It's rare to find a restaurant that hits all the major meals — breakfast, lunch and dinner — without breaking stride. It's rarer still to find one where you'd be happy to sit down for three squares in a row. Wait, while I'm dreaming, let's make it affordable, too, and keep it open into the wee hours for a late-night nosh.
Besides a few greasy-spoon diners scattered across the area, there just isn't much that fits this bill, let alone a restaurant with food that's almost fine-dining quality. But Grillside Central, the first of several downtown St. Pete eateries planned by former Bonefish Grill chef Craig "Chappy" Chapman, manages the whole list. It also throws in some old-school, country-style hospitality for good measure.
About that hospitality: A friend recently called Grillside at 7:30 a.m. to see if they were serving breakfast. The waitress told him that the place didn't open until 8, but she'd put some coffee on, and he was welcome to come by and have a cup while they got things ready. Aw, shucks, Miss. Don't mind if I do.
And when they're ready, I'll start with a big order of the sausage gravy and biscuits ($4.50). So many places toss hunks of mild Jimmy Dean into a bowl of milk and flour and hope for the best, but Grillside gets it. This gravy tastes like sausage figured prominently in its creation, the white liquid studded with hunks of ground meat redolent with sage and pork fat and a subtle bite of spicy heat. Just to drive the point home, the chefs slap an extra sausage patty on top of each of the biscuits before ladling on the gravy.
You can also top biscuits with chipped beef gravy ($4), but that falls a little short of the sausage because shredded corned beef just doesn't have enough fat. Both the gravy and biscuit dishes come with home fries — exceedingly rich hunks of potato tossed with strands of onion and red and green pepper — or grits. I get the home fries, saving the grits for another Grillside experience.
I've eaten shrimp and grits at probably a dozen joints around St. Pete over the past year. It's a simple dish that's rarely accomplished as well as it is at Grillside. These grits ($7) are fluffy and rich but not weighed down by too much fat. The shrimp are plump, moist and coated in a punchy spice blend. There's also a little puddle of buttery gravy to provide a punch of heat and the tang of Worcestershire sauce. Simple and damn tasty.
For lunch or dinner, I'm tempted to stick with the shrimp and grits, but if I branch out, maybe I'll find something I like just as much. Burgers ($6-9) are cooked right and moist, especially the Grillside special topped by peppers, onions, bacon, mayo and cheese. The braised ribs ($9 for half a slab) are fine, with a tasty little crust of caramelized barbecue sauce that comes from a final few minutes on the grill, as is a standard pork chop ($10) doused in mushroom gravy. Comforting, but they're not knocking my socks off like the grits.
The catfish ($9), though, not only marks a return to Southern staples, it marks a return to Grillside's hit parade. Instead of the expected cornmeal coating, Grillside dredges this fish in flour breading that comes out of the fryer flaky enough to shatter under your teeth. The same breading can make the fried chicken ($9 for a half-chicken) a bit too much of a good thing, the skin and fat melting into the already decadent fry crust — but it works well on lean catfish. The accompanying tartar sauce is bright with pickles that cut through the fat.
That same sauce — they call it white remoulade — comes with fried green tomatoes ($4) that get a cornmeal treatment. The little discs of golden brown veggie explode on your tongue with a bright acidity.
Side dishes tend to stick to Southern classics, but they can be hit or miss. Sweet-potato chips are a big hit, crisp on the outside but thick enough to have a little fluffy starch on the inside, each order tossed with salt and a subtle blend of sugar and cinnamon.
Collards miss big time, overcooked and under-seasoned, and the candied sweet potatoes are too rich even for my blood. But I would trade a pint of that self-same blood for a pint of Grillside's corn bread pudding, a moist mash of bread, peppers and kernels of golden corn, a perfect balance of sweet and savory.
The late-night menu leans mostly on burgers and those sweet-potato chips, but that's fine. I'm usually a lot less picky when trying to soak up overindulgence after midnight.
The Grillside experience is great, but I can't help looking ahead to the other projects Chapman — who's spent most of his life as a corporate chef for chains — has up his stained white coat. He has two other restaurants scheduled to open in the relatively near future, both either Southern or Creole, and both slated for downtown St. Pete. The Creole concept will be in the old Redwoods space just a few blocks from Grillside, while the other restaurant will be built into the new high-rise at 400 Beach Drive.
I've seen Chappy turn casual, inexpensive, all-day dining into gold at Grillside. I can't wait to see if he can repeat the feat with more upscale places.
This article appears in Jun 18-24, 2008.