Food Tour: Young & Hungry Pt Two: It's New & Maybe For You/"Airie In the City" The Landon

 

We are coming down to the last few stops on my second food tour this year!

Isu St.Pete 🌼

Yugen SRQ🌼

Kurō Lakewood Ranch 🌼

Bosc on Platt St.🌼

Ceiba Orlando 🌼

Quiote Tequilaria 🌼

Mei St.Pete 🌼

The Landon 🌼

The Landon has been open for about four weeks and it is highly busy and booked. I could not get a reservation here during the times from 6pm to 8pm at all no matter what day it was; rain or shine. I actually just decided to chance it and come in and try first come first serve seating at the bar and to my chagrin, they have a very large bar.

OK, so first and foremost, I was born and raised here and I never left as in lived in another place other than Hillsborough County. Some might think that is close minded, but I actually love where I live and I never wanted to move. 

What I can say is that I am so in tune with this city, with Florida I consider myself to be a trusted reviewer and I grew up eating everytging from homecooking to fine dining. I have been reviewing food and writing about food etc for over a decade. I never sponsored any of my food tours as well.

 Now, this restaurant is located in Soho and that makes all the difference when I make a comparison to the business district of South Tampa. Vibes are different. The restaurant renovation is beautiful, it's nice, it makes you feel like you are in Italy, there is a lot of space so there is not a lot of tables crowded in the restaurant. 

The menu does remind me of Ocean Prime, Eddie V's, Flemmings or even Ponte...,but they are all different in subtle ways and those ways matter as well. So, with that being said we gave it a try as stop number in the food tour: Food Tour: Young & Hungry Pt Two: It's New & Maybe For You.

I will go into everything more below.

The Landon is a modern American restaurant which opened sometime in Mid March of this year. The location, SOHO Tampa (South Howard) in a building that has been completely renovated where 717 South used to be.
This is my next stop in my current food tour which is highlighting new restaurants worth checking out. If you are not familiar with the area, SOHO is extremely busy and has a lot of foot traffic. It was not a surprise that it is very hard to get a reservation there during prime hours. I would highly recommend making a reservation a few weeks in advance if you want the times between 6pm to 730pm.
When we dined in we actually sat at the bar and the bar is very large. The cool thing is that the bar almost felt like sitting around a large dining room table with people but with more personal space. The bar is full service as well, and first come first serve so you do not need a reservation to sit there. 
My first impression of the Landon was that it reminded me of Ocean Prime/Eddie V's etc when looking at the menu even to a lesser extent Ponte or Flemmings. That's why I labeled this as modern American cuisine.

 The Landon has a very decent menu with many popular options as well as a craft cocktail program. Some examples of what items are already customer favorites would start with the popular (Traditionally Japanese) Milk Bread, as well as raw and grilled oysters. 

                               

They have kind of a good blend of popular dishes I have seen at other restaurants as well... For example, the beet salad which I have seen my husband order at numerous Florida restaurants. The Thai coconut curry mussels and hamchi crudo are pretty common menu staples as well. An entree example would be the Grouper and shrimp; another popular item at The Landon and the Snapper and Duroc Pork Chop- all of these items are very popular at higher end restaurants throughout Florida.

As far as the decor goes, I really loved how light and airy it was inside and the room is bathed in sunlight. I love that is is not dimly lit during the day and I loved that it was not super modern. I don't know what the decor style was, but it reminded me of the Amalfi Coast to be specific.

STARTERS

Gluten-Free

CHAR-BROILED OYSTERS

Gluten-Free

                                  

The deviled eggs were where we kind of took issue because there was just a lot going on texture wise with them. All of that can be easily changed for example we both felt maybe if the potato sticks were removed from the deviled eggs or the Tobiko the textures wouldn't be competing so much.           

MY FOOD

Calabrian Caesar 

Gluten-Free

For my meal, I started with the oysters, the deviled eggs and the Caesar salad. I actually ordered the special of the day which was king crab legs. 

Now, with the starters I do think a lot of improvement can be made there and I was asked about it when I was at the restaurant. I liked the oysters a lot, but to me I think either cheese or N'djua would make it pop. The Cesear salad was just ok to me, it wasn't bad or great. 

The King crab was fantastic and it was pre- cut when it came out with drawn butter- Market price for half a pound was around 75.00 which was a good deal at a restaurant. 

        

The stand out dish was really the grilled Grouper with shrimp. It was beautifully plated and visually enticing. I would highly recommend this dish if you are thinking about trying out The Landon.
Next, the beet salad dish was the next stand out. If you like beets try it out, my husband loves beets and he liked it a lot. For me, once again, I loved the beautiful presentation.

HUBS FOOD

 

My overall opinion of The Landon is that if you are looking for a good place to have a brunch or a date night or just a good time The Landon is a great option. While SOHO is super busy, it's far removed from the business district of South Tampa and you are going to have a d different crowd and vibes. No offense to the business district though, I have lived in South Tampa for (wow) so long now...and I guess to streamline my point is that you will find a lot of people having corporate business dinners in that area. That's what I mean by the vibes. The food is all good. Whether it's seafood of steak I like it. The Landon has a comprehensive menu that anyone should be able to find something to enjoy, even someone like me who has Celiac Disease. 

I thought the craft cocktails were a 5/5 here and that is where a lot of modern American restaurants loose me because the cocktails are always revolving around brown liquor (Old Fashioned) or Mezcal. 

                       

The Landon Palmer cocktail at The Landon is so different, more than anything I have ordered at a restaurant like this, and its made with clarified tea; I recommend it. It's already made with Tito's Vodka (which I like) as well. The staff was so nice and helpful as well, everyone was beyond nice to be exact, service at the bar is great. They are still a new restaurant so I look forward to seeing whatever new seasonal menus or specials come out in the future.

The final desserts were just as good with vanilla gelato (gluten-free) and a chocolate mouse cake. I am not sure what it was called, but this one they were not sure if it was gluten-free so I did not taste it, but it looked delicious! My husband enjoyed it.