Spending our 26th wedding anniversary along the Gulf Coast of Alabama, we didn't have quite the stellar time that we had hoped to have. (Click here to read the brief summary of our vacation to the area.) But we did find some good places to eat and one of them was the place where we celebrated our anniversary with a nice dinner at Cobalt, the Restaurant in Orange Beach.
Brian Harsany got his start in the restaurant business at an early age. While still in high school in the early 80's, Harsany worked as a bus boy and a dishwasher at a local restaurant. The hospitality bug bit him hard enough that he ended up majoring in hotel and restaurant management at Florida State University. After graduating from Florida State, Harsany worked in a number of restaurants - both family-owned and corporate-owned - over the next 15 years.
Over the years, Harsany and his wife, Jodi, had been hatching a plan for their own restaurant. The couple were animal lovers - mainly dogs and cats - and wanted a restaurant to reflect their affection for both food and their four-legged friends. One day, a friend was telling Brian and Jodi about a property in Orange Beach, AL that would be perfect for a restaurant. The following day, another friend told them about the same property. And the next day after that, another friend who knew they were looking at starting their own restaurant told them about the very same piece of property in Orange Beach. Completely interested by that time, they traveled to Orange Beach and looked over the building sitting on Canal Road just south of Wolf Bay, about a mile and a half north of the Gulf shoreline.
Harsany didn't want to pigeon-hole his new restaurant concept into one specific type of cuisine, so he needed a chef who was adept at different styles of cooking. He hooked up with local chef Jack Baker and the two came up with a menu that featured seafood, Italian dishes, some Cajun specialties, as well as steaks and chops. In 2006, the Harsany's opened Cosmo's - named after their dog that they had gotten from an animal shelter previously.
Pictured right - Brian and Jodi Harsany. Photo courtesy Gulf Coast News Today.
Cosmo's became a favorite for both the locals and tourists, alike. One of Cosmo's biggest fans was a local real estate developer by the name of Larry Wireman. Wireman was building a new upscale resort on the west end of Perdido Key in Orange Beach that he would eventually name Caribe Resort. Wireman approached Harsany and Baker to come up with a restaurant that would fit the concept of his new resort. They came up with the idea of an upscale seafood restaurant that had beautiful views of Bayou Saint John fed from the Gulf of Mexico through the Perdido Pass. Cobalt, the Restaurant opened in late 2008.
Since Cobalt opened, the Harsany's and Baker have opened other places around Orange Beach such as Luna's Eat and Drink - a Southern-style restaurant and tap house named after another one of the Harsany's rescue dogs; GT's on the Bay - a Southern-style seafood restaurant on Wolf Bay; and BuzzCatz - a coffee/pastry/ice cream shop so named for the Harsany's three cats at the time. Cosmo's, Luna's and BuzzCatz are part of Cosmo's Courtyard which also has retail shopping in the small complex. Jack Baker is listed as the "corporate chef" for the restaurants and each of the eateries has their own chef and sous chef on premises.
Cobalt is located just over the Perdido Pass bridge, about a mile from the Florida/Alabama line on Perdido Key. (see map) We got there just after 6 p.m. with no reservation figuring that we'd have to wait. By the time we got there, the parking lot was packed and people were parking in the overflow lot underneath the Perdido Pass bridge.
It turned out that it would be about an hour-and-a-half wait according to the hostess who checked us in and told us we would get a text to let us know when our table would be ready in the dining area. We sort of shrugged our shoulders and decided to stay because Cobalt had come highly recommended from more than one local source.
The crappy weather we had experienced since we had gotten to the coast was actually cooperating that evening and we went outside to the large patio area. A three-piece band was playing that evening and the area around the bar was packed. I stood in line for over 15 minutes just to get a couple drinks for us. They had something called the OBA-rita (OBA - Orange Beach, AL) that consisted of a housemade lemonade - real lemonade, not that pink lemonade crap they keep trying to give me when we're in the south - along with Hornitos tequila and Gran Gala, an Italian orange liqueur similar to Grand Marnier, only that it's made with Italian brandy instead of French cognac. I had a Tito's vodka and lemonade. Those two drinks were $20 bucks - the OBA-rita was $13. Ouch!
We watched the sun slowly fall toward the horizon in the northwest and listening to the band on the patio. I was able to track our progress on my phone as to how far down the line we were on the reservation. When we checked in, we were 54th in line. After about 30 minutes, that had gone down to 38. At that rate, we figured that it would be over 90 minutes from the time we got there to the time we would get seated.
It was getting a little cold for my wife out on the patio, so we decided to go in and hang out near the bar. Walking inside the main restaurant, we found a large space with walls painted cobalt blue (naturally) with colorful seascape paintings on the walls. A large kitchen was in the corner with long walk-up windows for the staff. It was sort of loud, but not too obtrusive.
Stepping up a level to the bar area, we found a small table off to the side where we could hang out and wait for our table to open up. I got another lemonade and vodka while my wife wanted to hold off until we were seated. A spot at the bar opened not long after we started standing there and the older couple seated there offered their seats to us. We could have eaten at the bar, but my wife was content to wait for a table in the dining room to open up. I took a look at my phone and saw that the wait had gone down precipitously. We had been there for about 50 minutes and there were just 14 parties in front of us.
And it really didn't take us that long after that before we got the text message that our table was ready. I looked and it was just a bit less than an hour and 10 minutes to get a table without a reservation that evening. We went up the hostess stand and checked in. Then we were directed to a six seat table along a window that looked out onto the patio. My wife was a bit embarrassed that we were seated at such a large table, but I told her the rush was over and it was the first available table. Besides, it allowed us to sort of spread out.
After we had gotten menus from the hostess who sat us, our server for the evening - an outgoing young man by the name of Zecharia - came over to greet us. We talked with Zecharia after dinner and found that he had an itinerant childhood as his dad had a job that kept the family on the move. He told us he tells people he was from Kansas City because that was the longest time (4 years) he lived in one place. By his count, he's lived in 33 states in his life and has worked in 14 cities. "I like it here, though," he said. "This is a great place to work."
We immediately signed up for a half-dozen of oysters-on-the-half-shell to start out. We had talked about getting the garlic/parmesan grilled oysters, but decided to go with the raw oysters. I thought they were fine, but my wife was a little squeamish with the taste of them. (If you saw the synopsis of our trip, I described the day we both got sick. My wife thinks it was from the oysters the night before. I'm still sort of skeptical, but it could be.) Still, to me, it was a nice little opener to the meal.
Seafood was the main focus at Cobalt. For people that didn't want seafood they had a beef tenderloin filet on the menu, as well as a grilled chicken breast. They also had a pork tenderloin that was marinated in an Alabama-style white barbecue sauce (a concoction of mayo, white vinegar, spicy brown mustard and creamy horseradish all mixed together), then grilled and then served on a bed of gouda mac & cheese. But we were definitely there for the seafood that evening.
Since we were both going to have fish that evening, we decided on getting a bottle of white wine to go with the dinner. Zecharia turned out to be rather adept in his knowledge of the wines on the list at Cobalt. We were looking for a rich, full-bodied white to go with our meal and he suggested the 2018 Banfi La Pettegola Vermintino, a complex, but easy to drink wine from the Tuscany region in Italy. It was reasonably priced and it went very well with our meals.
The first thing that caught my eye on the menu was the blackened redfish and there wasn't anything else that could sway me from that. (Although, the yellow fin tuna was intriguing.) The blackened redfish came on a bed of jambalaya with grilled asparagus on the side. Zecharia talked me into getting the redfish "Oscar-style" with a dollop of fresh crab meat on the top. This was a delicious and outstanding dish. The blackened seasonings along with the somewhat spicy jambalaya really popped the taste buds that evening. And the bold tasting white wine tasted like butter on the tongue countering the spicy nature of the meal.
My wife got the special that evening - lightly blackened swordfish served on a bed of roasted poblano peppers and gritted rice (it's like grits only made with rice than corn) with chorizo mixed in. It was topped with a chimmichurri vinaigrette and finished with bourbon confit tomatoes and onions. She, too, thought her meal was fantastic. "There's just so many taste sensations going on with each bite," she said at one point. We traded bites a couple times and I thought her swordfish was excellent.
We chatted up Zecharia after dinner and he told us about his life and how he ended up at Cobalt as a server. He had been working as a cook in a restaurant when the pandemic hit. "Then Hurricane Sally hit right about the time that restaurants were reopening and the place I worked at just shut down again," he said. "I found out that they were looking for servers here and got hired on. It's sort of good for me as I have a cook's perspective on the food and can give recommendations based on that."
Our two meals - along with the raw oysters - were really filling, but my wife's sweet tooth was raging, especially after having some spiciness to our meals. They had five dessert items on the menu including bread pudding (we thought it would be too rich), a triple-layer chocolate cake (ditto), fried apple pie a la mode (I don't care for apple pie), and a Creole cheesecake made with house-made Creole-style cream cheese with a roasted pecan crust with pecan praline and topped with a caramel sauce. (That sounded too dangerous!) So, we ended up getting the creme brûlée. It was light, yet rich in taste served with a fruit combination on top of a turbinado sugar shell. But we couldn't finish it all. We had had enough very good food for one evening.
We always try to make our anniversary meals memorable and the one we had at Cobalt, the Restaurant was certainly no exception. We didn't mind the 70 minute wait for a table, thanks to the live music out on the patio. Once we were seated, we had a great meal and the service we had from Zecharia was impeccable. He did a great job with his suggestions for us from the food we had to the wonderful Italian Tuscan white wine we had to complement the meal. Cobalt had come highly recommended to us by a handful of locals who we asked where to go for a great celebration meal. And their recommendation couldn't have been more spot on.
We were so blessed to have been gifted a vacation and when we went visit Colalt for drinks and dining , the waitress, Tessa, Brook , Marshal were absolutely fantastic!!!! Their enthusiasm and people skills were amazing. Very friendly and such a team combination!!! Couldn’t have asked for a better time or experience at Colbalt. Had a great experience. I wouldn’t have changed a thing. A great team makes all the difference!!!!
Posted by: Tina Leger | October 25, 2024 at 05:51 PM