Shades at the Loop: Off to a Flying Start
10952 Hwy 30A East, Inlet Beach, 231-9410
By Bruce Collier August11, 2005 Issue


We ate at Shades at the Loop on a Friday, which is rare for us, and we had a short wait. Still, the atmosphere in the bar/lounge is pleasant, with comfortable chairs and sofas. No one pressured us to by drinks while waiting, either, which is nice.

The restaurant is fairly roomy with lots of windows. The tables and booths are arranged in a roughly crescent shape around the long bar. You can also sit outside on one of two patios.

The wait staff is big enough that diners are served promptly and efficiently, and there was a genuine desire to please on the part of everyone. When my friend ordered a bourbon and coke, asking that the bartender not overdo it on the liquor, our server waited to make sure it was to her liking.

Shades at the Loop also has an impressive list of draft and bottled beers, including some draft imports that aren’t easily found hereabouts.

The menu is, as one might expect, weighted toward Gulf seafood. You can also get out-of-town sea fare such as clams, as well as beef, pork, and chicken dishes. If what we had is any sample, whatever you order will be top quality and very well prepared.

At the suggestion of our jovial server, Chris, we started with a special, “grouper bites” and a shrimp cocktail. The former are small chunks of grouper, lightly breaded and fried hot and oil-free. The dish comes with tartar sauce, but you can substitute cocktail sauce. Good choice for a hot starter.

The shrimp cocktail was a reminder of how good this simple appetizer can be if you start with large, sweet shrimp and interfere with them as little as possible. Five big ‘uns came, butterflied, boiled, and peeled, sprinkled with a little celery salt. Cocktail sauce and a lemon wedge were all we needed. It’s a little higher priced than at some other places, but there’s no lettuce, no garnish, no tricky martini-shaped serving glass, just minimalist shrimp.

Other seafood and appetizer choices include Thai mussels in coconut milk sauce, clams both raw and baked with herbs, calamari, wings, grilled shrimp, raw oysters, oyster stew, and seafood gumbo.

Our server mentioned a special that night of “black grouper,” served grilled, blackened or fried. The kitchen had done so well with the starter that I chose the same fish, grilled, for my main course. My friend was excited at the prospect of Southern fried chicken, though the garlic in the mashed potatoes struck her as untraditional. Still, she got it.

My grouper came with French fries and a mix of sautÈed broccoli, carrots, green beans, squash and sweet peppers. The fried chicken was boneless (another break with tradition) and already napped with a thick cream gravy. The mashed potatoes were gravied, too, but mild on the garlic, which I think pleased my friend. The gravy made the chicken a little less than crisp, but that probably could have been fixed by ordering the gravy on the side. You get vegetables with the chicken as well.

The grouper was terrific. A generous portion came hot off the grill, with a slightly tangy, peppery dry seasoning and buttery sauce. I think French fries are the best thing with fish, and Shades at the Loop does theirs right— thin, crisp, greaseless and not pre-seasoned. Seasoned fries with seasoned fish would have been too much.

That seems to be the rule at this restaurant. The chef knows better than to mess up good fish with excess for its own sake. Gulf Coast seafood built its rep through cooking like this, and it’s nice to see the tradition carried on.

Other main course choices include a variety of pizzas, fish sandwiches, chicken salads and sandwiches, dinner salads, crab cakes, fried shrimp and oysters, a strip steak, pork loin chop with molasses sauce, and chicken, sausage and crawfish “jambalya pasta.” Portions seemed uniformly large, and everything looked fresh.

For dessert, the night we were there, the house offered a traditional cheesecake, a draft root beer float, a carrot cake “napoleon,” a chocolate mousse cake, and a blueberry/apple streusel cake. We got the latter two.

Both were lighter than they looked, especially the chocolate cake. It had a strong, bittersweet cocoa punch, and no fake whipped cream. The blueberry/apple cake had a lot of plump, sweet fruit, a flaky crust that made it almost like pie, and no fake whipped cream. In fact, there seemed to be no whipped cream at all. Fine by me.

Our server told us the restaurant has been open only a short time. It can be risky reviewing a restaurant so soon after its opening. But in the case of Shades at the Loop, the glitches, if any, seem to have been taken care of before we got there. This new restaurant in Inlet Beach is off to a flying start.

(Top)