Sticks of Fire: a Tampa blog

In a break from barbecue and burger joints, Traci and I had dinner last Wednesday at the Maritana Grille at the Don CeSar resort on St. Pete Beach. We had decided several weeks earlier that we’d splurge on a meal to celebrate our anniversary and had picked the Don.

While the Maritana Grille consistently makes the lists of the top restaurants in Tampa Bay, I was still a little concerned that it wouldn’t live up to its rep. Restaurants inside hotels, even high-end ones, can be more style than substance. This certainly wasn’t the case, though, at the Maritana Grille. We had a high-quality, very enjoyable experience.

The Maritana Grille is located right off the Don’s main lobby towards the front of the hotel. One entire wall of the small restaurant is lined with impressive fish tanks filled with tropical fish. The overall style of the restaurant is clean and classic without feeling stuffy and overly formal.

We each started off with a Maritana Caesar salad and I decided to also order foie gras with caramelized onions and bleu cheese for myself. The foie gras was delicious and the blue cheese wasn’t overpowering. The salad was tasty and was neatly served in an edible cheese bowl. We also munched on a great selection of fresh bread (don’t miss the bread sticks!). Our server also brought out a sampler of carrot curry soup that was surprisingly good.

For our main course, I ordered pan seared scallops with lobster rissotto and Traci ordered a grilled filet mignon with truffle mashed potatoes. The scallops were excellent, although the rissotto was bland. Traci’s filet was nicely done and the truffled mashed potatoes were knockout. Our server also brought her out vanilla bean mashed potatoes which were delicious.

We were already stuffed from dinner and had debated passing on dessert, but eventually gave in. We ordered the Maritana ice cream tasting, which on this night included scoops of poppyseed and pecan ice cream and a scoop of raspberry sorbet. The three scoops were lightly drizzled with chocolate sauce. Two glasses of a dessert wine finished our memorable evening.

Service was very good and attentive (our server brought me out an extra scallop because he said one that came with my entree “looked too small”). We don’t regularly splurge on high-end restaurants, but when we do we want to be impressed and Maritana Grille didn’t disappoint.

Bottom-line: If you’re a fan of high-quality Florribean cuisine and are looking for a “special occasion” place in a historic setting, Maritana Grille at the Don CeSar is a good choice.

Inspection Scorecard: Last Inspection - December 2005 - Critical (3), Non-Critical (3).

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