A restaurant from the team on the wait on of Michelin-starred Kōsen in Tampa quietly opened its doorways in downtown St. Pete final week.
Mei is situated at 320 3rd Avenue South on the ground floor of the Camden Pier District Residences, replacing Bento Asian Kitchen + Sushi, which closed earlier this one year after eight years in industry.
Helmed by Govt Chef Alex Chamberlain and backed by Orlando restaurateurs Jimmy and Johnny Tung, Mei is a original honest eating notion combining French methodology, Nordic influences, and Jap ingredients.
Reservations for Mei aren’t on hand on online platforms but, but online page visitors might maybe per chance be a part of a waitlist for the soft opening on its web pages.
Chamberlain previously served as Chef de Cuisine at Kōsen, while the Tung brothers are the founders of Bento and the team on the wait on of a pair of Michelin-starred eating areas.
The restaurant is a deeply private project for Chamberlain, named after his sister.
“My sister has repeatedly meant home to me, and Mei is a plan to invite St. Pete into our version of home,’” says Chamberlain. “Our aim at Mei is to manufacture you feel love you are visiting a lifelong friend, sitting round a dinner table and sharing a meal and bottle of wine reminiscing over shared recollections and plans for original ones.”
The notion that is rooted in seasonality and locality, with Chamberlain previously describing Mei as a restaurant centered on celebrating Florida’s ingredients thru a Nordic-Jap lens.
The restricted opening menu affords an early ogle into that philosophy.
Starters encompass housemade milk bread with brown butter and tulsi basil, oysters with plum and spring herbs, pork tartare with rye and chive, and chilled soba noodles with poached small and residential pickles.
Entrees encompass dishes equivalent to scallops with polenta, corn, and tomato; dry-feeble duck breast with Swiss chard and cherry; and a ribeye served with summer season truffles and potato mille-feuille.
Desserts encompass sticky toffee pudding with orange and thyme and a corn waffle topped with corn ice cream, blueberries, and almonds.
The beverage program shall be led by Benjamin Coutts, a Michelin-awarded Sommelier of the Year who most no longer too long in the past labored at Soseki in Iciness Park. The menu will feature gleaming teas, sodas, beer, and sake.
Consistent with Tung, Mei’s food and beverage program will trade all one year long, reflecting seasonal shifts and the availability of ingredients.
As the kitchen team grows and operations ramp up, diners can establish a question to original dishes and extra complexity throughout the menu.
An eight-seat Chef’s Desk skills is anticipated to initiate once the restaurant is totally operational.
The Chef’s Desk will in a roundabout plan again because the centerpiece of the restaurant, offering a tasting menu that utilizes developed solutions collectively with binchotan grilling, in-home fermentation, koji aging, dry aging, and hearth-primarily based completely cooking.
Sustainability is additionally a key ingredient of the notion that, with an emphasis on total ingredient utilization, preservation solutions, partnerships with native farms and fishermen, composting, and biodegradable packaging.
“Focusing on locality and foraging, along with preservation, Mei is a kitchen celebrating Florida, and a restaurant celebrating if truth be told heat hospitality,” Chamberlain talked about in a observation earlier this one year.
For doubtlessly the most trendy updates on the soft opening and future reservations, follow @mei.restaurant on Instagram.
Currently, Mei is launch from 5 p.m. to 10 p.m. Wednesday thru Sunday, with plans to improve its hours in the end.
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