At Tommy Addison’s, the Food is Fine; the Backstory is Puzzling

By Scott Joesph

I’ve never been big on over-theming a restaurant, especially if it involved creating a contrived back story about real or imaginary characters who may or may not have had something to do with the place. Portobello Yacht Club comes immediately to mind.

Part of the original Pleasure Island, the restaurant was required to justify its existence with a story of the fictional Merriweather Pleasure and his passion for boating. Thankfully, all that was dropped when the restaurant was rebranded and renamed simply Portobello.

On the other hand, the right back story in the right place can be fun. The Palm does a very nice job of presenting the restaurant’s history, which is necessary in order to understand why the walls are covered with caricatures.

But being utterly confused in the midst of a dining experience is never enjoyable. Unfortunately, that’s how I felt after reading the information provided on the menu of Tommy Addison’s Fine Food, a new and mostly enjoyable restaurant south of downtown.

I have no idea if Tommy Addison was a real person, and I’m not at all sure what to make of this line from the narrative: “Steadfastly American, the Addison Family came through the War and the Great Depression, outfitting kitchens and club cars.”

What does that mean? Did they install kitchen equipment on trains? Did they cook the food? Was Tommy a railway worker or merely an aficionado? Am I supposed to know the Addison family? This is one case where I would have appreciated knowing more. And the tale could have been told in the tasteful sort of way that The Palm handles its tutorial.

Even the items on the steadfast Addison dinner menu are only half thought through. There’s the Illinois Central meat loaf and Baltimore & Ohio Railroad chicken. OK, I sort of get the railroad connection, though a counter argument could be made that those rail lines and the dishes actually have no connection whatsoever.

But then you have other items that mundanely – and I would say thank you to that – state what the dish is: broiled Scottish salmon, grilled steak, shrimp and grits.

Said food is mostly decently done, and the price point – entrees ranging from $7.99 for a dinner portion of mac and cheese to $15.99 for that salmon from Scotland – make it a bit of a dinner bargain, even before you factor in the salad that’s included.

My guest and I started with the shellfish griddlecakes – crab cakes that also included shrimp and scallops, sautéed until they had a delightful crisp crust.

For the entrée, my friend had the shrimp and grits, and at first we thought that one of the ingredients had been left out. There were plenty of nice shrimp, evenly spiced with a firm texture, sautéed with bits of sausage and tomatoes. But we could see no grits. And then we realized they were disguised to resemble a wedge of bread.

So, instead of a creamy puddle to blend in with the shrimp, the grits were eaten more like a corn cake and could be forked with a shrimp or not. Not the way this dish is generally served, but I must say I liked it.

The Shanty Irish Stout beef stew – and here we’re back to wondering if this is supposed to be a railroad reference – was not as nicely done. The sirloin bits were good and tender, but there might have been more vegetables to make the concoction more stewy. Apart from that, the gravy was way too thick, as though too much kitchen bouquet had been added.

As I mentioned, dinners include a salad, though ours seemed to have been plated up a bit too far in advance. Servers could benefit from better training, though they all seemed friendly – I noticed several spending great lengths of time standing and chatting at one table or another.

The space is functional, though not what I’d call decorative. Granted, the price point is relatively low, but the ambience could be easily enhanced by such simple steps as swapping out the flimsy paper napkins for cloth, at least with dinner service. Tommy Addison’s occupies a building that started out as a Perkins and sits between Orange Avenue and the railroad tracks, which probably had something to do with the half-hearted theme.

I suppose the circa 1920s photograph on the restaurant’s wall and in the menu is of Tommy himself. But then again we may never know.