It's an odd location for a gourmet lunch joint — just east of I-275 on N. Armenia, in a neighborhood yet to be kissed by urban gentrification.
Rosemary-scented ham, fresh mozzarella, arugula and sun-dried tomato pesto on foccacia ($7.50) seems like a dish better suited to SoHo than NoHo, but the Bistro is still within take-out and lunch-hour distance of Kennedy and points south. Think of NoHo Bistro as an urban pioneer, blazing a path in an area that is just about ready for a renaissance.
Private events and catering are a big part of NoHo's business, which may explain how it survives even though the dining room is often only half full during the noon hour. Owners Jessica Raia-Long and Tina Hurless also run cooking classes, beer and wine tastings and dinner on special nights, like an upcoming Valentine's Day menu. It's not all about lunch, but that's the face that NoHo puts on for the public at large.
The restaurant offers two hot meals plus another hot special that changes daily. Macaroni ($8), one of the constants, is oddly constructed from penne topped with cheese sauce and raw breadcrumbs tossed with gorgonzola. The sauce isn't bad, but it would be better if the pasta was coated in the stuff and given the time to absorb some of that cheesy goodness. As it is, tubes on the edges of the plate are chilly and naked while those in the center are positively drenched.
The other regular dish is a nicely seasoned, cooked-to-order buffalo burger ($9) with toppings that change daily — on this occasion the meat is paired with spicy horseradish cheddar and bacon. Quiche (the Monday special, $9) is more a thick omelet than custard, a bit spongy and dense, but anchored by a brilliant piece of flaky crust that's almost worth serving by itself.
On Tuesday, the turkey loaf ($9) is moist and manages a light texture to match rich and creamy mashed potatoes given a hint of tang by buttermilk. I'd rather have gravy than the sweet-tart red currant sauce ladled on, but the loaf is good enough that I can ignore the liquid.
The other side of the menu is strictly gourmet-sandwich territory, from an upscale "day after Thanksgiving"-style roast turkey sandwich to curried chicken salad (each $7.50). No surprises, but the ham, turkey and chicken are all prepared in house, the ingredients fresh.
The problem is that even though the schedule of specials is set ahead of time, you never know which NoHo Bistro will be sending out the food. There are the days when the cake is dark and chewy with excess gluten, the cookies burned on the bottom and the focaccia brittle and stale. Italian wedding soup may be based on a bland broth, or the sweet potato and apple soup seems bitter and flat. On some days there are other problems, or no problems at all. Hard to tell until the plates hit the table.
NoHo may be a pioneer, but the Craftsman House — at the edge of Historic Kenwood in St. Pete — is in well-settled territory. Kenwood is on the other side of the gentrification curve — housing prices are up and there are happy couples and families renovating on every street (though you can still find barber shops and hippie-tique stores, greasy spoons and consignment shops, many with the security bars still on the windows).
First and foremost, Craftsman House is a beautifully restored 1918 bungalow, with the beam-and-column design that draws people to the neighborhood. Step inside and it's a store, with handmade jewelry, pottery and craft art that seems more like an over-abundance of décor than retail display. This stuff fits.
So does the food. There isn't much to choose from: fresh brewed coffee, exquisite old-fashioned sodas from Boylan in New Jersey (made with sugar cane instead of corn syrup; you can taste the difference) and straightforward lunch fare. Nothing's cooked — no room in the tiny kitchen area — so everything is cold, mostly wraps and salads that can be made in a hurry.
Cold is fine, though, especially since most of the dining space is outside, either on the large front porch or in the courtyard on the side that faces the pottery studio. Offerings include simple tuna with über-crisp lettuce ($5.95), smoked chicken with provolone and bacon ($6.75) or veggies with gorgonzola ($6.25), all stuffed into giant red-pepper tortillas and served on homemade crockery while you sit on mismatched rattan and wood furniture and watch the world go by. That's nice, especially this time of year.
There are a few culinary surprises, like an ambrosia-style citrus side salad fortified by strips of papaya and tart berries, or cubed Granny Smith apples tossed with chocolate chips, roasted pecans and a caramel vinaigrette ($4.50). Craftsman's gazpacho ($3.75) is laden with spicy garlic and even spicier red pepper. Spinach salad ($5.95) is paired with the balsamic vinaigrette and those ubiquitous gorgonzola crumbles, but there is also a surfeit of sliced strawberries, creating a convergence of sweet fruit, bitter greens, tart vinegar and sharp cheese. That's a fine salad.
Just about everything at Craftsman House is simpler than what's on the menu at NoHo Bistro, which may be why it's ultimately more successful. NoHo, located in a not-yet-up-and-coming neighborhood, has to make sure its menu has appeal beyond its geographic borders in order to fill the seats. That means more effort, more complications, more problems.
Craftsman House has it easy — ready-made neighborhood clientele, a beautiful setting and pretty stuff to look at. With such a bounty of natural resources, the food at Craftsman doesn't even need to be as tasty and surprising as it turns out to be.
Brian Ries is a former restaurant general manager with an advanced diploma from the Court of Master Sommeliers. Creative Loafing food critics dine anonymously, and the paper pays for the meals. Restaurants chosen for review are not related to advertising.
This article appears in Jan 24-30, 2007.