TradeWinds: Niceville’s Open Secret
205 Government Street, Niceville, 678-8299
Hours: Open Tues-Sat @ 5 am


By Bruce Collier October 18, 2007 Issue

TradeWinds restaurant is about as tucked-away as a place can get. There’s no sign near the road. Its placement, near a busy Niceville intersection, makes split-second sighting and turning a must for first-time diners. Reservations are essential. Fortunately, a regular customer tipped us off to that. Even so, we had to wait about five minutes for our table to be ready. Everyone, from staff to servers to hosts, works in close and rapid coordination to keep things moving. With all that, I never felt rushed or slighted.

The restaurant occupies a one-story building, tidy but otherwise unremarkable from the outside. Inside is a large, square room. The walls are hung with pictures, bar signs, and pub-style mirrors. Part of the kitchen is visible in the rear. The space is full of tables for two and four, which the staff lifts, totes, and rearranges to accommodate larger parties. We got a corner table, giving us a good view of the house. The joint was jumpin’.

Our server was an active young woman, taking care of us, a large group to our right, and other tables as well. She brought us water, bread, and an olive oil and garlic dip that my friend customized with grated cheese. The menu is extensive, offering antipasti and dishes of chicken, veal, seafood, and pizza. Pasta comes in nearly any form imaginable.

My friend and I ordered a glass of red wine and a Peroni beer. We made up our minds quickly. For starters, we ordered bruschetta and a sausage pomodore. The bruschetta were nearly buried in chopped fresh tomatoes, basil, garlic, and fresh mozzarella. They were warm enough to handle, but hot enough to be crisp and tender. The fennel-rich sausage was served sliced, baked in red wine and beef broth, with gorgonzola and more fresh tomatoes. Both were meal-sized, so you might want to share.

Other starters are crab cakes, mussels steamed with red or white wine sauce, caprese, antipasto of meats and cheeses, baked portobello mushroom, scampi, and cherry peppers stuffed with provolone and prosciutto.

For the main event, my friend chose veal Marsala, while I ordered grouper al forno. The server took (and remembered) our orders without writing anything down, and gave us plenty of time between starters and the main course. This was a neat trick of focus and timing, especially under such crowded circumstances, which I gather is the norm at TradeWinds.

The veal was served on a crowded plate, loaded with sliced mushrooms and fat twists of pasta. The veal was tender and the light sauce was fragrant with nutty Marsala wine. The grouper came baked with a seasoned breadcrumb topping. Two moist pieces rested on a mound of spinach and pasta, with still more fresh tomatoes. There must be a patch in the back.

Other main courses are an array of pizzas with meat and cheese toppings, calzone, veal and chicken piccata and parmigiana, and chicken alfredo, arabiata, or principessa. There’s also cheese ravioli, lasagna, pasta with oil and garlic, puttanesca, meatballs, carbonara, sausage and mushrooms, eggplant parmigiana, crab cakes, grouper, and pasta with fish, mussels, shrimp, scallops, clams, and smoked salmon. The above combinations are widely varied. So are the sauces — oil and garlic with red peppers and basil, marinara, marinara with bacon, arabiata (beef broth and tomato with olives, capers and anchovies) carbonara (a creamy sauce with bacon), alfredo, white or red wine, and wine and citrus.

Desserts were written on a wallboard, so they may vary nightly. The night we ate there, the kitchen was offering tiramisu, cannoli with chocolate chip filling, and riccotta cheesecake. We ordered the latter two.

Both tasted freshly made, and were just the right size for two full people who nevertheless wanted sweets. The filling in the cannoli was dense, creamy, and not too sweet. The cheesecake was likewise rich but light, with a slight taste of vanilla and what may have been anisette.

After all the time I’ve lived here, this was my first visit to TradeWinds. It’s certainly no secret. The crowd we dined with that night was largely made up of locals. The staff greeted many like old friends, and all had the look of people who had come to be well fed. I think they were. I know we were.

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