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Overall: 4.0/5.0
How to Get There:
Price: ($ - $$$): __$$__
While this isn't even close to the most expensive place in town, it is well beyond the range of "cheap eats." Without going too crazy with drinks and appetizers, you're probably looking at $80 to $90 for a couple to have a really nice dinner. If your intention is to drink heavily with dinner, you could easily spend a lot more.
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| Poor iPhone needs to turn on the flash. |
We visited Annata recently on a Saturday evening, a day and time in this part of St. Petersburg which seems to hold some magical charm for bringing people together to mingle outdoors. As devout foodies, we did a good bit of online research beforehand, rifling through all the usual review websites, and then we went out and fully explored the area on foot, ultimately allowing our noses to make the final decision. We arrived pretty early for Beach Drive and we were seated promptly. Decor is what I would call "modern luxurious," meaning lots of glass and stainless steel, but plenty of wood in the right places to convey warmth. I don't know who designed the interior, but it was a professional, not a hobbyist. It's very possible I'm not as trendy as I used to be, but the lighting seemed very dim for a restaurant, perhaps more suited to a nightclub, or a hookah bar in Morocco. In any event, I could barely see the person across the table from me, and I'm very fond of looking at her. And you can call me crazy, but I like to see what I'm eating.
The waiter was prompt, arriving at our table within minutes, recounting the specials and producing two of what surely must be flower vases. To my astonishment he carefully filled the vases with drinking water, an arrangement which struck me as cumbersome the moment I saw it. We placed our order, and the establishment soon filled to capacity over the next few minutes as the Saturday night rush, an upscale crowd, queued up and quietly drifted into their seats.
From my chair I could see the window to the kitchen slowly filling with plates and I wondered "where must all the servers be to let the food sit like that?" I scanned the room to find that nearly every server in the dining room was completely engrossed in the arduous task of filling the tiny mouths of these little drinking vases with water. In truth I should have timed how long it takes to serve water to just one table here, to make sure I do not exaggerate. Even more unfortunate is the rate at which one may empty these tall, slender drinking vases. At one point I kept our waiter busy just filling my water glass for three full minutes, I was thirsty and I can drink faster than the vases can be filled. Eventually everyone had water, and the appetizers left the window. Thankfully ours was supposed to be cold, or perhaps leaving a plate in the window is some strange French, open-air aging method for cheese and crackers.
Menu:
There's no kids' menu here. Given the atmosphere and target audience, I don't subtract any points for that. Annata is pretty grown-up, and a kids' menu would be very out of place. The dinner menu is not overdone. This is a small restaurant with a correspondingly small kitchen, and the fact that they don't try to offer more options than they can handle is a relief to see. There is a little something for everybody, but it's all on one concise page. CLICK HERE to see for yourself.
Appetizer:
What we ordered for starters is called a "pick three" and I was soon wishing I would have opted for a "pick five," the cheese, meat and crackers go so well here. We ordered prosciutto, chorizo, and a raw tomme cheese from Georgia, our neighbor to the north. In addition to the three items we selected, I was pleasantly surprised to see a few extras: sliced, dried apricots, honey, bread, some small crackers and a whimsical sprinkling of clover. The mix of sweet and savory found on this one small cheese board can only be described as blissful. Soon we were conversing, laughing, trying different flavor combinations. We enjoyed and savored this until there wasn't a morsel left that was big enough to tempt a gnat.
Main Course:
Once the first dish was whisked away, we chatted and sipped our beverages. Annata is very big on wine, they are even called "Annata Restaurant & Wine Bar." The selection by the bottle or by the glass is staggering, and any bacchanalian would be completely at home here. They also have a small selection of fine brews on draught, and I chose a lively local brew called Jai Alai by the Cigar City Brewery in Tampa. Jai Alai is named for the intense game we call handball, first invented in Northern Spain, and this beer is just as active. A sub-tropical IPA, it dashes back and forth across the palate, refreshing, leaving pleasureful traces of sweet, sour citrus and bitter hops. As far as beers go, you would likely have to abandon the Western Hemisphere entirely to find something finer or more complex. While wine at Annata is served in conventional wine glasses and water is served in fancy flower vases, beer here is relegated to jelly jars. Now, while I do embrace my southern heritage and I am not afraid of a Mason jar in any way, it did feel off-putting to be served in a jar at this location. This is a fine-dining establishment with super-modern decor, located in some of the trendiest real estate in St. Petersburg. As I looked around I could spy nothing that would be considered quaint or kitschy, everything was thoroughly modern and well-appointed, luxurious even. The only way I can interpret this decision on the part of Annata's management is that while they do serve beer in order to cater a little to everyone, if you are uncouth enough to order beer at Annata, they will serve it up to you in the most redneck way possible, as if they were handing you a dunce cap and sending you to the corner for time out. Basically they're saying that everyone else here is dining at Annata Restaurant & Wine Bar, but your table is now a honky-tonk BBQ joint...because it has beer on it.
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| Pork Shoulder |
When the entrees arrived I had to chuckle a little at the portion size, but they already knew by the Mason jar of beer beside me that I was going to have such an outburst when I was presented with these "haute cuisine," toddler-sized portions. You see, the entrees are on the pricey end, but the portions are minuscule, the kind of thing you look at to admire, something to be appreciated with the eyes and nose, not something to eat. I ordered the pork shoulder, and as a person who has actually seen the shoulder on a live pig, it was humorous to see 4 or 5 ounces of pork and a dab of mustard in the middle of a plate and call it "pork shoulder". It was expertly prepared, sweet and savory at the same time, and paired with the stone-ground mustard beneath it, it was a real treat, the mustard serving as a sort of catalyst and adding tang to the overall flavor landscape.
The grouper was well-seasoned, also a small portion, though not so humorously small as the pork. The "farro tabuleh" underneath the grouper was a bit of a surprise; the word "tabuleh" typically conjures images of tomato and parsley, but this tabuleh was primarily a pile of whole grain. Normally on a low-carb regimen, I readjusted my definition of tabuleh and enjoyed it to the last grain.
Dessert:
This area is packed with options, we had to go for a walk and discover dessert down the street. By the end of dinner the small place was packed, there was not a seat to be had, either inside or out. Service slowed considerably, as if Saturday night on St. Petersburg's trendiest strip had somehow taken them by surprise, or staff had unexpectedly called off work. While the waiter did bring my check quickly enough, I waited and waited for him to come take my cash. I was half way through scripting a fake heart attack on the floor when he finally came back to take my money. I'm usually a pretty patient customer as I have been on the other side of the transaction before. I don't remember the last time I started plotting to fake a heart attack on a restaurant floor, or anywhere else, for that matter. It took at least 10 minutes to decide to plan the attack, and I was about 5 minutes into the planning phase before he came and took the cover. Five more minutes of planning and another 5 minutes of self-doubt in my ability to pull off such a stunt and I assure you a dozen patrons would have been dialing for an ambulance before I could hand the cover to the server.
Overall:
It was a pleasant experience, if a bit outside my middle-class, middle-American comfort zone, and I'm giving them a solid 4.0/5.0 on my own scale. Fortunately we did research the place online before we went, and it is in a pretty high-brow locale, so the comical "made for TV" portion sizes and myopic, über-foodie stuffiness were not a total surprise at the door. Service was only slow when they were totally slammed and the rest of the time it was prompt and courteous. I really do think they would see a revenue increase if they ditched the pointless water glasses and went with something more utilitarian. So now for the truth or consequences:
1) Would I recommend the place? Yes, with the above caveats. While Florida is a land abundantly blessed with many things, we do tend to lack fine dining on a lot of our beaches. This is a bit of a drive from some of the beach areas, but if you're staying in the southern half of Pinellas County, it is an attractive option, especially if you're celebrating something and you'd like to go somewhere fancier than burgers at the beach.
2) Would I go back? Yes again, but I will not accept beer in a jar. It's not a barbecue joint, so the jar is purposely out of place, either serve me beer with respect, or take it off the menu, don't treat me like the kid who has to sit in the corner at school. And besides, even the most poorly-educated patron you could find will know that the only beverage you can properly and politely serve in a Mason jar is moonshine.
