new ways, but a generation that has grown up on sushi and sun-dried tomatoes will breathe a sigh of relief.

Although the late Bern Laxer sought innovation from American caviar to fax machines, the restaurant seemed to stop changing about 10 years ago just as the new American food got going.

The Bern's empire didn't get a solid taste of that until David Laxer made SideBern's a full-fledged restaurant and Jeannie Pierola ushered in her One World cooking on a stack of dim sum trays (which Bern had bought long ago).

As Bern's first executive chef, Pierola kept the flash at SideBern's and modernized only a few items at the steak house. Yet an update for the 50-year-old restaurant was long in the works.

For four years, Pierola has tinkered with a new menu. New plates and silverware were ordered more than a year ago. New equipment and personnel have been installed throughout the kitchen, and for two weeks the waiters have been in training.

The future is now -- starting this week -- and it's overdue for two reasons.

The first is that the steak house needs to catch up to a world of increasing food sophistication, which often found Bern's disappointing.

The other is that there are too many competitors in the Big Bucks Big Beef Stakes, all pushing red meat and red wine at high prices and low standards. Steak houses are booming, but they desperately need leadership. A revived Bern's could provide it.

Pierola thinks that Laxer, who died this year, would approve. She points out that he was the first restaurateur here to use shiitake mushrooms, macadamia nuts and hijiki seaweed. "He put Indonesian chicken on the menu because it tasted so good," she said. And she'll keep using Bern's secret blends, like his mix of cheeses.

Ultimately, the new menu still aims to "lift up the steak with the best things to go with it" and alternatives for nonsteak eaters. So look outside the steak.

Pierola and David Laxer will balance new and old. They'd be fools to tamper with the steaks and the plainest setting for those who want it (I hope they keep what I consider a charitable eye on pricing), and they do have SideBern's to go wild with creativity.

But I hope the change in food goes further than the interior redecoration that has taken Bern's from ornately red and gold to . . . ornately gold and red.

Here's what we do know will change:

-- A few old favorites will be updated: Chicken Bern with its sesame and crisp mushrooms will get seared greens, shiitakes and Armagnac. Broiled tomatoes will return in a confit with brioche.

-- One big overhaul will be in appetizers. They showcase original starters such as oyster beignets and salmon strudel, add lobster bisque with chervil and give steak tartare truffles.

-- Go-withs for steak upgrade to roasted fingerlings and macaroni and cheese, but with truffles (again). Steaks at last get a rainbow of sauces, 14, from reductions of zinfandel to choron, au poivre and goronzola fondue.

-- There will be a daily page of market-fresh specials, including a surf and turf combo, and, wow, a vegetarian tasting. Talk about an untapped market.

-- Look for a lot more seafood, including plats du mer, three-tiered towers of fresh shellfish and entrees of swordfish with haricots verts and bordelaise and salmon with lobster vinaigrette.

-- New meats include pork with balsamic onions and five cuts of veal steaks.

Ideology and tradition aside, changing Bern's menu is a logistical challenge of space and talent. Anyone who has taken the kitchen tour knows that it takes a big team just to do what Bern's does now, from cooking steaks to baking cheese crackers.

Still, it's a steak factory that did not operate like a classic chef-run kitchen. Pierola calls her specials menu a "kitchen within a kitchen," but the changes will be scattered throughout at each station. Some got new equipment; others, such as the saute area, got a new crew of professional line cooks.

One bit of good news for classic and contemporary Bern's: Both will be served on new china and flatware. There still will be stainless steel on the tabletop, but it means a loss of the sizzling platters and some of the odd metalware that Laxer made in his metal shop. Now if only they can lose those garden chairs.

P.S. That's not the only change in Bern's World. SideBern's is adding brunch, a sit-down three-course affair for $29.91 through Jan. 5. Look for house-smoked fish, clever pastries and lots of imagination with poached eggs and pancakes.

Hot, hot hot

The Brown Dog has never been predictable. From the meaty platter titled "Uncle Ludwig's night in the black forest" to its whimsical decor, anything goes as long as the heat is at a genteel simmer.

At least until Dan Montgomery fired up the temperature with a daily specials board at the Brown Dog (3451 Fourth St. N, St. Petersburg; 727-896-8822) for serious fire-eaters. These are the people who laugh at Tabasco Sauce and consider habanero peppers not a spice or a snack but a main course.

"We figured we'd give them something really nice, but we'd kick it up a notch," Montgomery says.

That means at least a half-cup of fresh chopped jalapenos, habaneros and devilish little Thai guys -- no bells need apply -- are tossed into and on top of every dish, from chicken stuffed with cheese and peppers to pork loin with apricots or grapes.

"And they ask for more," Montgomery says. "They can eat this stuff and not leave any on the plate. They're a different breed." And now they get a different menu daily with three or four hot choices.

For me (and I may not be stout-hearted enough), the dishes I tried had fire aplenty. Indeed, I would like to have had the pepper cooked down more to meld into the sauces. Yet in the right combinations, you can still taste the sweetness and fruit of the peppers as well as the heat.

Tampa Bay bouillabaisse

-- Westshore Pizza continues its march around the Tampa Bay area at a speed that would shame the big cheeses. The newest is a take-out-only franchise (3187 Fourth St. N, St. Petersburg; 727-895-5506), 28th in the local chain specializing in Philly cheese steaks, hoagies and grinders, wings and Italian dinners. Bob Vasaturo started the no-frills, high-Phil chain in a South Tampa convenience store eight years ago.

-- Chili six ways? Now you can get Skyline chili in the classic five-way (spaghetti, chili, onions, red beans and cheddar) plus beer or wine now that Cincinnati's famed cheese coneys have moved to the beach.

The newest Skyline (333 S Gulfview Blvd., Clearwater Beach; 727-449-1189) is the sixth in Florida and the first of the company's 135 locations to have wine by the glass (plus an extended menu of salads, baked potatoes, burritos and other nontraditional Cincy fare).

As a displaced Cincinnatian, I welcome any source of the world's most bizarre chili. A pairing that mixes pepper, cinnamon, chocolate and onions with beer and wine is tough, though. I have never tried it with so much as a Hudepohl beer; a cup of strong bad coffee was always enough.

Nouveaux and not so

When the Beaujolais nouveaux est arrivé, so does the Nibbler's inseparable colleague, the Tippler. In a sample of almost a dozen at Vintage Wine Cellars in Tampa, the 2002 juice wasn't as fat and fleshy as in the best years.

Mommessin had the cleanest and friendliest flavor -- between cherries and cola -- a smooth texture and an easy finish. Others, including DuBoeuf, showed Beaujolais brightness but were tart or thin, with limited nose and too much acidity reflecting a wet, unbalanced year in eastern France.

More fun came from outsider wannabes that have more freedom in grapes and territory. Beringer, for instance, mixed pinot noir and Rhone reds for a fresh wine that's clean, clear and fruity.

Mionetto, best known for prosecco sparklers in northern Italy, makes its 2002 novello with some merlot, making a soft, plump taste with a little spice and more bouquet.

All three are good choices for holiday tables and friends gathered in well-decked halls.

-- Food critic Chris Sherman writes about dining and restaurant news in the Nibbler. He can be reached at (727) 893-8585 or by e-mail at sherman@sptimes.com .

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