Cafe Alma, a new oasis in downtown St. Petersburg, sets taste buds atwitter with its imaginative Mediterranean cooking.
By CHRIS SHERMAN
Published January 15, 2004
[Times photos: Patty Yablonski]
Chef Christian Briner, on the cafe’s outdoor patio, shows off trout stuffed with couscous, almonds and herbs and garnished with grilled lemons, served with roasted vegetables; Salad Nicoise; and a concoction of banana, blueberries and strawberries baked in phyllo with cinnamon ice cream and burnt caramel sauce.
Cafe Alma’s Salad Nicoise features a pepper-seared ahi tuna.
Must curb enthusiasm. Must . . . curb . . . enthusiasm.
Boy, it's hard.
Especially so when January starts with such good news and another young and highly promising restaurant fits so neatly into the theme of new beginnings. Cafe Alma hit so many good notes of downtown dining in its first two weeks that it's tantalizing for all of Tampa Bay. Wild mushroom and bacon soup, figgy hummus, couscous with roast veggies, lively lunch and busy bar - must . . . curb . . . enthusiasm.
Cafe Alma also seems to be a success in downtown St. Petersburg, where the revival has been slow to support good restaurants. More specifically it's two blocks from my office, so it hits me where I work and you are entitled to discount my enthusiasm as homey bias.
But I cannot withhold my cheers. Cafe Alma rides the worthy trend to explore Mediterranean cooking in its true breadth, to Morocco, Greece and the Near East as well as St. Petersburg's downtown boom.
Yet it's not disposably trendy. Beans, root vegetables, bread salads, quinoa, kebabs and such, seasoned with almonds, dried fruits and preserved lemons, are ancient, often biblical, foods, although Alma can give them the most imaginative modern translation.
There's nothing new about the location either: the ground floor of McNulty Station, a handsomely renovated historic brick building from an earlier downtown dream, the Firehouse, a watering hole and chili-and-burger fueling station for more than a decade. The space has been updated and brightened, suggesting that the dining scene may grow well outside the BayWalk shadow.
And Cafe Alma's team brings its own legacy from two of the city's most beloved lost restaurants: Dwight Watkins, who owns it with wife Catherine, ran the artist-friendly bar at Grand Finale, and chef Christian Briner was in the kitchen at Ambrosia when the cooking was at its best.
Sounds good on paper, sure; in person the concepts come true. It's delightful dining, pleasant, airy, and friendly, and delicious food, hearty or light, always with deep flavors.
However, the food does not shout that it's clever, healthful (often vegetarian) or Mediterranean; meals at Alma simply taste good, and perhaps a little different.
That's because the kitchen cares in a classic way. Briner seeks out the right ingredients, not the most precious, and applies skill and time to make as much as possible from scratch, from house pates and cured salmon to slow-roasted beets and herbed focaccia. Call that Italian, New American or old French, whatever; it's the best of traditional cooking, and we don't see much of it.
For proof, have a soup. The everyday choice is three lentils with garbanzos and celeriac, or anything made with wild mushrooms and cream. At dinner, there's a bouillabaisse punched up with Moroccan spices and enough seafood that the prudent diner would call it a meal, not a starter.
For instructive fun with legumes, taste what Alma can do with spreads: The hummus with black lentils and figs was my favorite. Salads can be perked up with more beets, chicory dried beets, pumpkin seed oil and crisped walnuts, but a simple one with three tomatoes and whipped goat cheese is treat enough.
Lunch entrees include familiar pastas, kabobs and sandwiches and more exciting fare, like a charred steak salad, tuna with a cumin-coriander crust and roast fennel. Quinoa and couscous with unloved parsnips, turnips and two kinds of beets roasted to caramelized loveliness had one small drawback: the quinoa was too dry and crunchy for me. To have such vegetables was quite a compensation.
More showed up at dinner in a tagine of fava beans and artichoke bottoms, two of my favorites, stewed with lamb over couscous refreshed with mint; that'll give you strength for a sandstorm or a Florida freeze. Yet the kitchen's prize was in the list of specials: escolar, a thick steak of that hard-to-find catch that is the most luscious of white-fleshed fish. It was served with a lively essence of the tomatoes and leeks in which it had been cooked.
I could go on, and I obviously hope that Cafe Alma will. There are kinks to unravel and corrections to make; the focaccia dough is soft and too dumplinglike, and the whole place is yet to be tested by day-in, day-out traffic. However, it has the right ingredients, staff, concept and soul (alma in Spanish) to stay for good.
I'll keep an eye on it - and not just at lunch. Did I mention the Saturday afternoon a la carte brunch? With truffled eggs, coffee bean pancakes and breakfast couscous?
Cafe Alma
260 First Ave. S, St. Petersburg
(727) 502-5002
Hours: Lunch, 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Monday, 11 to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Friday; dinner, 5 p.m. to 1 a.m. Tuesday through Saturday; brunch, 11 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Saturday (soup and salad available 3:30 to 5 p.m.); closed Sunday.
Reservations: Suggested.
Details: Most credit cards accepted; full bar; smoking on outdoor patio only; wheelchair-accessible.
Features: Outdoor dining, kitchen open late; disc jockey with down-tempo house music, 9 p.m. to 2 a.m. Wednesday through Saturday.
Prices: Lunch and brunch, $6 to $11; dinner entrees, $10 to $24.
