Sunset Charlie’s: Fusion Still Reigns
1096 Scenic Gulf Drive, Destin, 837-9834
Hours: Open daily for breakfast, lunch & dinner. Call for serving hrs
Sunday brunch 9am to 1pm


By Bruce Collier April 5, 2007 Issue

This was my second visit to Sunset Charlie’s, the first being last summer. This time, we tried a weeknight dinner for three, and Sunday brunch for two. They also serve lunch.

Sunset Charlie’s occupies the first-level floor of Surfside Resort. There’s a poolside beach bar, and an inside bar/lounge with a TV, kept discreetly low. The dining room is open, with plenty of window-space. Tables are well spaced. There was a medium-sized birthday celebration going on, and the staff seems capable of accommodating parties of all sizes.

At dinner, our hostess/server, later identified as Melissa, seated us, and then found us another table away from a briskly cold A/C vent. Melissa proved helpful and unflappable over the course of the evening, making suggestions, adjustments and corrections with ease.

As one might expect at a resort eatery, the bar specializes in fruity boat drinks and summer-ish cocktails. We tried a strawberry daiquiri, mojito, and a “Destini,” a martini variation. There are also beers and non-alcoholic versions of tropical beverages.

Starters are generous, eclectic, and could easily make a meal. We ordered queso fundido, baked Muenster cheese with a mound of spicy chorizo and poblano peppers in tomato/cilantro sauce. The dish came with a large spoon and a packet of very hot flour tortillas, from which we made impromptu roll-ups. We also ordered southern fried shrimp, cornmeal-battered and served with pleasantly fruity, sweet and sour Caribbean slaw and cocktail sauce, and a basket of Pao-Pao potato chips.

The latter came hot in an enormous pile. They were whisper-thin, crunchy and greaseless, dusted with a dark red chili powder and served with a creamy citrus dipping sauce. Both the queso and shrimp were good, but the chips have to rank among the area’s best bar snacks.

Other starters include crab cakes, guacamole, salsa and chips, shrimp and spinach skins, calamari, wings, grouper taquitos, gumbo, chowder, Thai shrimp salad, chicken Caesar, and tortilla soup.

For the main course, we each went a different direction, by way of variety. I ordered pork chops with a creamy mushroom sauce and garlic mashed potatoes. My companions ordered beef fajitas — a house specialty — and a fried seafood platter with seasoned fries. The fajita usually comes with green peppers, but at my friend’s request, the kitchen left them out.

My chops — there were two — came on the bone, cooked as ordered, with a mound of potatoes and seasoned vegetables. The seasoning let the natural flavor of the pork take the lead. The seafood on the platter — grouper, scallops, shrimp, and crab and corn fritters — was hot and crisply fried. With the exception of a single rather dry scallop, all came out well. My friend made only a dent in it.

The fajitas were an excellent example of the dish. They came out sizzling, with plenty of well-seasoned beef. The peppers and onions were cooked to a tender sweetness. Everything seemed to belong together, as opposed to being the lackluster mass of disparate filling often found in fajitas.

Other entrÈe choices are crab cakes, grilled tuna, blue cheese filet, ribeye, baby back ribs, grouper Floridian, fried shrimp, shrimp and crab quesadillas, lobster ravioli, chicken and chorizo pasta, fettucine with meatballs, grilled chicken, and scampi with penne. The menu varies, sometimes nightly.

The menu lists six desserts, but one — bread pudding — is currently off the menu. The others are banana spring rolls, mango cheesecake, tri-chocolate torte, key lime pie, and a crËme br°lÈe. We ordered the torte, spring rolls, and crËme br°lÈe. Both the torte and spring rolls were tasty and tastefully presented, right down to the torte being served at room temperature and not ice-cold. The night’s crËme br°lÈe, mint-melon, while well executed, was just too strange a combination of flavors. We sampled it, and sent it back. We were not charged for it.

Brunch is an unlimited buffet affair. When we visited, there was salad, fresh fruit, scrambled eggs and made-to-order omelets, rolls, biscuits and gravy, home fries, grits, bacon, sausage, grouper Floridian, steak Diane, salmon penne, french toast, waffles, key lime squares, and cheesecake. Like dinner, this may vary. It was all good, diner friendly, with plenty of real butter.

Since my visit last summer, Sunset Charlie’s has pared down the selection and spruced up the service. We made a good run of the menu, and if everything else comes out as well as what we had, you can order with confidence. Happily, no one tinkered with the beach view. That remains perfectly unchanged.

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