Restaurants are tricky businesses during the best of times. Open one in a bad economy and you'd better have a lot of experience to get you through. That's the conventional wisdom, at least. Thankfully there are exceptions.
In August of 2009, The Living Room on Main started serving food in Dunedin, saddled by a host of potential difficulties that could have spelled doom for the new restaurant. The location is a few blocks away from Dunedin's quaint downtown core, well outside the path of walking tours and regular events that drive people to the area. The owners had never owned a restaurant before and the manager — Sarah Johnson, the owners' daughter — had never managed a restaurant before.
It appears that the crowd taking refuge in The Living Room on a blustery Wednesday night could care less about that. And for good reason.
The Living Room is in the spot formerly occupied by Deli News Cafe, in a building converted from an ancient garage and gas station. You can still see the vestiges of the past in the steel beams and exposed ducts bove the dining room, and the large rolling garage door now permanently sealed into the front wall. The rest of the decor, however, is a study in the contrasts between past and present, modern and classic.
The bar area in front is modern and lively, with a long and high communal table acting as a sort of living frontier into the dining room. Work your way back into the space and the vibe transforms into the comfortable dark woods and soaring bookcases of an old-fashioned den, study, or, well, formal living room. The back wall is covered in built-in cabinetry lined with an almost perfect selection of luxurious accessories and stacked volumes that seem to have grown over the years, or been placed by an especially talented designer, fronted by a row of cozy booths. With the rain and wind assaulting the wall of windows on the side of the building, all the space needs is a crackling fire to be just about the coziest spot you can imagine.
Although we are at the tail end of the tapas craze, the menu here shows that the small-plate phenomenon still holds some power, especially when executed by a chef as canny as The Living Room's Tony Bruno. There are a few entree-sized items to be had — many of them found in the nightly specials — but you'd be better off diving in with both feet into the array of smaller bites to experience the full range of Bruno's modern American sensibilities.
Roasted tomatoes add a char to the restaurant's tomato soup, offset by strands of gooey and tart cheese hiding in the bottom. It's tasty, but almost upstaged by the simple garnish on the side: a tiny sauteed onion and gouda grilled cheese that could easily compete for my favorite sandwich of the year so far. In that same vein is The Living Room's wild mushroom flatbread, which is loaded with almost — but not quite — too much gooey cheese, tempered by earthy 'shrooms and bright sun-dried tomatoes. Both illustrate Bruno's culinary aesthetic, combining simplicity and elegance with hearty flavors and textures that evoke American comfort food.
That's not to say he can't have a lighter touch, when called for. Sauteed greens are given just enough heat to barely wilt the the big leaves of bitter chard and kale, and paired with salty broth that bears mere hints of black pepper and garlic. So restrained, the greens may have you reaching for richer dishes after the first bite, but your fork will return again and again to the bowl.
The Living Room touts its tagines — dishes cooked in the classic clay ovens of northern Africa — and the seafood version lives up to the hype. With a mass of mussels, fish, calamari and shrimp in the big clay pot, all of which take different times and temps to cook properly, it's a difficult dish to get right. Bruno manages it with panache, along with a base of brothy rice that balances bright tomato, rich spices and chile heat with ease. The restaurant's stuffed oysters are much less subtle, with a mass of cream, spinach, cheese and herbs hiding giant pearls of tender bivalve.
There were a few disappointments, but those mostly registered in contrast to the success of everything else. The Living Room's filet is cooked right, but is a bit mealy, while the restaurant's incredibly tender pork shank is doused in a cloying hoisin barbecue sauce that is much too pedestrian. Minor blips, though, considering the quality of the rest of the food served at The Living Room.
I normally discourage restaurant amateurs from getting involved in the biz, largely because the barriers to success are difficult to surmount even for experienced chefs and entrepreneurs. After visiting the Johnson's efforts in Dunedin, I'm apt to change my mind and open the floodgates. Maybe a few more freshman efforts like The Living Room are just what the Bay area dining scene needs.
This article appears in Mar 3-9, 2010.