Chef Allen Susser, owner of Chef Allen’s Seafood Grill in Aventura, Fla., is overseeing design, menu and training at the new Taste Gastropub in Delray Beach, Fla., which is scheduled to open in April.
The 125-seat restaurant, owned by hotel and restaurant contractor Robert Workens of Delray, will be in the Pineapple Grove arts district. Joining Susser, a James Beard award winner, will be executive chef Jamie DeRosa, who has worked with such luminaries as Wolfgang Puck of Spago in Beverly Hills, Heston Blumenthal of The Fat Duck in Bray, England, Joachim Splichal of Patina in Los Angeles and Mark Peel of Companile in Los Angeles.
Taste Gastropub will incorporate three dining-and-drinking bars, including a backyard garden with a pebble encrusted bar and waterfall, a sidewalk cafe and two industrial style, slate tiled, inner dining areas with communal, banquet and freestanding tables.
The restaurant will serve lunch and dinner daily, happy hour specials and a late night and weekend brunch. Susser said he wanted to “create a uniquely American neighborhood gastro pub, where the pure taste of farm-fresh ingredients comes through.”
Menu items will range from charcuterie platters, priced between $7 and $15, to small plates priced between $5 and $15 that include jerk chicken-wing lollipops with a sweet-and-spicy fresh mango barbecue sauce and Florida rock shrimp with peanut brittle, chiles, soy lime and coriander. Susser’s signature sandwiches and lobster macaroni and cheese will also be on the menu.
Large plates, priced between $16 and $22, include options such as scallops with a shell bean and ham hock stew and barbecue grilled chicken with chorizo and cheddar tater tots. The menu also includes Julia Child’s beef bourguignon.
Susser, who opened Aventura in 1986 and has since added other culinary projects, said, “I envision Taste Gastropub as the social heart of the evolving Delray Beach community.”
Contact Ron Ruggless at [email protected].