This Dunedin restaurant, which looks like a patio extension of Bon Appetit, is big on flavor and innovation and small on price.
By CHRIS SHERMAN
Published November 13, 2003
[Times photo: Scott Keeler]
Dishes at the newly opened Marina Cafe at Bon Appetit Restaurant in Dunedin include, clockwise from bottom left, Shrimp with Fresh Mango Salsa; Pompardo Salad, with mozzarella cheese, tomatoes, basil, Greek potato salad and virgin olive oil; and Chocolate Decadence Tort.
DUNEDIN - This is the area's most revitalized small town and there's so much doing - art, antiques, blues, Blue Jays and bagpipes, as well as restaurants - on Main Street you might forget that it ends at the water with a lovely prospect of the sun setting over Honeymoon Island.
There is indeed a harbor full of boats and not entirely pleasure craft: The Dunedin Fish Market has been selling seafood for 70 some years, and the grouper, stone crab claws and snapper still come from local boats.
You've always been able to see the water from the picture windows of the grand dining rooms of Bon Appetit while supping on sweetbreads and Dover sole. Now at a table in the Marina Cafe you can feel and taste a new breeze sweeping in to refresh and invigorate the cooking.
Call this menu tapas or the newly fashionable "small plates" or "bar menu." I'll put it more plainly: This is very good food that costs less than $10 without a wing or wrap in sight. It proves that even traditional high-priced restaurants have a lot tucked away as appetizers, soups, salads, sandwiches and pastas that they could recycle as modern light eating menus.
At the Marina, Peter Kreuziger has assembled a few new ideas like a barbecued turkey leg and a scallop pita pizza together with small-price, small helpings of Bon Appetit's Continental indulgences and fancies for mild curries and German flavors.
They are served outdoors by a staff in tropical shorts but the food still gets classical touches, smart sauces and professional service.
Consider gumbo, a staple in beachy restaurants. The Marina Cafe's is thickly textured and packed with seafood, okra and sausage (too mild for me), and it's served with a spot of rice and onion on top, garlicky mayo as if it were rouille for bouillabaisse and sherry as in a Bermuda chowder. That's not backwoods Cajun, but it's a polished, worldly take and a fine gumbo.
Bon Appetit has tried to lighten up and reach a more modern audience before. Cafe Alfresco, which serves some similar fare and on up to steaks, didn't make it out on Alt. U.S. 19 but has found a home and more success on the edge of the Pinellas Trail.
The Marina is different. It doesn't call attention to itself, brag on a theme or blare Buffett. It looks simply like a pleasant patio extension of the main restaurant, quite nicely done with yellow canvas and short panes of glass above the railings to keep the wind from scattering napkins.
The menu makes no sexier claim than "Lite Bites" which range from frites and spring rolls up to linguine, Greek salad and shrimp plates. It's not so much Floribbean or tropical, just a place to take it easy.
The lightest and most healthful dish is eggplant caviar with breadsticks. It's something we should like, but it's one eggplant preparation that leaves me cold; maybe more lemon or some cheese would help.
Blue crab claws are packed pincer end up in a small ramekin filled with garlic butter; a couple dozen are plenty to share. Chipolata sausages, a British favorite somewhere between a banger and a mini bratwurst, are better on their own, grilled with mustard, than in the gumbo. (Our server didn't know if they were pork or veal, a crucial distinction, although a check of them confirmed they were veal.) Best new munchie was a sturdy flatbread spread with goat cheese, scallops and onion marmalade, although grilling it a second longer would sharpen the flavors.
Stouter appetites can tackle husky sandwiches from oyster po' boys to burgers and sirloin steak sandwiches (which can be topped with Stilton or brie) or hot entrees.
Turkey legs were a deli favorite before they showed up at Renaissance fairs, and they make hearty, affordable main courses here, with mashed potatoes. The surprise winner in entrees is curries - chicken, vegetable or beef. It's mild mannered even by English pub standards but still tingling and aromatic and great fun with trimmings of yogurt, mango chutney and coconut. You'll get a hint of curry in the mussels, too, a big heavy pot of mussels in white wine, garlic and butter; the shellfish had been cooked a bit too long but the broth would be feast enough.
The only big failure was bread, small cross-hatched baguettes that looked like they had started out par-baked and been finished on premises, crisp but flavorless. Bread should be a staple for no-nonsense dining like this.
Service was a problem one night and that wasn't the fault of the wait staff. The cafe is supposed to have a separate line and its own cook. When it did at lunch, food moved swiftly; on the night of my dinner, there was only one line and the kitchen tried to serve both dining room and cafe. The server was as exasperated as we were; food was extremely slow, curry condiments were missing and so on. That shouldn't happen.
On the other hand, we were in no hurry to leave.
Marina Cafe at Bon Appetit
148 Marina Plaza
Dunedin
(727) 733-2151
Hours: 11:30 a.m. to 9 p.m. Sunday through Thursday; 11:30 a.m. to 10 p.m. Friday and Saturday
