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Dine
Fresh breeze at the beach
Forget the usual fried seafood platter. At Oyster Shucker, serious cooking - ambitious and upscale - points to a welcome break from the usual fare.
By CHRIS SHERMAN
Published July 8, 2004
A creative restaurant is struggling to emerge in the strangest place: St. Pete Beach.
Plus it's in the least likely corner for daring dining: at the end of Corey Avenue where flip-flop beer diners wander between Philthy Phil's and Woody's (unless they have been barred from one or both).
Although it's a new building, the name Oyster Shucker and the Nantucket blue exterior can lead you to expect the same ol', same ol' seafoodery. Step inside, and all the captain's chairs scream "fried seafood platter coming up," and a first glance at a menu of overloaded oysters and mix-n-match meats and sauces may have you doubting that St. Pete Beach has moved into the 1980s.
Look more closely. In finer print the menu promises a tapenade on the seabass, grilled asparagus and white truffle butter on the grouper or finely cut saffron fennel with the shrimp. If you still doubt, eye any passing plate, big triangles of china stacked with entrees flying rosemary tail feathers and festooned with ribbons of fried carrots and tangles of crisp beet threads.
Such frills may seem over the top at the beach, although they taste as wicked as any other salty fried stuff you like - and include more vitamins.
Tall food and fancy garnish aren't always frivolous: They can be a sign of serious cooking and of something odd in a beach kitchen - a modern chef. In this one it's Trey Yager, a local who cooked in the outside world and returned to the Tampa Bay area. He's joined by sous chefs Craig Smith and Brian Hamilton.
The owners, however, have been here all along: They own Woody's across the street and decided to raise the ante from half-pound hot dogs and bargain drafts to a place with the same water view and relaxed dress but with upscale food (and prices).
Oyster Shucker, built on the site of the old Harp & Thistle, is not the only new entree vacationers will find when they return to the beach (July being the new August for Floridians). After decades of Italian and family fare, Aunt Heidi's has been replaced by Agave and its big helping of barbacoa, ceviche and other authentic Mexican dishes. Across the street is the new Red Grouper and a branch of Hook's Sushi. Not enough for a whole new wave or a turn of the tide, but at least a change in the weather.
Oyster Shuckers is the most ambitious and will take a little while for service to catch up. On my first visit, we sat for almost 10 minutes, ignored by our server; finally a manager and other servers picked up the slack with great apologies but little knowledge of the menu.
On the second visit, I lucked into a beach pro who was quick, cheerful and savvy: She answered my query about grilled citrus polenta with "grits" and a wink.
Food was more consistent, a steady effort to elevate beach favorites, from raw oysters to grouper, with better ingredients, imagination and saucing.
For the most part, the kitchen succeeds. And, with the oysters, exceeds. There are 10 variations dolled up with lobster and conch fritters. I tried them Miami (with lobster and tomato-y Choron sauce) and gravlax (with chopped smoked salmon). The first was too much; the second more on target, although I'd crank up the cucumber and dill. Next time I went traditional, with fresh oysters in a gutsy tomato chowder, and plain and cold on the half-shell.
The kitchen is one of the few to offer a choice of oysters, at this time Louisiana primes and more expensive Long Island blue points, bigger and crisper. Still I'm tempted by the fun of surf-n-turf oysters (with prime rib!) and the sushi style (with tuna seaweed salad and honeydew wasabi). Gluttonous? Sure, but hey, we're on vacation.
The chef gets almost as wild with the main courses. In meat, choose lamb, chicken, pork or a Delmonico steak or prime rib and you can gild them with preparations from peppercorn searing to Diane and Oscar. Nightly specials can be more decadent, with morels and deeper sauces.
I had pork tenderloin in Wellington drag with a mushroom pate and puff pastry topper. Good stuff, although it made me wish for juicy beef and regret the triumph of lean pork tenderloin over chops and ham, real pork for real pigs.
Fish goes uptown too, with champagne sauces, risotto and blue cheese potatoes and all the other clever trimmings. They can overwhelm some fish but did wonders with mahi-mahi, which has become quite a boring staple.
Mine was blackened with a thick crust of lively spices on sizzled leeks with thin crisp triangles of polenta (darn zesty grits). And at the center of it, however, was simply good fish, a fine piece of mahi. I stand corrected and happily so.
At a place like this, skip familiar desserts and try something like sorpresa, an espresso-flavored custard that is closer to panna cotta than flan.
If Oyster Shucker does not call attention to itself from the outside, its food doesn't blend in with the bland beachscape. It does need polish on service, better bread and more local fish and crops, as well as Scottish salmon and Maytag cheese. But I hope the kitchen doesn't back off from cooking with imagination and style.
We could get used to it. We should.
- 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
Oyster Shucker
650 Corey Ave.
St. Pete Beach
(727) 363-4464
Hours: 5 to 11 p.m., Sunday through Thursday; 5 to 10 p.m. Friday, Saturday.
Reservations: Suggested.
Details: Full bar, no smoking indoors, accessible by ramp.
Prices: $17 to $34.
[Last modified July 7, 2004, 10:53:20]
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