St Pete / Tampa Recs (plus Clearwater Beach too)

Need a rec (besides the obvious Bern’s which is booked) for a date type restaurant in St Pete or Tampa.
Staying in St Pete, but will have car.
Seafood or steak - both would work, probably seafood/fish would go over better.
Great cocktails also a must have.
Thanks!

In Tampa, and haven’t been since prior to COVID, but have liked Ulele and Steelbach. In a cool area too, at least based on the couple of visits I had.

Sea Salt in St. Pete is quite nice

1 Like

looks great, just made reservation.

1 Like

Probably a little late, but Brick and Mortar is also a great choice for dinner (and wine) in St. Pete.

2nd Brick and Mortar, and I like Il Ritorno.
However neither of these would be ‘steak’ or ‘seafood’ places.

There are a couple of steak places in St Pete but we have not been to any of them.
Will have to check out Sea Salt next time, though I don’t expect to get there until late fall.

thanks, actually be there next week, so not too late.
I will check out Brick and mortar.

Another late reply to this one. I actually prefer Rococo Steak in St. Pete (nice wine list), and another fancy place is Maritana Grille at the Don Cesar hotel. If you are just looking for a glass of wine, head to Try Wine.

If you have the time make a trip to Armeture Works, Steelbach and Oak and Ola are terrific options. Not sure how long you’ll be in town but Il Ritorno tasting menu is probably the top eating experience in town. Olivia in South Tampa is terrific Italian but a bit more comfort style.

We have plenty of steak options in town but what’s surprising is lack of a high quality real seafood option. I’ve not tried Sea Salt but it’s on the list. Our best fish dishes have come from some of our favorite Italian restaurants in town.

Thanks Fred … we had reservations at Il Ritorno and Sea Salt, but yesterday we changed our trip to go to Arizona.
We want warm and sunny weather, and the forecast for next Wed-Sun just kept getting worse.

Good plan as the weather does not look good next week.

1 Like

Keep these coming as I’ll be a St. Pete resident in the next couple years.

1 Like

Fred, the Armeture people were supposed to be redeveloping the old Locale Market and Farmtable Cucina space in St Pete right? (I think that’s part of the same complex that has Sea Salt and Ruth’s Chris)
Hopefully this is still happening, but with the pandemic I worry. Curious if there is any local news.

Locale Market was interesting but very expensive. Farmtable (a Michael Mina place I believe) was good but also expensive and didn’t seem to catch on. We ate there once a couple years ago and it was essentially deserted except for a bit of a bar scene.

2 Likes

Hi Jim- I can’t find any recent updates since the announcement was made around November 2019. Agree with you on Locale. At first it seemed like it would be a home run but we found it very expensive and too far for us to be regulars. Never got a chance to try Farmtable.

That spot should do really great so would be nice to see the Armeture team take it on. Not sure though.

Midtown in the heart of Tampa between the Westshore/Airport and Downtown is going up at lightspeed. Looks like it will be a great project. Chris Ponte will be opening a place there.



You don’t want to retire in St. Pete, way too old for you. Come on over to Melbourne where we have real beaches and the average age is less than “Covid vaccine eligible” [wink.gif]

Too late Bucky, we have already bought in. We liked the vibe in St.Pete too. Now if I’d have said Naples that would have been another story.

Where is the best avocado tequila? Asking for a friend.

1 Like

Yes, we visit often (pre-pandemic anyway) because my dad (91) and mom (89) live there. They are quite well, live very independently in a CCRC and still summer in New England. They are not foodies however so I appreciate the discussion here.

As opposed to a young buck like Todd, while I am a couple years short of ‘vaccine eligible’ (unfortunately), I am recently retired. St Pete seems like a good place to settle esp if the food scene continues/improves. Also the beer scene is pretty good, although that is more interesting to my wife than me. But overall we prefer New Orleans which obviously fails on the beach side of things. But Alabama and panhandle beaches are within reach.

Do we need a thread on Melbourne eats?

We could start one, but it would be pretty short. That being said, I live beachside of Melbourne in Indialantic. I can walk to either the beach (sunrise) or the Indian River (sunset) from my house…so depending on what I carry with me, the eating/drinking can be quite good [wink.gif]

Pretty much anything down Central Ave for casual places. My favorite of that bunch is Lure, but it becomes more of a singles hangout after 8pmish. Tryst is my favorite along Beach Drive. DR BBQ’s is really good and it’s by the baseball stadium. One more to the list would be Clear Sky on Cleveland up in Clearwater.

1 Like