LARGO
- "My dream is right here," said Jorge Leon, smiling
and glancing around the spacious dining room of his new restaurant,
Jorge's Seafood Grille. "It's been hard to get to this
point, but I know I'm ready."
The restaurant, which opened May 24, specializes
in seafood and some Costa Rican-style dishes, but also offers
chicken and Ridgefield Farms beef entrees.
Among the restaurant's first customers were Belleair
residents Barbara and Cleveland Branscum and Mrs. Branscum's
mother, Edna Haynes.
They
selected the fried shrimp ($11.99) and two of Jorge's specialties
- sea bass stuffed with lump crab meat and Fontina cheese in
a lobster cream sauce ($16.99) and jumbo shrimp stuffed with
lump crab meat in a lemon butter sauce ($16.99).
"All three of us enjoyed our entrees,"
Mrs. Branscum said. "The service was great. We plan to
return."
Before deciding to open his own place, Leon, 36,
worked nine years as executive chef for four family-owned restaurants
that included Sculley's on John's Pass and Leatherback's Steakhouse
on Madeira Beach. He also has been doing culinary presentations
for three years on Channel 47.
Leon said it took an investment of $250,000 to
open the business and cover costs such as new kitchen equipment,
a new bar and landscaping.
"Right
now, I spend all my time in the kitchen," he said. The
restaurant has a kitchen staff of eight. One of the cooks has
worked six years with him and another, four years.
Nothing is prepared in advance, Leon said.
"I make all my soups from scratch and the
sauces are my own recipes," he said. "We have specials
every day. But if a customer wants something that's not on the
menu and I have the ingredients, I'll make it."
"My present is when I see the customer likes
the food."
"I like knowing that my food hasn't been
sitting under a heat lamp for an hour," said Paige Gainey,
the restaurant's manager.
Leon's
introduction to restaurant kitchens was at age 8 when his grandmother
gave him chores in her restaurant in San Marcos, Costa Rica.
But he didn't develop a serious interest in the culinary arts
until he was 19, when he came to the United States to study
cooking and work in restaurants. He eventually joined his brother,
an executive chef at a Paramus, N.J., restaurant.
He decided to make the Clearwater area his home
after vacationing here.
"The climate reminded me of home," he
recalled. "I liked it so well I bought a home." He
and his wife Peggy and their 9-month-old daughter Isabella live
in Seminole. Mrs. Leon works with her husband in the business,
which includes a serving staff of 12.
Jorge's Seafood Grille, at 800 Clearwater-Largo
Road, is open seven days a week for lunch and dinner. Call 584-7800.
