Should I give Fly the benefit of the doubt, dear readers? As a hip urban watering hole, this place works. Fly is open late every day of the week, with pretty décor as a backdrop for pretty people, the whole place noisy and vibrant with human interaction. But as a restaurant, Fly has problems.
Each piece of food that hits our table is perfectly cooked — the corvina is moist and translucent with a crisp flour crust; mini Kobe burgers are pink at the center; short ribs are luscious and falling off of big, beefy bones. Sounds great, except that along with this masterful application of heat are broken sauces and haphazard seasoning. How does the kitchen at Fly Bar and Restaurant manage this disparate mess?
It's a shame, because Fly's menu is loaded with small plates that add to its urban lounge feel and fit the crowd. Think of bar food that's all grown up or small plates meant for sharing and grazing (at least Fly avoids calling them "tapas"). There's obviously some skill in the kitchen. I really like Fly. I really want to like this food.
That corvina ($12) is paired with an incredibly simple mushroom and potato hash that I could eat a whole plate of. My companions' eyes light up when I encourage them to take another bite — from the part of the dish opposite a red wine reduction that manages to taste raw and burned at the same time. Forget that poor puddle of pinot noir, and this could be an exceptional dish.
Fly's skewered shrimp ($9) are monsters, plump and juicy and tinted with a peachy glow. They may be the best-cooked shrimp I've had this year. They are also nigh flavorless, completely devoid of seasoning, with nothing on the plate for a savory rescue. Same with short ribs ($12), so tender the meat pulls from the giant bones with almost no effort. But in my mouth it's just a barely beefy bit of soft chew. Where's the flava, yo?
It's not all bad. Roasted oysters ($11) are flawless, a puddle of subtle milky sauce and bits of smoky bacon accenting the mild nuggets. And the sauce drizzled alongside organic pressed chicken ($10) — two medallions of moist breast meat and a petite drumstick — is flavorless instead of offensive, so we can enjoy the fowl in peace.
One of the best things Fly has going for it are its hours.
It's open until 3 a.m. every damn day of the week, with food until 2 and drinks until 2:30. Late night Kobe beef sliders ($12), three to a plate, and a dirty gin martini at 1 a.m. go a long way toward compensating for the burgers' lack of salt and burned onions. Fly's frites three ways ($8) — crispy sweet potato shoestrings, chunky Idaho hand-cut fries and cumin-scented Peruvian blue chips — may be the best bar food in town, any time of day or night.
Fly is just a few blocks north of Tampa Theatre, and I know that people will want to hail it as the coming of a new age for downtown. I'm not going to jump on the urban revitalization bandwagon just yet. How many times have we done that in the past decade with the arrival of every new restaurant or incipient condo development?
The restaurant is certainly a trailblazer, the first in an area right off of I-275 that might be turning a corner. Maybe. There's a building across the street undergoing gentrification before my eyes, a few months away from condos, but there are also a lot of patches of empty lots and urban blight. The return of downtown? I'll believe it when I can eat and drink my way on a walking tour.
My pessimism doesn't seem to be stopping people from crowding into Fly, however. By 10 on Friday night, the place is standing room only, with 20-, 30- and a few 40-somethings packed into a room lined with jazzy art, exposed brick and industrial accents. Whenever you get a bunch of young professionals out on the town, there is the inevitable whiff of meat-market desperation, but there's more here at Fly than meets the eye.
Big groups are congregating, taking advantage of the six-person horseshoe booths near the bar, the modular tables in the center of the dining room that can be arranged to seat four-to-20 and the row of two-tops facing a padded banquette on the far wall.
Ouch! That's another thing that needs to be addressed. These wrought iron and lacquered tables are pretty but have legs and supports in all the wrong places, forcing those over 5 feet 5 inches to jam their legs together and sit a fair distance from their dinner. I'm not sure the rest of the crowd cares too much, though. It is better to look good than to feel good, darling.
The bartenders don't know how to make a negroni, but they're pumping out modern cocktails at a brisk clip, lubricating the noisy social interaction that has filled every open space in the place. Need a smoke? Up a flight of stairs, Fly has a cool roof deck with good views of the stars, the lights of downtown and cars passing on I-275 a few blocks away. Up here — with noise filtering from below, groups of people eating and drinking — it's easier to imagine that this actually is a first step to a livelier downtown.
See what I mean? I really like this place. I'll be coming back, without a doubt. But with food that doesn't live up to its potential, I'm going to have to ding Fly on the rating. Anyone who looks at the number of stars I give the place and fails to read the whole review is going to be missing out an something cool.
Brian Ries is a former restaurant general manager with an advanced diploma from the Court of Master Sommeliers. Planet food critics dine anonymously, and the paper pays for the meals. Restaurants chosen for review are not related to advertising.
This article appears in Sep 13-19, 2006.
