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LARGO - The place looked as though it were open, but when the woman asked, she was turned away.
"People have been stopping by for a couple weeks," said Jim Hutchinson, chef and general manager of the new Antique Ivy Cafe in Largo. "We've done a lot of landscaping and beautifying of the property. From the outside, it looks like we're open, and we will be on Friday."
Hutchinson, who was chef and co-owner for 31/2 years of Penelope's Cafe in Belleair Bluffs, said the quaint, 64-year-old cottage-turned-restaurant is becoming "what my dream has always been for a restaurant."
Inside are three small dining rooms, the kitchen and a wine room. Antiques decorating the rooms are for sale and come from the antique shop of Hutchinson's mother in Belleair Bluffs. Outside, a remodeled garage is now the "Ivy Room," another room for dining and private parties. The back courtyard has been arranged for outdoor dining, and an old school bus has been converted into a plush, air-conditioned space for guests to watch movies.
"We'll serve breakfast and lunch Monday through Saturday," Hutchinson said. Dinners will be on Thursday, Friday and Saturday evenings.
"Our dinners will pretty much key on outside fine dining with soft lighting and music," he said. Because the restaurant is in a residential area, Hutchinson said, he has been playing his favorite jazz to find out whether any neighbors become annoyed. So far, no complaints, he said.
Hutchinson's partners in the venture, Robert Barrett and Doris Dahn, used to be customers at Penelope's.
"They used to come by on a daily basis," he said. "After I sold Penelope's to my employees and went to work at another restaurant, they found me and said they missed my food."
It didn't take much to persuade him to open another restaurant, he said. They went in search of property and found the World War II vintage house on First Avenue.
"We were enchanted with the cottage - it looks like your grandmother's house - and with the oak trees," Hutchinson said. "It was just so perfect."
They signed a five-year lease with an option to buy. Installing a new kitchen and other improvements inside and outside have taken an investment of $225,000, he said.
Hutchinson, 42, was born in Indiana but graduated from Clearwater High and has lived in Pinellas County most of his life.
By age 10, he knew what he wanted to do with his life: be a restaurateur like his grandmother and mother.
"When I got old enough to work, my mom made me start as a dishwasher and then wait tables," he said. As a teenager, he left home and traveled across the country, working in restaurants as he went.
"In Louisiana, I met Chef Paul Prudhomme and learned a lot about Cajun food and seafood from him," he said. "I worked mostly as a waiter, but when I got to Texas, I decided I wanted to cook. I used what I learned from my mother and from chefs in my travels. When I got back to Florida, I won my first prize for a rib recipe while working at a restaurant in Palm Harbor."
Today his cooking is all about meats, vegetables and breads prepared fresh daily.
"I make everything from scratch and slow-cook my turkey and roast beef," he said. "I make an old-style country ham with brown sugar glaze like my mother and grandmother, who were from Virginia. I shop for my meats. I don't have a company bring it in and hope it's good. I shop. I use fresh fruits as garnish and make my own mini-muffins and scones."
The secret of his cooking, he said, is that he uses no cooking oils.
Instead, he said he uses the natural oils that come from fresh foods: "It's home cooking with what I call a gourmet flair."