Making Waves

As developers march ever farther into the pristine woods of lake-blessed northern Hillsborough County, ramshackle juke joints and country cafes of the past are giving way to more modern eateries. Set among what used to be green pastureland and groves, 18 miles straight north on Dale Mabry in Lutz, you'll find Splash!, one of those slick, sophisticated restaurants popping up in far-flung shopping plazas.

I was impressed with its food, precise service and stylishly relaxed clientele. With a chic, clean interior, severe white linen and a busy, square blue-lit bar as a focal point, Splash! provides a high-end alternative to the junky mess of fast food outlets and proliferating chains that seem to invade the newest neighborhoods almost as soon as the housing development's first slab dries.

"There's nothing out there," manager Pam Martin explained. "We wanted to bring big city taste north of Carrollwood."

No, cummerbund and tails are not de rigeur, but people did dress up somewhat, men in sport coats and ladies in long, draped dresses or short skirts, showing a few low-key spangles. The Saturday night we were there, every table was jammed and every seat at the fancy bar was occupied with partiers. So it seemed as if owners Chip Roehl and Tom Perkins had correctly guessed the formula for success.

"We have some campers, all right," Martin observed dryly when I asked her about the frisky gang of bar hangers whose convivial chatter and raucous laughter gave the restaurant its élan.

Though we didn't discover the fancy drinks until after we had already ordered plain martinis, the restaurant's elaborate cocktails did sound terrific -- sparkling white sangria, blended with fresh orange, lemon, lime, apricot brandy and Mandarin liqueur ($5), or lemon drop martini ($7.50). Or you can choose from the restaurant's small, but respectable, wine list of 22 vintages, available by the glass or the bottle.

However, The Martini Tester was throwing them back double-handed, as the plain martinis needed more booze. He'd probably still be quaffing if we hadn't immediately ordered appetizers, which fortunately came in a jiffy and proved to be exemplary: a trio of meaty crab cakes, served with tequila lime tomato salad and green olive aioli ($9.99) -- plenty of heft and not greasy in the least.

It was followed by a huge bowl of mussels, halloed with a wispy cloud of saffron and sherry-scented steam, and glistening with bright red diced tomatoes ($8.99). My favorite dish of the evening turned out to be the luscious lobster chowder (cup, $4.99), featuring an unusually rich and flavorful creamy broth crammed with chunky lobster, onions, celery, potatoes and piqued with sherry.

The house salad ($4.99 a la carte), which should be nicknamed "the Black Forest" because it was so thick with crisp greenery -- romaine and iceberg lettuce, interspersed with baby spinach leaves. Peeking from beneath the lettuce were bits of tomato, cucumber, sliced black missionary figs, bacon and parmesan. The fresh parmesan vinaigrette sat like dew upon the pines.

Light eaters could stop there and be perfectly happy, but there was to be no such dallying for us. Our party proceeded quite militantly all the way through the menu, ordering entrées as if we had spent the whole day laboring through farm chores in the boiling Florida sun.

The regular menu lists a couple of dozen seafood dishes, oak-grilled if you like, fortified with another half dozen from a list of daily specials, so we had plenty of choices. First, there was pan-seared sesame-crusted tuna, speckled with black and white sesame seeds and served with soy sauce, wasabi and ginger ($19.99). It was a fresh, earthy pink color, cooked exactly rare, cool interior with a thin layer of sand-colored sear outside.

(Seafood entrées come with crusty, fresh-baked bread, house salad and a vegetable of the day, choice of roasted garlic mashed potatoes, rice pilaf or gemelli pasta with tomato sauce).

Marinated, pan-seared shrimp and sea scallops ($16.99) were also done exactly right, not overcooked, perched atop the risotto of the day, a moist pile of arborio rice stirred to a tender perfection and enlivened with saffron, tomato and sweet pea. One of the kitchen's few faults involved a dish of coconut-crusted grouper cheeks, which were fried just a minute too long, but I ate them, anyway, employing them to mop up an exotic sauce of coconut, rum and almonds.

The seafood is fresh every day except Sunday and comes mostly from local waters, according to Chef Griffith Lohrman, 35, a grad of Johnson & Wales University's culinary school in Providence, R.I., and a 16-year veteran of various professional kitchens. A couple of exceptions, such as the Chilean sea bass, come from, duh, Chile, and freshwater trout is flown in from Idaho. But overall, Lorman said, "The quality and freshness of the tuna and the rest of the fish is just phenomenal. I've never had better."

We tested one dessert, which proved to be the weakest dish of the evening, Key lime pie ($5.99) that looked more like cheesecake. Its graham-cracker crust was mushy rather than crisp, and had a boring, forgettable filling. By then, we were pretty well sated, anyway.

Overall, Splash! was a refreshing, lively restaurant that gives a new slant to the term "country-style."

Food Editor Sara Kennedy dines anonymously, and Weekly Planet pays for her meals. She can be reached at sara.kennedy@ weeklyplanet.com or 813-248-8888 ext. 116.