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Restaurant review

Rising to a new level

Pane Rustica ventures into the realm of dinner after making its mark with baked goods.

By CHRIS SHERMAN
Published May 19, 2005

[Times photo: Chris Zuppa]

Sous chef Ed Briones prepares a pan-seared black grouper special that was served with a vegetable risotto for a recent dinner crowd.

TAMPA - We already knew Pane Rustica could bake bread.

Those who tried the absurdist pizzas, those topped with pork chops, a cooked egg or a scallop in the shell, knew the ovens had heartier uses.

Now that we can eat a full dinner at the bakery turned bistro, we learn the Pane crew can make sauces and cook a mean fish, too.

Not that the bread disappears. It's more crucial than ever. The difference is that a long slice of crisp, toasted sourdough spiked with saffron and fennel sets off a robust seafood stew.

Or that the house rustic Italian showed up in a genuine panzanella salad of bright grape tomatoes, tangy greens and olive oil one night and that was just the base for a perfectly grilled trout fillet.

Now that Tampa's most foodie fashionable bakery has expanded from bread and coffee into dinner, the fresh-baked Pane is still there, and wild, fired flavors remain Rustica. That does not mean it's all from the Italian farmhouse - the paisanos occasionally smuggle in Asian buckwheat noodles or all-American burgers and a sprinkle of caviar.

In short it's a chance for Kevin and Karen Kruszewski and crew to kick out the jams and live out all their chefly ambitions. Dinner is the next frontier after moving a few blocks down the street into a much larger space, a trattoria deep and warm. Now it's a sit-down restaurant with table service four nights a week.

For regulars, and I am obviously one, that means the usual anxiety about stretching too thin. But if it works, and it appears to, the new dinner hours offer decided advantages. One can now avoid the maddening lines for ordering at the counter at lunch. Dinner also makes Pane Rustica's food more widely available.

This was the area's pioneer California-style artisan bakery five years ago, the Panera of your dreams, and still one of the few. But unless you were in south Tampa before 3 p.m. you never got to try the best meal for two for under $20 on either side of the bay.

Now it can be an evening destination for the crispest pizza in town, great soups and smart salads for not much more. And for a celebratory Saturday night you can break a $50 or even $100 if you indulge two all the way through for crispy oysters, mushroom ravioli with porcinis, creamy zabaglione and wine.

That's eating with special-occasion flavor, yet Pane Rustica still feels unfussy, comfy and neighborly.

Roasting and grilling lets Kruszewski show his appetite for bold flavors. He has no fear of pork or sausage or rich cheeses, roasted garlic, good olives, anchovies and other foods that let you know you've eaten.

That's my flavor profile too, say, in a farmhouse plate of veal sausage with white beans, tomatoes and escarole, a big bowl of mussels or a blackened Delmonico. Then there are the best tastes of our ethnic heritage, such as lighter than air cod croquettes.

Lighter choices? A stack of grilled polenta, fresh mozzarella, charred greens with a ragu of tomatoes and olives plus pesto and aged balsamic is for vegetarians with lust in their bellies. Open-faced seafood ravioli mixes the seafood with a lush lobster mascarpone sauce and sets it on pasta with more sheets than a Martha Stewart bed.

Pane Rustica cranks out a few more sweets at dinner, including a puffy tart of fresh apples and a shameless praline cheesecake.

Is it perfect? I found two flaws: One night an ordinary house salad was ordinary and the greens not fresh, inconceivable given that salads here have always burst with fresh peaches, candied pecans, marinated seaweed, grilled asparagus, blueberries, you never knew what.

Another is the all too common overpricing of wine by the glass. The list is cleverly chosen and many bottles are less than $30, yet every glass but one costs $6 to $9. Buy a bottle, drink beer or skip it.

Will success, dinner, expansion spoil Pane Rustica?

It hasn't yet.

There will always be more people who want to eat handmade authentic food like this. We will have to hope more chefs will cook like this.

Breaking bread was just the beginning.

- Chris Sherman dines anonymously and unannounced. The St. Petersburg Times pays for all expenses. A restaurant's advertising has nothing to do with selection for a review or the assessment of its quality. Sherman can be reached at 727 893-8585 or sherman@sptimes.com

3225 S MacDill Ave., Tampa

Phone: (813) 902-8828

Hours: 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesday, 8 a.m. to 10 p.m., Wednesday-Saturday, 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. Sunday.

Details: Credit cards accepted; wheelchair access, beer and wine available.

Features: Bakery, takeout, catering.

Prices: Breakfast, lunch, less than $12; dinner entrees, pizza and pasta, $9 to $19.

[Last modified February 1, 2006, 12:11:35]