Dress: Not recent, vintage
Heels: Jimmy Choo Maelie
Necklace: Kendra Scott Rayne
Iced out Initial Necklace:C/O CAPSUL Jewelry
Lipstick: Colour Pop Toucan
(they do not sell this exact color anymore).
Predalina, the newest Water Street restaurant is the most recent from Oxford Commons, which is a local hospitality group behind other Tampa eateries. You may recognize some of their restaurants if you are from the Tampa area; Oxford Exchange, The Library, Social Club Stovall House and the Current Hotel (new rooftop restaurant and lounge pending).
I am a frequent customer of all of these places except Social club Stovall House and I believe the Current Hotel acquisition happened in the last two years and I honestly haven't been there since the pandemic, but I used to eat there all the time prior to the ownership change.
Predalina however, focuses on fresh Mediterranean seafood which is a part of the owners personal story as well as the restaurants name-sake.
You can find my review below.
.jpg)
We dined in at Predalina during opening night after having been there briefly the week before during the friends and family night in which I stopped by after attending a show at the Tampa Edition. At that time, the kitchen was already closed for the night and the event was invitation only, but I got to speak with a manager and she told me I could look around and make a reservation for opening night.
The restaurant is very nice, it looks basically like what you would expect located on Water Street if you are familiar with the area. It is a Mediterranean restaurant and as you may know The Tampa Edition has a Mediterranean restaurant as well, which is quite nice.
I have mixed feelings about dinner because while dinner was good on opening night, it wasn't great. So, there were a few issues that I had which one would think well, it's opening week (day) everything will be kind of hectic. However, these are things involved with service and the menu, which honestly are easy to fix and they should have been fixed prior to opening because they had a whole friends and family event the week prior to get feedback before they opened officially.
First, there is no real waiting area. We arrived half an hour early to our reservation and were told our table wasn't ready so we could wait or go to the bar. We attempted to sit outside on a bench because there is no seating in their makeshift waiting area. It was about 95 degrees out and we could only wait outside for so long so I went to the bar to order a cocktail and soda water.
The bartender tells me they do not have soda water or club soda so if I want carbonated water I must buy a 7$ bottle of San Pellagrino water. I have never been to a bar where they didn't have a dispenser with carbonated water or just canned or bottle water that they didn't charge for. So, I obviously declined because I wasn't going to stand in the "waiting area" holding a glass and a bottle of San Pelligrino water like a weirdo.
It's an open bar which is good because the drink menu is kind of overly complex. As a Celiac, I have to either keep my cocktails very simple or I will be looking up every ingredient in the cocktail prior to ordering it which I did not have time to do. As a result I usually order mocktail and just add my preferred alcohol to it. The first drink I had (a 0 proof mocktail "Freely Harrissa") and it was not good. It was spicy and peppery with no acid or sweetness to balance it out.
On to dinner. So, we were finally seated and our table is nice and the restaurant looks very nice inside. Now, I love a good crudo, like LOVE CRUDO. I usually don't get to order The fun appetizers because they always have gluten, but I can always get a great crudo and this restaurant has three so I was super excited and I wanted all three. The waiter informed me all three contained gluten. All three crudos contain shoyu. Wow, this was crushing to me. How can a restaurant have three crudos and all three contain gluten. One of those really should be gluten free.
So, I was going to just have an entree then because there weren't a lot of GF options to start with and three things I really wanted just got eliminated. He (our waiter) was asking like, you don't want a different starter? So, against my own judgment I ordered the horiatiki. I say this because I love that salad, but I make it at home all of the time. There was absolutely no reason to order it or spend 20$ + on a salad I make all the time. So, I get the salad and it's almost 80% cucumbers and only has 2 Kalmata olives. I asked for more olives and that took forever. So long that I ended up getting my entreé and I asked for the salad to be boxed up because my main course arrived when I finally got the olives.
Manti spiced lamb, calabrian yogurt, charred onion, roasted tomato.
Not gluten free
My salad sat for probably 45 minutes on the table before it actually was boxed up. It looks well balanced, but it actually was 80% cucumber with a few tomatoes sprinkled in.
Horiatiki aged feta, persian cucumber, tomato, red onion, kalamata olive, sherry vinegar.
Gluten Free
Predalina Water- cocktail
Lobster skewer fennel, vesuvius tomato, aleppo
garlic butte.
Gluten Free
The entree I had was the lobster skewer. It was not actually enough food to fill anyone and that's saying a lot because I get full very quickly. The lobster was great. It was cooked perfect and it had a great flavor, it was just so little. I would say, maybe 6 ounces, maybe. Everything arrived to the table cold; not room temperature, not Luke warn, but COLD. It easily should have been a starter dish not an entree.
So, I mean, my dinner was definitely kind of meh, while my husband loved his starter the Manti dish shown above. It looked amazing and let's be honest, most deep fried food items look, smell, and taste amazing. He was blown away by how great his starter (Manti) was. He also loved his entree and his Baklava cheesecake, but if all of the dinner service isn't great for both of us it isn't going to work; And as usual, the meal is geared more towards those who have no food allergies etc.
Flank steak green harissa, hearth-roasted tomato.
Gluten Free
We sat waiting for someone to take plates and box food for another 30 to 40 minutes again! Dinner took almost 3 hours and most of the time we were just waiting for things. So, you know I waited for this restaurant to open with a lot of anticipation for 2 years and the experience was underwhelming. I can't say that I would even return because their menu lacks focus on a homogenous meal that everyone can enjoy wether you are gluten-free, vegan, vegetarian, or alcohol free. No one came to ask us how dinner was also on opening night- like really...
They have a brunch and lunch service also, but I most likely won't go to that either due to limited options and my overall experience on opening night. There is *ahem actually a great Mediterranean restaurant on the same block, Azure located at the Tampa Edition. That is Predalina's competition and they have them beat to be honest because the food quality and complexity of flavors isn't all there. It is opening week and they had a pretty long friends and family event to actually work a lot of these issues out, so hopefully they can, but I won't be holding my breath.
whipped potatoes olive oil, oregano
roasted mushroom
Gluten free
Rolled baklava
pistachio cheesecake, raspberry, florida honey
Not gluten free
* All opinions are my own, this was not sponsored OR hosted and if it was I would disclose that.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment