Shoreline Grill has been a mainstay of the Austin dining scene for twenty years and I have always enjoyed it, but it was never one of those places that I went out of my way to visit. It just always felt safe and, well, not very exciting.
Plus, there is the whole issue around what seafood is okay to eat and what isn't. If you aren't familiar with the debate of overfishing and sustainability, check out the article from Mark Bittman of the New York Times. So, when I was invited to the Shoreline recently for a tasting, I thought "sure, why not," but I wasn't too fired up about it.
Executive Chef Scotty Szekretar shook up all my incorrect preconceptions. (And I learned my lesson about being open-minded.) Since joining the restaurant in January, he has completely re-worked the menu with fresh, innovative dishes. One of my favorite starters was a sushi roll that had a cooked potato wrapper - fun, unusual and tasty.
More importantly to me, he's made these significant changes while working to support local farms and purveyors and offer responsible choices on their menu. First, the restaurant has become a partner with Seafood Watch, meaning that they only work with sustainable seafood sources and do not offer fish on the red list. That's huge! And, they are the only restaurant in Texas to build that sort of partnership. (That doesn't mean that other restaurants aren't using similar practices, but that they haven't reached out to formalize the relationship.)
It would have been easy for Shoreline to stop there, but Chef Szekretar is working with local farms (Countryside Family Farms, John Lash of Farm to Table [no relation to this blog], Bluebonnet Hydroponic Produce, and Brazos Valley Cheese to name a few) to bring fresh, local ingredients to the restaurant.
Shoreline Grill is still a great mainstay in Austin with a beautiful view of Lady Bird Lake, and now it offers food that is as thoughtful and interesting as that view.
Go enjoy an interesting, delicious, sustainable meal.
