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As originally written, this column had a small item noting that work was almost finished on the new beach location of Bertoni.
The drab gray exterior of an old building had been transformed with porthole windows, the bright yellow and blue of an amusement park, and waves cresting along the roofline. To the delight of Antonello "Jake" Bertoni's following, a taped message on the answering machine promised the restaurant would finally open next month.
Now it will not, given the sad news of last weekend.
Mr. Bertoni was found mortally wounded in the kitchen of the new restaurant, an apparent suicide.
The trials of opening a restaurant may seem laughable and surmountable on The Restaurant of Rocco DiSpirito. They can turn tragic and fatal in the untelevised reality of one struggling independent chef who lacked the backing of a $6-million investor or a corporation.
Mr. Bertoni closed his previous place, downtown St. Petersburg's first modern Italian restaurant, this spring hoping that with his constant attention to the construction, the new place could open in six or seven weeks. By last weekend, it had taken more than four months. The opening - and paying customers - were still in the distance.
"He was really frustrated. He just didn't realize how long it would take," said Lewis Kroll, a restaurant supplier who worked extensively with Mr. Bertoni throughout the project. He last met with the chef Sept. 16 and talked with him by phone daily the three days before his death.
"He was real excited about getting really close to really, finally opening," Kroll said.
Any homeowner who has lived through a kitchen remodeling knows something about construction delays. But in a big restaurant project, you can multiply the problems by a factor of four for extra subcontractors in heavy duty plumbing, refrigeration and decor, and add as much for inspections and permitting for commercial food service.
Consider two of the setbacks Mr. Bertoni encountered: When the stove from his old restaurant was moved to the beach, it lost its label of specifications, and gas could not be hooked up. He had to purchase another stove. A grand canopy installed on the balcony was to have neon lighting, but that didn't work, either, and took weeks to repair.
Those who knew Mr. Bertoni and watched him during the months said the delays and stress stretched his finances and his patience.
Whatever the ultimate reason for his death, it was a sad end to a classic restaurant life of hard work and demanding standards that Mr. Bertoni brought from a small town outside Milan. He first won respect in the Tampa Bay area as a chef and partner at Brunello on St. Pete Beach and then set a stylish table at his place in St. Petersburg with duck breast, risotto and veal tonnato.
It was always a struggle, especially in the past two years when the economic slowdown hit high-end restaurants hard. Mr. Bertoni took a big risk on St. Petersburg's revival and came to regret it, saying the renaissance promised by baseball and the BayWalk shopping plaza was rarely shared with the independents nearby. His weekend business did get better, but many weeknights, his tables, like downtown streets outside BayWalk, had little life.
That disappointment led Mr. Bertoni back to the beach, where he was determined to try again.
And he tried hard.
Tampa Bay bouillabaisse
Summer is a little hot for cooking, but there is some progress on the building front:
-- The Egg Platter, a traditional 24-hour pancake-and-eggery - which pleases the Nibbler and the crowds in St. Petersburg, Largo and Tampa - is opening a fourth location, in Clearwater, next month. The location, at U.S. 19 and Harn Road, will have the same dineresque menu of sandwiches, salads and blue plates, but breakfast will still be the star, with more than three-egg omelettes stuffed with beef tips, blue cheese, lox, kielbasa or zucchini among three dozen choices.
-- Hogfish Barbecue, which brings the enterprise and imagination of Salt Rock's Frank Chivas to the old Young's Pit Bar-B-Q on Gulf-to-Bay Boulevard in Clearwater, plans to open by month's end with barbecue, seafood and sides.
-- The Pink Flamingo Cafe, a breakfast and lunch staple in south Tampa, has opened in a new location in the neighborhood's old grocery (304 E Davis Blvd., Tampa; 813-251-2928) with more kitchen space, parking and handicapped-accessible restrooms.
It's a block away, but owner Sal DiBlasi says regulars have managed to find their way. And he has gained customers as well. Mainstays are still breakfast and big burgers. Work is under way in the old Flamingo locations for a new restaurant tenant, Thai Islands.
Life in the fast-food lane
-- A new product for the drive-through I've gotta try: breakfast in a bucket. Officially, it's a Breakfast Scrambler at Krystal, and the bucket is a foam cup, a little wider than coffee size.
The key is inside, which a cross section reveals as a parfait of cholesterol: grits on the bottom, then a stack of scrambled egg, a cheese slice and a sausage patty.
Brilliant idea, even if it does leave out folks who don't like grits. But it's time they paid a penalty.
-- I got weepy-eyed when I saw the sign at Wendy's: "Home Style Chicken Strips." Like Mom used to make, I was thinking, until I remembered that my folks never fixed chicken strips. Sure we had fish sticks, but chicken was just the old-fashioned pieces: breasts, wings, drumsticks and such. My generation was deprived (our parents even drove us around in Corvairs, not in baby seats surrounded by two tons of Swedish steel endorsed by emergency room doctors).
Sure enough, a check with a chicken historian (let your imagination go) produced a guess that chicken strips aren't yet 35. Chicken nuggets came first, at a chicken cookoff in 1971. Strips arrived later, perhaps as chicken planks in fast-food fish places. They became a staple in the fajitas of the '80s and now in our Caesar and Atkins salads and endless pasta dishes.
Back at Wendy's, those chicken strips aren't in homestyle cream sauce, pot pie, a la king, with dumplings or alfredo, but in the peppery breading of chicken-fried steak. And that is homestyle in Texas.
Of course, Wendy's does it with chicken strips, not a round steak, and treats them as finger food with dips. Even the Quibbler will acknowledge that the spicy Southwest chipotle sauce has more fire and flavor than anything the fast-food labs have hydrogenated in some time.
-- 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