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Byline: LAURA REILEY; Times Food Critic WESTCHASE -- When Rob Wicker opened Catch Twenty-Three in 2002, Westchase was mostly residential, the village just being erected. Eventually along came Outback, Grille [...]

Byline: LAURA REILEY; Times Food Critic TAMPA -- I misspoke. When I did a preview story on Del Frisco's Grille, the newest upscale restaurant on Boy Scout Boulevard's tony restaurant [...]

Byline: LAURA REILEY; TIMES FOOD CRITIC Halloween decorations back in the attic, thoughts turn to the holiday season before us. On many people's wish list is a holiday party venue [...]

Byline: LAURA REILEY; TIMES FOOD CRITIC GULFPORT -- The last time I reviewed Pia's was April 2007. I know this because it was the first place I reviewed as the [...]

Byline: LAURA REILEY; Times Food Critic CLEARWATER -- It's got pilasters and curved archways and marble statuary and carved fireplace mantles and complicated deco wrought-iron work. In short, the new [...]

Byline: LAURA REILEY; TIMES FOOD CRITIC ST. PETE BEACH -- Restaurant chefs are often wanderers, staying in a kitchen a year or two before moving on. For this reason, reviewing [...]

Byline: LAURA REILEY; Times Food Critic ST. PETERSBURG -- In April, Harvey's on Fourth Street celebrated its 30th anniversary, something of a miracle in the restaurant world, especially if you [...]

Byline: LAURA REILEY; Times Food Critic TAMPA -- I've always liked the space at 717 South, sprawling but with tables set tight enough that it feels intimate, and a convivial [...]

Byline: LAURA REILEY; TIMES FOOD CRITIC ST. PETE BEACH -- She has her own bobblehead. That may not sound like much, but seriously, do you have your own spring-jiggled likeness? [...]

Byline: LAURA REILEY; Times Food Critic TAMPA -- Elevage is an obscure wine term for what happens to grape juice between fermentation and bottling. As the name for the new [...]

Byline: LAURA REILEY; TIMES FOOD CRITIC Forgetting something? Think. It falls after Martin Luther King Day and before Washington's Birthday. If Valentine's Day sneaked up on you, there's still time [...]

Byline: LAURA REILEY; Times Food Critic ST. PETERSBURG -- The 88-year-old Vinoy is looking spiff these days with its swirly modern turquoise rugs, herringbone turquoise-backed wing chairs and gleaming golden [...]

Byline: LAURA REILEY; Times Food Critic SEMINOLE HEIGHTS -- Progress, like falling in love, can be explosive, taking one off guard. Seminole Heights has been the locus of a lot [...]

Byline: LAURA REILEY; Times Food Critic ***** (01/16/2014) CORRECTION: Sono Cafe is at the Tampa Museum of Art. The list of the top 50 restaurants in today's Weekend section, which [...]

Byline: LAURA REILEY; Times Food Critic ST. PETERSBURG -- Just a few weeks old, Rococo Steak is mixing things up. From side dishes to musical selections, it has brought a [...]

Byline: LAURA REILEY; TIMES FOOD CRITIC ST. PETERSBURG -- Sam Kumar had four restaurants in his native Sydney, Australia, before he found himself heading over the Sunshine Skyway feeling like [...]

Byline: LAURA REILEY 'I don't meditate. I don't pray. But I eat two samosas every day' - Dan Bern, Rolling Away. * * * Many Indian cooks are promoters of [...]

Byline: LAURA REILEY; Times Food Critic CLEARWATER -- Henry and Phuong Luu are doing things backward. For 25 years they had a food truck in Tampa, a modest affair that [...]

Byline: LAURA REILEY; TIMES FOOD CRITIC DUNEDIN -- A creature halfway between a caterpillar and a butterfly is all about metamorphosis and potential. But often it ain't pretty. This summer [...]

Byline: LAURA REILEY; Times Food Critic TAMPA -- I'm just going to admit it flat out. Sometimes I pick up grocery store sushi for dinner. I'm not proud of the [...]

Byline: LAURA REILEY; Times Food Critic REDINGTON SHORES -- 'My family's first restaurant was just down the street in the space now occupied by a Thai restaurant. As a boy [...]

Byline: LAURA REILEY; TIMES FOOD CRITIC LARGO -- Rolls of paper towels, suspended on wire clothes hangers, sway in the breeze of ceiling fans like a bunch of low-rent Halloween [...]

Byline: LAURA REILEY; Times Food Critic ST. PETERSBURG -- There in the dining room is a man with a cowboy hat and the silky tresses. It's Beverly Hills celebrity stylist [...]

Byline: LAURA REILEY; TIMES FOOD CRITIC OLDSMAR -- In both cases, they are so new, and so popular already, that their websites say 'coming soon,' as if the virtual world [...]

Byline: LAURA REILEY; Times Food Critic SAFETY HARBOR -- When Stann Cherniack left San Diego on his motorcycle in the summer of 1969 it was him and a couple of [...]

Byline: LAURA REILEY; TIMES FOOD CRITIC SARASOTA -- This year has already been very generous to Sarasota diners. From a raucous blues club with Low Country fare launched in January, [...]

Byline: 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 [...]

Byline: LAURA REILEY; TIMES FOOD CRITIC DUNEDIN -- Michel and Robin Rey were big fans of Ciro Mancini. They enjoyed his work at Bellini in Dunedin, where he cooked from [...]

Byline: LAURA REILEY; Times Food Critic TAMPA -- Lather your palms and give yourself an appraising look in the mirror. Sneer like an angry bonobo. Any spinach shrapnel in the [...]

Byline: LAURA REILEY; Times Food Critic TAMPA -- It has been a promising trajectory. After the stutter of the 2008 housing crisis, downtown Tampa, Channelside and Hyde Park Village have [...]

Byline: LAURA REILEY; TIMES FOOD CRITIC TAMPA -- I met Terry Bollea (a.k.a. Hulk Hogan) and restaurant partner Ben Mallah just before Christmas for a walk through what was just [...]

Byline: LAURA REILEY; Times Food Critic CLEARWATER -- I eat out a lot. And while I have a good memory for food, there are a disconcerting number of meals for [...]

Byline: LAURA REILEY; TIMES FOOD CRITIC TAMPA -- It's like clockwork. The ball drops on Dec. 31, and by the next morning TV commercials are all about gym memberships, Bowflex [...]

Byline: LAURA REILEY; Times Food and Travel Editor TAMPA -- The renovation took a year with the Grand Hyatt Tampa Bay putting $16 million into redoing the 442 guest rooms [...]

Byline: LAURA REILEY; TIMES FOOD CRITIC LARGO -- By Laura ReileyTimes Food Critic LARGO - Sometimes I think German cuisine suffers unduly from too many letters. You're in the mood [...]

Byline: LAURA REILEY; Times Food Critic Fetish foods. We all have them. The kind your mind drifts to in idle moments, the kind you'd squander untold gallons of gas in [...]

Byline: LAURA REILEY; Times Food Critic TARPON SPRINGS -- Chris Fragale grew up in restaurants and it shows. At one point, he had five Ballyhoo Grills, four in the Tampa [...]

Byline: LAURA REILEY; TIMES FOOD CRITIC CLEARWATER -- Roll past Courtside Grille on Ulmerton, just before Jimmy John's and right near Beef 'O' Brady's is the Grand Slam. Odd name [...]

Byline: LAURA REILEY; TIMES FOOD CRITIC OLDSMAR -- The past three years have been tough for Tampa Bay fine-dining restaurants. When Hapa - which mainly had a niche clientele - [...]

Byline: LAURA REILEY; TIMES FOOD CRITIC TAMPA -- Chains are born here. There are multiple reasons for this, some involving the demographics of the area. But this is one crucial [...]

Byline: LAURA REILEY; TIMES FOOD CRITIC Many of us live within sight of the Gulf of Mexico, the source of so many delicious things to eat. But when was the [...]

Byline: LAURA REILEY; Times Food and Travel Editor TAMPA -- I drove by the Seven Seas strip club 100 times and thought, 'Yeesh, if the ladies inside look like that [...]

Byline: LAURA REILEY; Times Food Critic GULFPORT -- It's a different kind of mug shot. Along one whole wall of Stella's Deli hang coffee mugs. Maybe 60 of them. It [...]

Byline: LAURA REILEY; Times Food Critic TAMPA -- Here's what so smart about Jeannie Pierola's new Edison: It's funny. Its full name - Edison: food'drink lab - sets up expectations [...]

Byline: LAURA REILEY; Times Food Critic CLEARWATER -- Tampa Bay area diners can officially txikiteo. Pronounced chickie-te-o, this is the Basque name for a traditional Spanish tapas crawl whereby groups [...]

Byline: LAURA REILEY; TIMES FOOD CRITIC TAMPA -- The second half of 2012 may be remembered as a time when women stepped into prominent roles in Tampa Bay area restaurants. [...]

Byline: LAURA REILEY; Times Food Critic TAMPA -- When the first Urban Cantina opened in downtown Tampa in 2010 there was a dearth of affordable Mexican in that part of [...]

Byline: LAURA REILEY; Times Food Critic SAFETY HARBOR -- Susan Cello and Ellen Young's Cello's Char-House has been an ill-kept Safety Harbor secret since 1998. The building itself is certainly [...]

Byline: LAURA REILEY; TIMES FOOD CRITIC JACKSONVILLE -- The weekly Riverside Arts farmers market is clearly the place to be on Saturday mornings. In the shade of the Fuller Warren [...]

Byline: LAURA REILEY; TIMES FOOD CRITIC ST. PETERSBURG -- The Venue was the hottest thing around when it debuted in 2008. Certainly Tampa Bay's biggest dining-nightclub complex to open in [...]