The collaborators at GrillSmith in Clearwater hold heaps of promise, but it hasn't come out in their food.
By CHRIS SHERMAN
Published June 24, 2004
[Times photos: Michael Rondou]
GrillSmith does produce a good steak, and its pastas are another highlight.
The interior of GrillSmith, like its fare, is nothing you haven’t seen before, with mission furniture and mica lamps.
When I approached GrillSmith, the new collaboration between the Melting Pot fondue chain and Mise en Place's pioneer chef, Marty Blitz, I thought something was wrong with the slogan printed out front: "Food on the fire."
All restaurants have that, my inner adman quibbled. To give GrillSmith attitude and millennial edge, shouldn't it be "Food on fire"?
After three visits, I'm sorry to report, "Nope." I found some spark from roasted poblano in the black bean soup, a little heat in the mango salsa on the pork and smoke in the pulled pork, but no fire and little character, hot or cool. Not even much salt.
Burgers and a chimichurri steak did smack of flame and hot steel, yet most of the food tasted as if it could have been cooked anywhere. And had been.
The rest of the operation is just as lukewarm. The decor is shopping mall arts-and-crafts style: a bracketed tower out front, contemporary mission furniture and mica lamps. It's an era I love, but it's nothing new. J. Alexander's did it six years ago (and it's still better), and this kind of wanna-be prairie design is now a Target staple. The result feels institutional, like a Piccadilly in an upscale center; if you want visual energy, go to Starbucks next door.
It's a good thing this style can be timeless. GrillSmith can't find its decade. There's one sharp contemporary painting, but the architecture is from 1910, the vintage airline posters are from the '30s, black and white photos are of '50s car chrome, and the music at lunch was from the worst playlist of the 20th century, Neil and Elton's super '70s.
My disappointment is in direct proportion to my hopes that GrillSmith would be a genuinely new meal for a new century, a dinner house for the Panera-Borders era. Twenty years ago, Blitz brought the Tampa Bay area a contemporary sensitivity for quality ingredients and an innovative touch with ethnic flavors. And ye of little faith in fondue should know that the Melting Pot made that odd '70s concept a lasting success (more than 60 locations and growing) and updated it with low-fat dips and affordable wine.
Plus, grilling is the cooking technique of our age. How do we love it? Let me count the ways just in the last few years: GrillMarks, Grille 29, Signature Room Grille, Capitol Grille, Salt Rock, Island Way and so on. And that's just mainstream meat-and-potatoes stuff. Sharp chefs elsewhere play with real fire for flavor and nutrition, such as New York's Waldy Malouf at Beacon. Cliff Pleau at Seasons 52, Red Lobster's stunning gourmet grill in Orlando, is rewriting the manual for 21st century chain restaurants.
Now that would be Mise for the masses, affordable dining for moderns, but that's not what we get at GrillSmith. Post-Outback, maybe.
Not to say it won't be a success. A second location, in South Tampa, is under way. Being behind the times won't hurt it around the Tampa Bay area or America's chain-hungry exurbs, but more's the pity.
What GrillSmith does deliver is a modest fusion of standard pizzas, ribs, pasta, burgers and chicken breasts, comforting throwbacks and mild ethnic flavors at $12 or less. Think of it as Bennigan's with more imagination and an open, Carrabba's-style kitchen, where you can watch them make salads and work the grill.
It produced a good steak (although the chimichurri sauce was too tame for a gaucho) and put a fine char on my tortilla pizza. The pork tenderloin showed off a little heat of the grill and more of jalapeno mixed in with the mango.
The wild mushroom meatloaf, however, spent too little time on the grill and came out mushy and barely striped. Its sherry gravy was also bland.
Likewise, the clever idea of a grilled shrimp paella was sabotaged by limp grilling of the shrimp. Oddly, the chunks of sausage had been grilled too much. Roasted chicken - perhaps the best food to cook over a fire or on a deli rotisserie - theoretically gets a glaze of honey and Benedictine & Brandy. Sounds slick, but the end result was chicken with no snap or crackle, just a pop of sweetness.
Pastas did much better, because of a generous hand with cream. Bowties in tomato cream were rich enough that you could overlook the limpness of the shrimp, and jalapeno mac and cheese was a sumptuous indulgence that would violate any diet.
In the appetizers, where GrillSmith has the most fun, the starters I tried were too heavy. A cheeseburger empanada was fried out to a puff and too gooey. Another update of an Ybor favorite, croquettes were potatoes stuffed with cheese and pulled pork. The pork had a smoky kick of chipotle pepper and is a Blitz favorite, but I'd rather try it in a tortilla pizza or maybe wrapped in a nonfried taquito or a rice paper without cheese.
The best thing out of the fryer was a corn fritter with black beans and chicken, but a half-dozen is enough for four.
Of the trimmings, "zesty ranch" cole slaw was menu fiction, but the strawberry shortcake was the real thing, on biscuity shortcake. The milkshakes were tempting.
Martinis and such showed off freshness and imagination, but the wine list lacked both: The most familiar supermarket brands cost $6 to $7 a glass.
In a casual restaurant, service is supposed to be clean, cheerful and cooperative, and Melting Pot experience will make it so. On one visit, a harried server tried to deliver entrees for three to a high-top in the bar without clearing a jampacked table, yet others had the required good humor and good sense.
They make it all work smoothly even when the restaurant is packed, as it is at most meals before it hits the two-month mark. And why not? This is standard restaurant fare, a new corporate brand with old favorites and no fear of fat or sugar.
I hoped we could do better than that. GrillSmith could if it cranked up the heat.
-- Chris Sherman dines anonymously and unannounced. The Times pays for all expenses. A restaurant's advertising has nothing to do with selection for a review or the assessment of its quality. He can be reached at 727 893-8585 or sherman@sptimes.com
GrillSmith
2539 Countryside Blvd., Clearwater
(727) 726-6061 Hours: 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Sunday through Thursday, 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. Friday, Saturday
Reservations: No
Details: No smoking. Credit cards accepted, full bar, restrooms accessible
