Downtown Tampa, so long a flatliner when the subject is restaurant dining, seems to be showing signs of life.
Over the past few months, several new restaurants have opened to provide an amenity long absent among the boarded-up buildings and creepy, deserted streets. You can even get a cocktail and a hot bite to eat after 7 p.m., a welcome change from decades of urban decay that bled the city of its formerly vivacious street life.
It's certainly a modest start: Panhandlers still plague you, parking meters discourage walkers and diners, and blocks and blocks of darkened buildings dampen a festive mood; but new establishments and the emotional electricity they create might be the initial shock that will restart the deadened heart of Tampa.
Several mega-developments, like the Channelside complex, the St. Pete Times Forum, the Waterside Marriott Hotel and the city convention center, have drawn people back downtown. The new streetcar line, with its jaunty yellow cars, provides an inexpensive outing and a fun way to travel between Channelside and Ybor City. Big new condo towers and tracts of apartments are about to house a new generation of downtowners.
It's as if doctors leaning over the silent body suddenly sense a pulse. Now, if the patient happens to open his eyes, cough, clear his throat and call for dinner, we might be able to provide something decent to revive him.
Grille 29 
1/2
Opened Nov. 17 at the Channelside complex, this new restaurant provides respectably good service and fare and is one of a handful of downtown restaurants with a gorgeous setting for a glamorous night out. Overlooking the shipping channel, the restaurant's interior is done in copper and pale gold, its long windows elegant in great, shirred drapes. A hefty bar bisects the front entryway.
A few prime tables actually sit on the terrace outside, but while you can see the water, you can't actually get near it, as sturdy Plexiglas and severe iron bars prevent a romantic stroll after dinner. Because of state and federal port security rules, the whole Channelside complex is cordoned off from its actual waterfront quays with iron gates and fencing, creating all the ambience of Alcatraz.
One recent weekend, a crowd formed on the stairwell outside the restaurant's front door, like poor teeming masses huddled against the bars, yearning to breathe free. The setting compares poorly to the airy charm of St. Petersburg's waterfront, with miles of open parkland. Still, beggars can't be choosers, and a nice restaurant barred from the water is better than no restaurant at all.
I enjoyed my meal there. On a Saturday night, every table was full, and a young, stylish crowd created an élan many restaurants might envy. The fare didn't knock my socks off, but it was certainly respectable — salads, steaks and seafood, along with comfort foods like chicken potpie and macaroni and cheese. The service was friendly and efficient.
The Martini Tester ordered a Bombay Sapphire martini ($7.50), two olives, shaken not stirred, giving it a 7 rating on a 10-high scale. Grille 29's 83-item wine list offerings were pretty standard choices, but I appreciated a number of selections offered by the glass as well as by the bottle.
I started with a quesadilla appetizer ($12), its flour tortilla limp like a dishrag instead of crackly and crisp; but I liked its chunky lobster and Swiss cheese stuffing. Salad "29" ($8) entailed a monster portion of spinach, Gorgonzola, walnuts, apples, celery and tomatoes, verdant in a tortilla bowl. The greens were varied and crisp, the fruit zingy and juicy, and the vinaigrette dressing kicky, but again, the tortilla wasn't crisp.
For entrées, The Martini Tester went with a simple, grilled piece of quality sirloin steak ($16), while I chose a farmhouse standard, chicken potpie ($10). He skipped the $3 accompaniments — crab Béarnaise, mushroom brandy, sautéed mushrooms or onions — choosing instead a macaroni-and-cheese side dish that was just so-so.
Chicken potpie is hard to find these days. Undoubtedly the best version I've ever eaten was from the proletarian Horn & Hardart Cafeteria in Philadelphia, now long gone. Decades later, it haunts my memory — the flaky, browned crust and gravied filling of moist chicken and vegetables. Grille 29's version looked similar, its filling equally hearty with soft diced chicken and richly gravied veggies; still, in what became the chorus of the evening, its crust failed the "crunch" test.
We waited until the last dish before we encountered a truly crisp pastry, the base of a lovely roasted honey pear tart ($7). Its filling fruity, its crumb topping buttery, we snarfed it down to the shiny plate. It would have been perfect with more liberal seasoning of salt, nutmeg and cinnamon, but still, it was a satisfying end to a nice evening. (SK)
Marc & Didi's Deli
Members of the Zudar family have operated excellent restaurants in Tampa for decades, but their recently opened deli just off Platt Street borders on average.
Some of the food lived up to the Zudars' reputation; some of it didn't. Desserts, which are Didi Zudar's long-time specialty, were decidedly disappointing. The service was inattentive, and I waited for what seemed like forever at the register trying to pay the bill, since they tally your items while you wait while servicing take-out orders at the same time. Makes for a lengthy and stressful experience.
Warning: These days, good food doesn't necessarily ensure a restaurant's success.
From the street, the deli's multi-colored sign is almost illegible. Inside, cool retro postcard prints garnish the walls, an atmosphere easy to like. As if you're entering someone's kitchen, everyone is friendly in that family business kind of way: casual, smiley and come-on-in-and-sit-awhile. But the service was really too casual; on a fairly crowded Monday lunch hour, organization should have ruled, but our server forgot items, a first-course soup appeared with the entrée, and an iceless glass of tea sat warm as a Tampa summer day.
Still, some of the dishes I tasted illustrate the Zudars' long reign as Tampa deli royalty.
I started with obviously housemade chicken soup (cup $1.95), brimming with thick, fat noodles and chunks of tender chicken, celery and spinach. Decadent baked potato soup (cup $1.95) was loaded with generous potato hunks, short slabs of salty bacon, married into a velvety, chowder-like broth.
One look at the menu and you know sandwiches are its specialty. The Zudars bake all their own soft, plush breads and pile them to sky-scraping heights with high-quality meats. Choices reflect a traditional deli menu, featuring turkey sandwiches as well as The Jewish Jitsu ($6.25), a delicious corned beef and pastrami number covered with melted Swiss cheese. But it's easy to skip so-so side items like thick-cut french fries ($1.95) and cole slaw (49 cents extra with sandwich or $1.25 as side item).
Dessert portions were really too big. Carrot cake ($2.95), although very moist and cinnamon-rich, had so much fruit inside that I couldn't find the "cake." Coconut cream pie ($2.95), my perennial favorite, was so sweet that a diabetic would quiver at the sight. Although rich with succulent coconut in a heavy pudding, the fruit had no chance in this sugar jungle. (TE)
Spain Restaurant & Tapas Bar
A sleek new restaurant that sits in an evening "No Man's Land" north of Kennedy Boulevard, Spain opened a few months ago. It's owned by the Castro family, immigrants from Spain who have operated restaurants in Tampa since 1980. Its lunch business is booming with a suited, upscale crowd, but at night the restaurant is obviously struggling to attract regulars.
Its tapas items, small snacks designed to hold off hunger until Spain's late dinner hour, were excellent. Its abbreviated weeknight dinners were uneven — like an undercooked grouper ($14), in which the fish was raw and cold on the bottom, or flan ($3) exhibiting the unappetizingly opposite problem, its bottom layer burned brown.
Still, I can heartily recommend the tapas. Start with a knock-out sangria ($5/glass, $16/pitcher), the national drink of Spain, maybe a little more tart than I prefer, but chirpy with fresh fruit. It was a perfect, icy accompaniment to hot champiñones extravaganza ($8), mushrooms served over a dreamy toast, rich with goat cheese and sherry wine sauce, or filete de res ($8), tender beef sautéed with onions, mushroom and sherry.
A fabulous, unusual dessert is filloas gallegas ($9), crepes stuffed with Spanish cream, Grand Marnier and an orange sauce — smooth, not overly sweet, a finale with flair. (SK)
Grille 29, 615 Channelside Drive (813-221-2929 or www.grille29.com). Hours: 1-10 p.m. Sun.-Thurs. and 5-11 p.m. Fri. & Sat. (bar open later every evening).
Marc & Didi's Deli, 210 W. Platt St. (813-250-6272). Hours: 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Mon.-Sat. (8 a.m.-4 p.m. Sat. & Sun. beginning mid-Jan.).
Spain Restaurant & Tapas Bar, 513 Tampa St. (813-223-2831). Breakfast and Lunch: 7 a.m.-2:30 p.m. Mon.-Fri. Happy hour: 4-7 p.m. Mon.-Fri. (featuring free tapas). Dinner: 4-9 p.m. Mon.-Thurs. and 4-11 p.m. Fri. & Sat.
Food critics Sara Kennedy and Taylor Eason dine anonymously and the Planet pays for their meals. Contact Sara at 813-248-8888, ext. 116, or sara.kennedy@ weeklyplanet.com. Contact Taylor at 813-248-8888, ext. 162, or taylor.eason@weeklyplanet.com.
This article appears in Jan 8-14, 2004.