by erin thursby scopes1925@msn.com
Down at Atlantic Beach, not far from the Sea Turtle Inn, you can find Ragtime, a microbrewery and restaurant that’s been around for about twenty years. It’s a well-loved staple of Atlantic Beach. There’s only one Ragtime, but it’s owned by the Gordon Biersch Brewery Restaurant Group, which includes Big River Grille and Brewery, Rock Bottom Restaurant Brewery, Seven Bridges Grille and Brewery, A1A Ale Works, Ragtime Tavern and Seafood Grill, and Bluewater Grille. All of these include microbrews on their menu. The group owns twenty-seven eateries in fourteen states.
Chef Jamie Walton makes sure everything that comes out to the tables is perfectly delicious. The appetizers here have always been a favorite of mine, particularly the to-die-for lobster taco. We sampled their Ragtime Shrimp, made with a coconut beer batter (the beer they use, by the way, is their Red Brick Ale) and served with a hot-but-sweet honey mustard sauce. The sauce complements the shrimp, starting out sweet and finishing with a kick.
It’s a very fish-driven menu with a New Orleans flair. Entrée prices range from about $13 to $28, with most hitting around $18. Their salads and sandwiches, which you can make a meal of, hit a slightly lower price-point at less than $10. There’s the microbrewery for the drinking crowd as well as a full bar.
Under specialties, we tasted the Sesame Tuna. It is, bar none, the best seared tuna preparation I have ever had. The secret might be in the 24-hour marination in a mixture of soy, pineapple and ginger. This infuses the thick slab of tuna with flavor all the way to the center of the cut. The outside is finished with sesame seeds, sesame flour and a sweet and creamy ginger remoulade. It was served atop fried spinach, which was excellently prepared. Often, when I order fried spinach, it can be needlessly greasy. Chef Walton makes sure the spinach has time to drain. The tuna is also served with a side of their red beans and rice. There are people who are absolutely devoted to their vegetarian red beans and rice. It’s easy to taste why. We also took a taste of the Grouper Oscar, which we enjoyed, but found to be too salty. The mashed potatoes were buttery and exquisite, so I do recommend that as a side.
Beer lovers should check out their signature microbrews, pumped straight from the vat through refrigerated tubes, into the tap and into your glass. You can’t get any fresher than that. Scott Bannester, the Master Brewer for Ragtime, has been brewing beer for twelve years. He got into the beer culture because his roommate worked for a microbrewery. The roommate would “bring home the bottles that they couldn’t sell because they were either too full of beer or too short.”
Bannester soon developed a taste for microbrews and began working as a salesman for a microbrewery. It wasn’t long before he made the transition from selling beer to making it and helped build a new brewery from the ground up. He pursued a master’s degree at the University of California in Fermentation Science and continued to work in the industry. Being a pub brewer is good, Bannester says, because “I wanted to be responsible for everything…and it’s a more social environment than a big brewery. It’s a lot more fun to work in a restaurant.”
You can sign up for their “passport” program that can get you into one of their exclusive Brewer’s Dinners. Unfortunately, there’s a long waiting list to get into the program.
Just the smell of their White Chocolate Sun-Dried Cherry Bread Pudding is utter intoxication. The smell of the butter rum sauce was enough to make me hungry again, even after such a full meal. Those sun-dried cherries had a great intensity of flavor, their tartness balancing the dish. They were definitely a more interesting and tasty choice than the traditional raisins. It’s a great thing to eat as the weather gets colder, as it offers warmth and delight when the weather is bitter.
207 Atlantic Blvd., Atlantic Beach (904) 241-7877
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EU Critic’s Choice Awards
