- In a business where chefs, menus and owners vary
as much as the ingredients, food critics do go back to restaurants to
monitor what has changed. sometimes little has, which can be to
the good - or not.
- Not every was optimistic when Boulevard Bistro
left the hands of Frank Chivas and his team, including chef James
Shields, who brought modern cooking to several corners of benighted
Pinellas.
- Seminole, only rescued recently from the mid
Pinellas middling food offerings, wondered if new owner Helen Garzieri,
who from Pepin in St. Petersburg, would keep Boulevard on a sharp,
modern edge.
- Stop fretting. Garzieri and chef Brian
Keller, a veteran of Boulevard's original crew, have kept the bistro's
menu and nightly specials up to date.
- On a recent drop-in, I tucked into food that hit
the same balance the Bistro has sought all along. There's casual
any-hour sandwich-or-steak comfort, plus modern culinary style and
thinking.
- Lobster may show up in boring dinners on
weekends, but often it will be in niftier tostadas.
- Freshness in ingredients and cooking started as
always with finger-snapping cris lavash flatbread and creamy hummus, and
went all the way through perfectly moist lemon pound cake. Big
scallops were pan-seared, spice-smeared and slid between crisp tostadas;
a filet was stuffed with gorgonzola and baked up with solid potato hash.
- Wines were affordable, service food-sharp and
the kitchen still committed to trimmings, such as mushroom slaw and
ginger aioli, that are handcrafted and clever.
- We can't eat this well in most top-dollar
restaurants. To find care and creativity in a neighborhood spot
where half the entrees are less than $15 and you get a cilantro
buttermilk dressing on a $6 chicken sandwich is remarkable.
- I'm glad it continues.
