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Long on theme, short on cuisine
Two newcomers to the bay area are chains that understand the entertainment role of restaurants, but they need a stronger vision in the kitchen.
By CHRIS SHERMAN
© St. Petersburg Times,
published July 19, 2001
As unstoppable as mediocre summer movies, another wave of new chain restaurants has hit Tampa, bringing Disney decor and big-seat capacity.
Last month the big news was Samba Room in Tampa and independent Island Way Grill in Clearwater, but before they could settle down, the buzz moved on. Restaurants less than a year old are now old news. Current buzzees are Maggiano's, a reproduction antique Italian restaurant at WestShore Plaza, and Stump's Supper Club, a faux retro cocktail of Southern low life and high energy.
There are still more costume changes and whiplash risk ahead for anyone chasing new restaurants. The Tampa branch of the New York steak chain the Palm opens next to Maggiano's under the AMC theater this month, and after a slight respite in August, International Plaza opens a shopping mall full of chains leading off with the crowd-pleasing Cheesecake Factory.
It's too soon to do full reviews, but here's a taste of the latest, familiar food in elaborate new settings.
Maggiano's Little Italy
[Times photo: Fraser Hale]
The dining room bustles at Maggiano’s Little Italy in WestShore Plaza.
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203 WestShore Plaza, Tampa; (813) 288-9000. Full bar, most major credit cards, open for lunch and dinner daily. Dinner entrees priced $11.95 to $32.95; lunches $7.95 and up.
Maggiano's is the older and more polished chain, started 10 years ago in Chicago. Its 13th outlet is a clever bit of stage design that magically transforms a corner of WestShore Plaza near Dillard's into a little bit of EPCOT.
The menu is familiar, red-sauced Southern Italian food done up big. Big Bubble Room portions on big tables in a big, two-story stage try to re-create a bustling big-city hostelry at the turn of the century, a place to revive grand family meals. Tables of four or more can order full-course meals with appetizers, entrees, salads, pastas and vegetables by the bowlful at $19.95 a person. There will be enough to carry food home by the bagful.
The premise is similar to the backslapping Buca Di Beppo chain but with more decorum, better furniture and fewer nun jokes (but an all-Frank soundtrack and red-checked tablecloths).
The breakthrough is in the size of the space and detail of decor; the gimmick is recognizing a restaurant's new role as surrogate family dining room. If you want to host a dinner party, have a birthday or just get your own family together, Maggiano's has all sizes of big tables -- and handsome Old World banquet rooms for 300 or more. Dining as a twosome here seems odd.
Food takes you back, too. It's the same red sauce Americans ate with meatballs and on macaroni 50 years ago. Maggiano's does have modern crusty bread and smart pastries (other locations contain a branch of the Corner Bakery chain). Most food, however, is not as creative and sticks disappointingly to freshly made but very basic Italian faves that Mom and Pop's served before we found places that served carbonara, primavera or chains like Carrabba's or Romano's Macaroni Grille (which, like Maggiano, is owned by the Brinker Co.). Despite the 1910 feel of the place, some dishes carry names like "Coach Joey Z's pomodoro sauce" from Brooklyn in the 1960s.
There's a chicken pesto here, but it's watery and bland. Stuffed artichokes were promised, but the kitchen had none on my visit. Eggplant Parmesan was up to traditional standards, a great gooey pigout for vegetarians. Most imaginative items were mushroom ravioli, Chicago's hearty chicken Vesuvio and a top-dollar veal chop. There are steaks, salmon and swordfish and lots of pastas, from shells to manicotti and cannelloni.
Whatever you order, expect plenty. Our half order of calamari lasted for two more meals. Everyone leaves with a take-home bag, and ours was discreetly place next to the chair rather than on the table. Bravo!
It's a big production and surprisingly efficient already -- and will need to be judging by the crowds it's drawing. Book early for the holidays. Still, Maggiano's is more production and art direction than culinary inspiration. It looks like a movie set, but if you and the kids liked the movies, you'll love the restaurant.
Stump's Supper Club
[Times photo: Fraser Hale]
Elvis and all things “Southern” are in at Stump’s Supper Club at Channelside in Tampa.
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615 Channelside Drive, Tampa, (813) 226-2261. Full bar, most major credit cards; opens at 4 p.m. daily. Dinners prices, $6.95 to $19.95.
Stump's is a sleeper, if that term can be applied to a place of such aggressively bad taste. It's an imitation Porky's festooned with disco glitter balls, velvet paintings, rubber tire flowerpots and all the ceiling lamps that didn't sell in a year of garage sales.
I say sleeper because at Stump's you can witness the birth of a concept, a restaurant spinoff of the Howl at the Moon chain, which has opened its 10th dueling piano bar next door at Channelside. If you've never been to a Howl, don't think Shakey's, karaoke or tour bus sing-alongs. This is party-hearty shout-along to the likes of Billy Joel's You May Be Right pounded out by rival Jerry Lees. It ain't heavy metal, but it's loud.
Being a supper club of the kind an angry sheriff would want to shut down, Stump's has a bandstand with a duo onstage cranking up to five-piece rhythm and blues later.
Ironically, backwoods Stump's is smack in the middle of the Channelside complex, which once had a hint of neoclassic elegance and, with the art film tendencies of the movie theater, might have been an adult alternative to Ybor. But not with a patio decked out with neon plastic flowers, bad lawn chairs and red Naugahyde booths dragged out to the harbor side.
While older folks remember that South with horror (or a chuckle), Stump's biggest fans seem to be twentysomethings who find it a giggle. The young staff sports movie usher vests and period cocktail costumes in concert with the requisite shaved heads and piercings that used to be needed to work in Ybor City. Yet the crowd on my visits was oddly mixed between misplaced tourist families and those slickly dressed for a night of $7 drinks.
Food and drink is cartoon S'uthern, of the sandwiches and steam table school, not yet up to Selmon's level but not too badly done. The menu talks like the White Trash Cookbook, but a sign on the wall wisely cracks "On the 8th day, God created corn bread."
Chicken breasts were deep fried and surprisingly dry, Brunswick stew was cold and dull, and pulled pork barbecue lacked the punch that vinegar gives it in North Carolina. Yet ribs were ample and rubbed with fire, and there were nine sides for those who miss the best part of home cooking. Corn bread is unusually moist and sweet, green beans and pork fat cooked for three years, and collard greens and tomatoes were smokey. Only black-eyed peas seemed mushy, pasty and soulless; but homemade pimiento cheese dip with pepper jelly (and lavash crackers instead of Ritz) made up for it.
Besides meatloaf, pork chops and such, there are a few modern items such as a chop salad with chipotle lime dressing, barbecued salmon and grouper in a bag.
Desserts run from banana pudding and blueberry cobbler (not fresh) to Krispy Kreme with vanilla ice cream. Sweetest stuff may be at the bar, such as plastic jugs of watermelon flavor and grain alcohol ($9.75 for a half-pint and two straws), and trash can punches for four, too.
The theme here is the naughty South, as it might be served up by the Cracker Barrel's evil twin, and ultimately contrived and sterile.
If you doubt there's enough redneck kitsch to deck out a restaurant as theme park or prefer Southern cooking served with more dignity or authenticity, you'll find Stump's a bit much or not enough.
The rest of you will probably have a pretty good time.
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