When we walked in, close to 8 p.m. on a Tuesday, Hapa was empty. The small Oldsmar restaurant stayed that way the whole night, except for me and mine. It was probably a tough night for owners Nina and Brett Gardiner, but it felt like we had a private room and a private chef, like I was a rock star buying out the restaurant for a romantic evening. But with food that just barely justifies Hapa's exorbitant price tag, it's a good thing we didn't have to pay for the whole room.
The Gardiners are both veterans of Six Tables, a local chain oddity that attempts — sometimes successfully — to franchise exclusivity and ultra-high-end fare. According to Nina, the cool face of Hapa's front of the house, the constraint of serving a menu set by corporate was too much for Brett. They fled for freedom of expression.
There is but the briefest of nods to Brett Gardiner's Hawaiian heritage in his cuisine — with just a few conspicuous Asian ingredients on the short menu. For all his desire to branch out and stretch his culinary muscles, much of the menu is devoted to mundane fine-dining standards featuring a classic French base — with varied success.
His experimental bent does bear fruit in a vivid green mash of roasted edamame, each grainy bite rich and salty, a bar snack re-created as a chic side dish. It accompanied a rather ordinary fried egg roll stuffed with bits of curried chicken and shreds of cilantro ($12). The roll is the headliner, but the star is the edamame mash.
Also, a salad made from matchsticks of unripe green papaya — they have the sweet and tart of toned-down granny smith apples — and wafer-thin slices of tender pear ($10) left a fresh taste in my mouth and psyche. Green papaya is underused in Tampa, but fits our style and climate. It's a dish that could've defined a style for Gardiner.
But then there was the filet ($28), darkly crusted with a perfectly pink center. Boring, but necessary fare for the less adventurous or more carnivorously minded guests at Hapa. The problem wasn't the beef; it was the gelatinous béarnaise that crouched at the side of the plate. Intended to elevate a simple piece of meat, the sauce was just a lumpy distraction.
Transforming the mundane is better accomplished in the Gardiners' metamorphosis of Hapa's bland setting. The restaurant sits in a strip mall containing the usual commercial suspects, right next to an Italian family restaurant/sports bar. All that sets Hapa apart are two giant Hawaiian flowers emblazoned onto the silvery reflective window treatment.
Inside, the restaurant is posh, with an understated Hawaiian elegance, like the tearoom of the Maui Ritz. Colorful prints reminiscent of Gauguin's South Pacific scenes decorate the walls, rich curtains unobtrusively block the dull parking lot view, and downtempo Hawaiian tunes roll from the speakers so subtly it takes some effort to grasp their origin. No Don Ho, f'sho.
Nina Gardiner — also a trained chef — glides through service with the ease of a professional and the comfort of ownership. This is her place and she knows it inside and out. She believes in it. I felt her confidence, even as she glided through the empty room. Sigh. The season always ends with a whimper.
Redfish ($28) — Hapa's signature dish — had the reverse problem of the filet. The mild fish was bland and under-seasoned while the lush sauce flavored with anisey Pernod and scented with tiny shavings of black truffle was sublime. Can I have this sauce with that meat?
Sauce could've had a transformative effect on Hapa's towering crab cake ($17). Rich and sweet with reduced fish stock and caramelized butter, the puddle of pearly liquid was an elegant addition to a dish that is often dumbed down, even in fine restaurants. Sadly, the cake was blitzed with dill. Even when I plucked a giant chunk of pearly lump meat from that towering golden cylinder and cleaned it of the tiny green underbrush, all I could taste was herb.
Scallops ($15) were seared and placed atop a salad of grapefruit, avocado, and greens, simple and delicious and free from the turmoil of many of the dishes. Stuffed with berries and nuts, Hapa's duck breast ($28) was moist and pink, devoid of the unctuous rendered fat that often accompanies this roasted fowl, and further lightened by the bright blast of raspberry from a Chambord reduction.
Ending the meal with adequate profiteroles, bready chocolate tarts and good coffee in delicate china, I could really feel what the Gardiners are trying to accomplish at Hapa. They want style in the suburbs, an outpost of elegance a half-mile from the flea market. The couple encourages reservations and cultivates relationships with bourgeois patrons. I'm almost surprised they don't put out a red velvet rope to help manufacture an aura of exclusivity.
Luckily for Hapa, the Gardiners have set up shop in an area that doesn't present a lot of competition. Sure, there are occasional flashes of brilliance in the food, but those flourishes never manage to coalesce in a single sublime dish. It's workaday fine food that matches the jazzed-up strip mall space, accompanied by superlative service. For people who don't want to make the drive into town or across the bridge, it's a formula that works.
Considering the empty dining room that late May night, let's hope the formula works well enough to sustain Hapa through the doldrums of summer.
Brian Ries is a former restaurant general manager with an advanced diploma from the Court of Master Sommeliers. He can be reached at brian.ries@weeklyplanet.com. Planet food critics dine anonymously, and the paper pays for the meals. Restaurants chosen for review are not related to advertising.
Editor's note: The headline for this article was changed because the previous version did not accurately represent the content of the review.
This article appears in Jun 7-13, 2006.