New Sarasota restaurants worth the drive: Made, Blue Rooster, Louies Modern

SARASOTA — This year has already been very generous to Sarasota diners. From a raucous blues club with Low Country fare launched in January, to another sultry Southern newcomer in March, to a chic New American brasserie debuted at the beginning of April, there are loads of reasons to head over the Sunshine Skyway or down I-75 in search of dinner.

The newest of the three is the brasserie on Palm Avenue, Louies Modern, one of a three-part complex owned by Jeff Greco and Steve, Joe and Pat Seidensticker, the family that also owns Libby's Café and Bar on Osprey Avenue and at one time ran the Gasparilla Inn. Adjacent to the glamorous 150-seat Louies is a barista bar for grab-and-go coffee and breakfast, and The Francis, a special-events space that is clearly gunning for Michael's on East Ballroom....

Small Hudson blueberry farm yields big satisfaction

HUDSON

Concealed, the thieves bide their time. They know Bob Waldo's habits, they recognize his daughter, Nina Lewis, as she moves along the tidy rows in a bikini top and faded cutoffs. As one, the cedar waxwings take flight, dive bombing and knocking ripe blueberries off dozens of bushes.

Waldo, 66, has had enough. He reaches into a pocket and pulls out a handful of firecrackers. He lights a tiny fuse and tosses the pinkie-sized tube toward the tree line muttering, "Go back to Canada already." KABOOM, and about 100 pretty brown birds lift out of the trees, clearly not Canada-bound. They are barely perturbed, ready to wait out Waldo and his noisemakers for another crack at ripe berries....

Review: Food critics Raymond Sokolov, Craig Claiborne got us talking

The chew-and-tell food memoir has subgenres. One is the behind-the-kitchen-door romp, like Anthony Bourdain's excellent Kitchen Confidential or Gabrielle Hamilton's Blood, Bones & Butter, which proves every restaurant entree comes with a free side of crazy sauce.

Another subset is the restaurant-critic tell-all. Ruth Reichl's 2005 Garlic and Sapphires: The Secret Life of a Critic in Disguise was not the first, but it may be the most influential. Chronicling her gig as the wig-wearing New York Times restaurant critic starting in 1993, it's a lusty look at what it's like to eat for a living. (Reichl is all about TMI — her love life's culinary equivalent is the Vegas buffet: tawdry and a little tired, but there sure is a lot of it.)...

Beach Drive's Birchwood restaurants open Friday

Doors open Friday at the Birchwood hotel's restaurants, a soft opening with lunch at 11 a.m., dinner beginning at 5 p.m. and the rooftop lounge welcoming guests starting at 4 p.m.

Chuck Prather, owner of the 1920s Spanish Mission-style hotel at 340 Beach Drive NE on the downtown St. Petersburg waterfront, initially hoped to have the inn open by December but the $6 million renovation ran long. The newly renovated hotel was formerly called Grayl's and before that, Lantern Lane. ...

BellaBrava expanding on downtown St. Petersburg's Beach Drive

At the beginning of 2010, BellaBrava cemented Beach Drive NE as the up-and-coming restaurant row of downtown St. Petersburg. Owners inked a deal to leave Central Avenue and move into the 200 block of Beach. A few months later, Cassis American Bistro opened its doors across the street. And the Birchwood Inn, formerly Grayl's Hotel, opens its glamorous Birch and Vine restaurant and Canopy, the rooftop lounge, a few blocks north on Friday...

Memories and dishes auctioned at the Wine Cellar

NORTH REDINGTON BEACH — This is what 37 years looks like. A guitar, a violin and an accordion propped against a stack of chairs. A hundred sauté pans nested five deep, their dings and battle scars on display. There's an antique butter churn and a tangled nest of Christmas decoration.

At 10 a.m. on Wednesday, Bay Area Auction Services opened the bidding on the contents of the Wine Cellar, 868 lots that represented decades of sweat and dreams for owners Karl Klumpp, Ted Sonnenschein and Peter Schuckert. On April 30, one of the Tampa Bay area's most legendary restaurants went dark forever, and the 2-acre site at 17307 Gulf Blvd. has been sold to an undisclosed developer for $3.3 million....

Review: Don't dare skip dessert at Cena

By Laura Reiley

Times Food Critic

TAMPA

This never happens. I walk in. The host is a little snooty. The place is chilly, physically and metaphorically, and there's a soundtrack of the kind of smooth jazz that's one step above waterboarding. I think to myself, "Ech, another new restaurant where reviewing is hazard duty."

And then the food rocks.

The Grand Central in Tampa's vital Channel District has been up and running for a while. There's the Pour House and City Dog Cantina on one side of a central courtyard, and since August 2011, Stageworks Theatre has been ensconced on the other side of the courtyard. In March, adjacent to Stageworks, Cena opened. Susan Bianchi and Romeo Patron, owners of Bianchi's Enoteca, were brought in as consultants. But the smartest thing Grand Central owners Ken Stoltenberg and Frank Bombeeck did was to hire chef Michael Buttacavoli....

Ceviche hires independent inspection crew for all locations

ST. PETERSBURG — On April 8, Ceviche had its "Tylenol moment." Its St. Petersburg location, one of six, was closed for 24 hours after a disastrous health inspection revealed a raft of violations, including a serious roach infestation. The popular Spanish restaurant reopened the next day after an all-hands-on-deck push to clean and correct the infractions.

But, according to Robin Roberts, chief marketing officer for the small chain, the damage had been done....

Seminole Heights attracts two hip restaurant projects

Williamsburg, Brooklyn. The Pearl District in Portland, Ore. The Mission District in San Francisco. If you live there, it's just "home." To outsiders, these are enclaves of hip, areas with the right mix of boutiques, an edgy art scene and sartorial mavericks. And restaurants, they have to have restaurants.

Tampa's Seminole Heights is on the verge of joining the list.

Two new projects in the works may cement the central Tampa neighborhood as the "it" spot to dine. Michelle and Greg Baker launch restaurant No. 2 with Fodder and Shine making its debut near the end of the year, and Ferrell Alvarez and Ty Rodriguez, the duo who started Local Dirt magazine and most recently paired up at Harbour Island's Café Dufrain, will launch Rooster and the Till this summer....

Review: Pensare in Dunedin brings back well-versed chef

DUNEDIN

Michel and Robin Rey were big fans of Ciro Mancini. They enjoyed his work at Bellini in Dunedin, where he cooked from 2004 to 2009. And they enjoyed his food again at Casanova in Clearwater briefly in 2011.

He had one of those menus: Page forward to the "vitello and pollo," but then leaf back a few pages to peruse the linguini section again. Turn all the way to the first page to have another gander at the antipasti, except that eggplant Parmesan appetizer looks pretty good. It was classic Italian, with red sauces and tangy piccatas and rustic Bologneses, comforting but still sophisticated....

High tea for Mother's Day in the bay area

Afternoon high tea is about as Mother's Day-appropriate as it gets. Little pinkie extended. One lump or two, Mother dear? Care for a watercress sandwich, crusts delicately excised? The Tampa Bay area has a number of places to take the lovely lady for an afternoon of crumpets and such.

John and Aimee Gans opened the Tilted Teacup Tea Room & Boutique (200 W Fort Dade Ave., Brooksville; (352) 593-4111; 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Wednesday to Saturday; $21.95) at the end of last year. They are doing a Mother's Day tea party from May 8 to 11, with a first course teacup of soup, an assortment of tea sandwiches, quiche, fresh baked scones with cream and a selection of desserts served on a festive three-tier platter. And for tea? Mom's got 29 flavors from which to choose. (And listen up, cheapskates: Bring your mom in and get $5 off.)...

Adventure Cycling leads do-it-yourself Florida trips

TAMPA

5.14 miles: Doubt sets in.

16 miles: If not self-loathing, then something like extreme self-annoyance. What was I thinking? How many practice rides had I done, how many fully loaded with gear?

It was the beginning of Adventure Cycling's Introduction to Road Touring, a measly 18 miles round trip to get groceries and test out our bikes. It was also, I suppose, an opportunity for our tour leaders to assess the weakest links. Encouraging shouts lost on the wind, California girls Lori and Pam blew by me as if I were standing still. Louisville Phil had a big custom-made trailer about as unwieldy as hauling a Prius, but he seemed plucky. Then there was Tropicana Jim from Bradenton, not young, but an elegant athlete with a creamy-leather Brooks saddle and perfectly matched custom fenders. Tony and Denise from Atlanta? Warm and enthusiastic, they'd hiked and biked the length of the grueling El Camino de Santiago in Spain. Twice....

Pricey food and bathroom gossip at swanky Eddie V's in Tampa

TAMPA

Lather your palms and give yourself an appraising look in the mirror. Sneer like an angry bonobo. Any spinach shrapnel in the teeth? Now look down. What's this? The wrists of the opposite sex, their own lathering in progress. Glance underneath the sinks and you see their shoes lined up with yours, nearly toe to toe. If there is more than one person at the opposite-sex sinks, they might be chatty. They may discuss their meal or they may even discuss those things you always worry they discuss when they leave the table....

Review: Pizza Bizzar on Sand Key puts a Greek spin on pies

By Laura Reiley

Times Food Critic

CLEARWATER BEACH — Sand Key in Clearwater is a long stretch of seriously tall condominiums and hotels and not a ton of casual places for a bite. So when I'm wearing flip-flops and am slick with suntan oil, where to go? For a time there was Little Italian Pizza. It wasn't the kind of pie you dream about at night, but it was sturdy Chicago style 'za that hit the spot....