Part grocery and part kitchen, Tides Seafood Market and Provision in Safety Harbor, Florida serves some of the freshest seafood in the St. Pete-Clearwater area. Chef and co-owner Jon Walker partners with several local vendors to honor his mission to offer only top-quality seafood on the shelves and kitchen table. The locally sourced ingredients shine in its most popular dishes — oyster po’ boy, crawfish arancini, Grouper Romesco, and blackened yellowtail snapper with andouille dirty rice.
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LifestyleTranscript
00:01So here at the Tides, we are thoughtfully sourcing products for the market.
00:04And then we take those products and we simply prepare them in the kitchen.
00:08The food's not complicated.
00:09You know, it's a good piece of fish, it's some vegetables,
00:12it's seasoned appropriately, and it's damn delicious.
00:15I made a sign of cocktail.
00:19We wanted to sell only the things that we wanted to feed our kids.
00:22So it only made sense to develop a menu based around everything that we had in the shop.
00:27Let me get you anything else.
00:28Having that market first mentality means that we're always going to have something really
00:33cool to play with.
00:34A lot of times people do that.
00:36They come for the food and they stay for the market, or they come for the market and they
00:39stay for lunch.
00:40The synergies of the two come together and it really makes for an interesting business
00:45model.
00:46And at the end of the day, we wanted to open a place so that we could eat the way that we
00:50wanted to eat.
00:51We could eat what we wanted to eat.
00:53This is what we like.
00:54This is what we enjoy.
00:55You know, we love seafood.
00:56It's what we know.
00:58I moved to New Orleans when I graduated high school.
01:04And I attended Loyola for two years and found that I was much better at eating po'boys and
01:10drinking beer than going to class.
01:11I'd always worked in restaurants in some facet, just an easy, quick way to make some money.
01:18And so when I got thrown out of college, it was the next logical thing.
01:22So I got a job cooking.
01:23And I did that for a couple of years in New Orleans and decided to take it seriously and
01:28go to culinary school.
01:29No tomatoes.
01:30So an oyster po'boy is super simple.
01:32That to me, it's a bite of nostalgia.
01:35So we've got these beautiful gulf oysters and they're going to go into our fry mix over
01:40here.
01:41We dredge them in a cornmeal mixture, mix it with flour and our house seasonings.
01:45There's no egg.
01:47There's nothing.
01:48It's just oyster, oyster liqueur.
01:50So then I'm just going to take these and I'm going to drop it in that grease right there
01:53and I'm going to let it go just for a couple of minutes.
01:57I wanted to bring a flair and an authenticity that wasn't here.
02:02You know, the bread that we use is Liedenheimer, Liedenheimer, sorry, tomato, tomato.
02:07The Liedenheimer we bring from New Orleans, it's the quintessential bread for po'boys.
02:11We're not toasting, we're just trying to warm it up.
02:14To me, nothing goes better with an oyster po'boy than a cold beer.
02:18It is, it's a match made in heaven.
02:21I haven't had a drink in over 10 years, but if I drank, that's what I would want to eat
02:27with that beer.
02:29I can hear these oysters are about done.
02:32Sounds like a downpour, it sounds like it's raining and that's when I know those suckers
02:37are done.
02:38I'm just going to give them a little season and a little shake.
02:42We're sauce people, we're not bashful about sauce.
02:45So we put that rum-a-lot on there.
02:48You know, a lot of the po'boys in New Orleans use mayonnaise and then they put pickles on
02:51there.
02:52I'm not a huge fan of that.
02:53I like cornichons.
02:54I like capers.
02:55And so that goes into the rum-a-lot.
02:57A little bit of lettuce.
02:58People say, well, in New Orleans they shred the lettuce.
03:01Why don't you shred your lettuce?
03:03You know, because I don't want to.
03:05I like it like this.
03:06So we're going to put some tomatoes on here.
03:09Just want a little bit of veg.
03:11So now I've got all of these beautiful oysters.
03:14Those are going to go right on top.
03:17And what I want is exactly what's happening.
03:19I want oysters to fall out of this sandwich.
03:22This thing, it can't be beat.
03:24This is my favorite sandwich.
03:25It just screams New Orleans to me.
03:27When I worked for the seafood distribution companies, the one that I ran in Birmingham
03:31was about $25 million a year.
03:33The one I ran in St. Pete was about $75 million a year.
03:36I know how those processing rooms work, and I didn't want our fish adulterated.
03:42So what I wanted to do here was get as close to the source as possible.
03:46And so with our seafood vendors, we probably have 12 to 15 different vendors that we use
03:53on a regular basis.
03:54We cherry pick.
03:55I've got one guy that's really good at tuna.
03:57We carry three different kinds of shrimp.
03:59He's got two that are great, and I get another one from another supplier.
04:02So my experience allows me to know who's doing what well.
04:06And so when I find who does it the best, I am very loyal to that until they give me a
04:12reason not to be.
04:13Good morning.
04:14Hey, guys.
04:15How are you?
04:16This is Mike Lockhart, Lockhart Seafood.
04:18He brings us 100% of our domestic grouper and snapper.
04:22There's nobody better.
04:23I trust Mike because I know when he brings me crabs, they've been cooked within the last
04:27day or two.
04:28They're not sitting in some warehouse.
04:29They cut the fish for us.
04:30They skin it for us.
04:31They bring it in, so all we have to do is portion it.
04:34These guys do such a great job.
04:36Justin does such a great job cutting all the fish, making sure it's just the way that
04:39we like it.
04:40When I'm receiving fish, the thing that I'm looking for most is texture.
04:44There should be no odor.
04:45People say it should smell like the ocean.
04:47It shouldn't smell like anything.
04:48If it's got an odor, it's probably a little long.
04:51Grouper is Florida's state fish.
04:54It is abundant, so we really focus on red grouper.
04:57We feel like it's the best for what we do.
05:00All this little trim is going to go into grouper fingers.
05:04So we sell fried grouper bites.
05:06Nothing goes to waste.
05:07From here, what we'll do is we'll get it all trade up.
05:10I'm looking for a five to seven ounce portion.
05:12And then we open it up so we have good bun coverage.
05:16And then cooks will pull it as needed for the grouper romesco or the grouper sandwich.
05:22That blackened grouper sandwich is something you should come to Florida for.
05:26I mean, there really isn't anything like it, I would venture to say, in all of Florida.
05:31It's simply grilled with our house Creole seasoning.
05:34When we moved down here almost ten years ago, I couldn't find a blackened grouper sandwich that I wanted to eat.
05:41And so this is the fix to that.
05:43This is the blackened grouper sandwich that I want to eat every day, that you want to eat every day, that everybody wants to eat every day.
05:48We've won Best of the Bay, two years running.
05:51We've only been open three years.
05:53Oh, we've got a beautiful brioche bun that's not too big, that fits it just right.
05:57Our house-made remoulade, hydroponic lettuce all the time, local tomatoes and onions when we can get them.
06:03It's super simple and super easy, but it's also super delicious.
06:08I think that that is the quintessential Florida sandwich.
06:13We're going to get started on crawfish arancini.
06:15It's a side dish for grouper romesco.
06:17It's also a starter.
06:19We wanted something a little crunchy.
06:21We wanted something a little more substantial to our romesco dish.
06:24So we decided that this was the best way to do it.
06:27You know, we didn't want to put potatoes or anything like that or vegetables.
06:31So we decided that we would really make it seafood forward to crawfish.
06:36We want any moisture to cook off and we want to create a fond.
06:39That's that garlic and the crawfish that are caramelizing to the bottom of the pan.
06:44We've got 1,673 crawfish arancinis right now in the freezer for an event Saturday night.
06:49We'll do another 3,000 for another event later on this month.
06:53So great dish to showcase what we do.
06:55We'll deglaze with some white wine.
06:57We'll add the risotto that's 85% cooked, bring some liquid into it.
07:01And it's got that Creole seasoning, the taste of the tides throughout.
07:05It'll cook nicey-micey.
07:07The arancini really does tie everything together.
07:09It gives it a little bit of crunch.
07:11It gives it a little bit of creaminess.
07:13It gives it a little bit of texture.
07:14It brings a little more heat to it.
07:16So I've got our herb mix and I've got green onions here.
07:18But there's also a fair amount of cheese in it.
07:20So that dairy also kind of tempers some of the heat down.
07:23So you kind of have this push-pull going on with the creamy and the spicy, the seafood, the grouper.
07:29It all just works really well together.
07:31So look at this.
07:32This is beautiful.
07:33I mean, it's cheesy.
07:35You can see all the crawfish.
07:36There's four pounds of crawfish meat in there.
07:38We're just going to spread it out over this.
07:40And then what we'll do is we'll run this in the freezer for about a half an hour.
07:44We'll let it set up.
07:45And then we'll come back and we'll start scooping and balling.
07:48And then after that, we'll bread it.
07:50So the grouper romesco, we take that Florida grouper, season it, cook it in a skillet.
07:56The sauce romesco, which is a very classic sauce.
07:59Roasted tomatoes, roasted peppers, almonds, some sherry vinegar and olive oil, some chive oil.
08:06And then we put those beautiful crawfish arancini on the plate.
08:10A nice little herb salad.
08:11And it's super refreshing.
08:13It's got a little bit of a bite to it.
08:15It's got some crunch.
08:16It's got some creamy.
08:17Kind of hits all of the taste that you're looking for.
08:21It's really something special.
08:23What up, dog?
08:24Hey, dog.
08:25How are you?
08:26Can I tell you about my morning so far?
08:28So my wife is my world.
08:30She's the creative and I'm the operation.
08:32Mary-Kate and I met working in a restaurant in Atlanta.
08:35She's always wanted a market.
08:36And we wanted something that was going to be COVID proof.
08:39And so we figured that if we had a market, then we would be safe.
08:44We started making some sandwiches about six weeks after we'd been open.
08:47And it really took off.
08:49There was a guy that came in and Mary-Kate asked him how everything was.
08:52And he said, everything was great, but you're going to need more tables.
08:55The line literally was going out the door.
08:58Florida isn't necessarily seen as a culinary destination, but Florida has a ton to offer.
09:04And so that was one of the things that we really wanted to do was to show what great product Florida has.
09:11And some of these great makers that are doing really amazing things.
09:15That's the good stuff.
09:16This is Sarah from Sea Pete Ferments.
09:19She is our fermenting goddess.
09:22Truly the best kombucha around.
09:25Slightly effervescent seasonal flavors.
09:28You know, we're coming to the end of strawberry season.
09:30So strawberry ginger is like our kind of champagne of kombuchas during the season.
09:35You just can't beat Florida strawberries this time of year.
09:38Yeah.
09:39There's nobody really doing what we do.
09:41The robust market that we have, I mean, we haven't even talked about the farmers.
09:45The produce that we get from some of these farmers is phenomenal.
09:49We don't buy any commodity beef or pork or chicken.
09:53But we're getting ready to grind some local forested pork that we get from Oliver Heritage Farms.
09:58It's going into Andouille, which will then go into our service case out front so that people can buy that and take it home.
10:05But it also goes into our dirty rice.
10:07This is something that's near and dear to me.
10:10It's kind of the quintessential sausage of the South.
10:13And I think that it's just something that we do a really good job with.
10:17It's super flavorful.
10:18I mean, you can see this beautiful fat in there.
10:20It just makes the most amazing sausage.
10:23And we take our Creole seasoning, which is kind of the taste of the tides.
10:27It's the backbone of a lot of our dishes.
10:29And we add a few other ingredients.
10:32A little more onion and garlic powder.
10:34A lot more cayenne.
10:35And just a touch more salt and a little bit of sugar.
10:38We'll make this and then we'll let it rest for a little while.
10:41Just to let everything kind of meld together.
10:43And then we'll put it through the sausage press.
10:46This is Robert.
10:47He's my brother-in-law, butcher extraordinaire, protein specialist.
10:51He cuts 95% of all the proteins that we have in-house here.
10:56I knew that if I had Robert here, I had one other person that knew as much or more about fish than me.
11:02Robert, what's it like working with your brother-in-law?
11:05It's fun a lot of the times.
11:07But just like any job, there are times where it's been frustrating.
11:10But being that he's my brother-in-law, we are able to work things out after almost killing each other.
11:16At least family, right?
11:17Like, I don't have to go to HR with that, right?
11:19It's just his sister or my wife.
11:21She always takes my side anyways.
11:24This just helps with packaging and being able to sell it.
11:27Because I know that every two links is close to half a pound.
11:30Get three equal links in the middle there.
11:32And then I twist it towards me.
11:34So you want to, when you're twisting up the sausages, you want to do them opposite directions.
11:37It just helps seal them in and helps so it doesn't all unravel all at the same time.
11:42Robert found that if we let the sausage rest overnight and smoke it the next day,
11:48it definitely gives it added depth of flavor.
11:51So this is really what brings out the heat and the smoke and the dirty rice.
11:55This is one of the ingredients that makes that dish what it is.
12:00Kind of like our own signature andouille.
12:02I love andouille sausage, but the stuff that we make, I like it the best.
12:07Absolutely.
12:08One of the things that we do with everything we put in the market is we try to showcase it in the kitchen.
12:13And then that way somebody can taste the andouille before they buy it.
12:17Use that in the dirty rice with pecans, confetti of onions and peppers, jasmine rice,
12:24our house seasonings, a little bit of butter.
12:26It's really delightful.
12:28We take the local yellowtail snapper and we blacken it, cook it in a pan.
12:33So blackening fish means a lot of different things to different people.
12:36And to me it means taking a seasoning that's got a little spice.
12:41It's got paprika.
12:42It's got herbs and applying it to the fish and cooking it either in a pan or on a grill.
12:47Paul Prudhomme made it famous, but I think that there's a lot of different ways to do it.
12:51We take the yellowtail snapper and we put that on top with a little bit of lemon bourblanc.
12:57And again, it's super simple, super easy, but it's super delicious too.
13:06Beats by Lins is out of Chicago, third generation.
13:09They do an amazing product.
13:10They've got a closed herd.
13:12It's 100% black Angus, the best that you can get.
13:15So we bring in beef two ways.
13:17We are your local spot, right?
13:20This is from Chicago.
13:21It's not local.
13:22Why do we bring that?
13:23Because it's the best of what's available for dry age.
13:26We can't dry age in house.
13:28We carry a whole nother line of Florida grass fed, grass finished beef that never leaves the state.
13:34So we've got that.
13:35The thing that we've found is that some people want big beef.
13:39They want it finished on grain.
13:41They want marbling.
13:42They want that big beefy taste that grass fed can't deliver.
13:46So we carry both.
13:47The ground beef that we use, the whole mussels that we grind here for our burgers and our meatballs,
13:52that's Florida grass fed, grass finished.
13:55Our philosophy is that we want to use the best that we can locally first, regionally second, and nationally third.
14:03From a menu standpoint, one of the things that we don't want to do is be so expensive that people can't afford to eat here.
14:09So I do a lot of research to find byproducts or other products that aren't readily available so that we can bring those in.
14:18Personally, I like the spinalis on that guy.
14:20Thanks.
14:21I'll take one.
14:24I am really encouraged with the direction of the culinary scene in St. Pete and Clearwater.
14:30There's a ton of really great chefs doing some amazing things all throughout Pinellas County.
14:35I am really proud to be a part of that.
14:37I'm really proud to shine a spotlight on the bounty of the Gulf.
14:44It's really amazing to be a part of this community that is doing so many wonderful things and putting out so many tremendous products that give us the leverage to be creative and do different things with it.
14:58You know, we've been open three years and I'm really interested to see what the next three, four or five years bring because if this is the trend, then I can't wait.