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'Test kitchen' night reveals taste of upcoming Ava restaurant

 
Ava’s design, a study in textures, ups the ante in a city that has seen a tremendous year of restaurant debuts.
Ava’s design, a study in textures, ups the ante in a city that has seen a tremendous year of restaurant debuts.
Published Nov. 24, 2014

TAMPA —The Acunto wood-fired oven needed to cure slowly, a log loaded into its maw once in a while as the exterior wept moisture, rivulets pooling on Ava's floor. In all likelihood, the Italian-made pizza oven would weep for 14 days until it was ready for use.

"If I slept here I could probably do it in 10," executive chef Joshua Hernández said to owner Michael Stewart.

And so it went.

This is what it took for Stewart and Joe Maddon's Ava to open its doors Thursday for the first of seven "test kitchen" nights before debuting the full menu and regular service on Nov. 28.

Stewart, Hernández and co-chef J. Ward all had that loopy pulled-an-all-nighter good cheer Thursday as 100 curious patrons got to try a handful of menu items, and the service staff, clad in hip plaid shirts and long khaki aprons, began to work out the new-restaurant kinks. (Test kitchen nights are open to the public, but capped at 100 or 150 people; best to call ahead: (813) 512-3030.)

The oven had quit its sniveling, but they still weren't quite ready to unveil the pizzas that will anchor the menu. Instead, guests sampled from a short list of smart cocktails from bar manager Tommy Simms, wines from the Italian-only by-the-glass list (California and elsewhere by the bottle only) and rustic, gutsy small dishes like fat, smoky meatballs set in an aromatic saute of tomatoey kale ($12) or housemade buccatini with a dusky, slow-simmered oxtail sauce and curls of crystalline Italian cheese ($18).

It's too early to say whether the kitchen has a home run on its hands, but what is irrefutable is that Ava's design ups the ante in a city that has seen a tremendous year of restaurant debuts. Designer Joshua Charles, his fingernails black from the final coat of dark paint to the restaurant's exterior, was on-hand and eager to talk about his design collaboration with Stewart.

"The outside of the restaurant is moody black brick, and then inside you take your jacket off and have fun. It has this patina-ed grey but playful spirit," said the Atlanta-based designer, part of the team behind properties like the red hot Optimist, Bocado Burger, Ladybird, and others in Atlanta.

It's a study in textures: brick, tile, wood and plaster in shades of a calming putty color to a dusky sea foam green/blue. There are cloudy antique mirrors taken from the old FAO Schwarz in New York (one covers a plastered brick private dining room, rendering it not only private, but secret), the cloudiness making them look like impressionist paintings of the dining room.

With a communal sink from an Amish farmhouse, pendants made from aircraft carrier spotlights, and a rustic shared table imported from Italy, the 5,600-square-foot, 200-plus seat restaurant has the casual sophistication of the spots that pepper Williamsburg, Brooklyn. The Chicago Cubs may have gotten manager Joe Maddon, but restaurateurs Maddon and Stewart have debuted what promises to be a heavy hitter in the Post SoHo apartment complex on S Howard Avenue.

Contact Laura Reiley at lreiley@tampabay.com or (727) 892-2293.