Tampa's Platt Street Borough Eatery & Bar wants to be your next go-to restaurant. It's only been open for a short time at 1809 W. Platt St. (where The Hyde Out most recently operated), but chef-owners Kiel Lombardo and Adam Hyatt have big plans for the place. Striving to stray from serving up the same dishes over and over, there's already talk of changing the menu around.
Hyatt and Lombardo have cooked alongside one another since 2007, when Hyatt began working at the Roy's location in Tampa. A decade later, they decided to open a restaurant together. Why? For them, it's less about business and more about genuine hospitality.
"Going back to basics, really," Hyatt says. "We don't want to talk about regions competing or what store is underperforming or over-performing. We want to focus on just one — ours."
The idea behind the 4,600-square-foot, 100-seat Platt Street Borough — a casual, chef-driven joint in Hyde Park — is simple: quality food and cocktails at an affordable price. Both partners did a good amount of traveling while developing their concept, taking mental notes of their discoveries along the way. As a result, they've mixed what they learned with what they like, creating an indoor-outdoor hangout that's truly their own.
"I grew up playing bocce ball. Being an Italian growing up in upstate New York, it was one of those things, like, 'No one that I know of has a bocce court in Tampa,' so let's put a bocce court in front of the restaurant where we can go out with a cold beer and play after an 18-hour day," says Lombardo.
While Platt Street Borough also features another dining area that's able to accommodate up to 32 guests, that space is meant for large groups, not private bookings. Depending on a few factors like dates and times (so the regulars aren't impacted), renting out the space is a possibility, but that would happen sometime down the line.
Lombardo and Hyatt describe their cuisine as New American fare, a mix of plays on classic dishes reinterpreted with new tricks and techniques, plus an emphasis on what's in season and what's local. Coming from the world of fine dining, the chef-owners say they've picked up some skills that aren't often seen in the casual food scene; they can treat their $9 chicken wing dish like it's a $100 foie gras dish.
The signature Fremont burger is a suggestion for first-timers. This secret burger blend is topped with red onion marmalade and aged blue cheese on a brioche bun. Pasta is also a specialty, so order the ricotta gnudi, a gnocchi-like dish with dried ricotta and pecorino Romano, sage brown butter, butternut squash and roasted mushrooms.
Lombardo's recommendation is The Bird, a sweet and salty pairing of buttermilk fried chicken — on a doughnut — with hot sauce, butter and pickles.
Good luck choosing.
This article appears in Nov 23-30, 2017.