Southern comfort

A month ago, Daniel Womack returned home to St. Petersburg to visit his mom. Less than a week later, he found himself in charge of the kitchen at Tedesco's Grillside, cooking a unique selection of Deep South dishes informed by classic French techniques, all of his own devising. Local boy makes good? More like local boy makes good food.

Some of it is simple stuff -- long strips of chicken breast coated in crushed pecans and deep fried with standard honey mustard dressing ($7.95), or typical hot wings paired with a salad of sautéed collards ($8.95). Those dishes just touch on Southern ingredients and culinary philosophy, pairing traditionally downscale items with the more upscale fare that fills the rest of the menu.

Then Womack pushes the Southern off the scale with creamy and crunchy sweet potato croquettes ($6.95). Servers warn "they are really very sweet," but they're wrong. It's the sauce that's sweet -- a buttery vanilla concoction that I last saw on somebody's bread pudding. Over the top, maybe, but there is so much of that on Grillside's menu, you should just think of it as a theme. And sometimes, pushing limits can be damn tasty.

Thankfully, it may be that the 23-year-old Womack is too young to have learned restraint. At 15 he was washing dishes at Redwoods, just down the street. "I wanted to learn how to cook, so chef Sean gave me a book and told me to learn it in a week," says the soft-spoken Womack. A week later, he could make enough of the French master sauces in the book to move up to the prep table and work the line.

When he turned 18, Womack took a sous chef position at the Vinoy, then jumped a few blocks away to the kitchen at newly opened Bella Brava. After a couple of years, Bella Brava's executive chef Mario Luigi Maggi referred Womack to a job at the popular Baltimore Italian restaurant Sotto Sopra. That's where he was working until just one month ago, when he came home for his fateful visit.

"I was just walking by and saw Brad through the window, filled out an application, and here I am," says Womack. Bradley Dempsey, general manager and co-owner of Grillside, had been a server at Bella Brava and was familiar with Womack's culinary skills. He decided to snatch him up to enliven the menu.

The same vanilla sauce ladled generously on the croquettes is even better paired with salmon crusted in rich pecans ($15.95), the perfectly cooked fish just savory enough to cut the sugary liquid. With all of the cream and cheese worked into the gooey sweet potato "pave" alongside, nothing's cutting the immense amount of lush fat on this plate.

The culinary contraption that is Grillside's steak ($20.95) towers a full foot off the table, three distinct layers topped by flourishes of fried scallions and sprigs of rosemary jutting toward the sky. It's a classic example of 1990s fine-dining presentation -- tall, busy and a little silly -- but I can't argue with the flavors.

If you try to cut the filet without removing it from the top of the stack -- the meat is almost tender enough -- you'll likely get a smear of the gorgonzola that accents the sautéed spinach and grilled Portobello layer underneath. Cut through that and your fork will grab the crunchy crust of the cornmeal-crusted fried rice patty anchoring the entire tower.

Although it's a challenge to get all of those layers in the same bite, not to mention the creamy pepper jack and blue cheese fondue puddled on the plate, it's worth it. They work together and, no matter how retro and cluttered the plate was when it arrived, you'll clear away every tasty bite.

Seared catfish ($15.95) is coated in pungent fresh herbs that almost overpower the mild mud fish, atop crispy fennel that is a bit outside the Southern repertoire. Further afield, reflecting Womack's Italian experiences of the past few years, is the "messicani" ($16.95) -- rolled pork loin stuffed with mozzarella and fresh spinach. These meat dumplings are exceptionally tender, with an elegant sauce fully informed by French and Italian techniques.

As much as I praise his heavy hand, restraint would come in handy after the main course. Desserts are a cacophony of flavors and ingredients that never come together -- especially with canned peaches and neon "smurf sauce" gracing some of the plates -- and aren't worth the five minutes it takes for the servers to explain.

Just like Womack's food, Grillside needs a little cosmetic work to bring it up to its newfound higher-end status (especially the placement -- and door locks -- of the bathrooms).

Maybe Womack just needs to get out more. Even with culinary skills that belie his youth, he doesn't cook for himself or seek out interesting meals at other restaurants. "I only eat frozen foods," he tells me. "Mac and cheese, corn bread and lasagna. If it's not microwaveable I don't eat it." C'mon Daniel. That's just sad.

A little age, a little experience and some time spent away from the heat of the kitchen and the glow of the microwave, and I suspect he'll learn to refine his skills. Hopefully not too much, though. As it is, this youthful chef's exuberant and comfy cuisine can more than stand on its own.

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