Seville Quarter no longer wants to be known just for nightlife, but as a dining destination

When Pensacola's Seville Quarter is not a roaring nightclub set to the soundtrack of dueling pianos and college bar battle cries — it is a daytime downtown dining destination. At least, that’s what Seville’s newly hired restaurant manager Brett Kowalski is hoping it can become.

Since Kowalski was brought on staff a few months ago, he has been pushing for the restaurant to be as equally known and loved for its chef-driven dining experiences, as much as it is for its “seven rooms of fun” that patrons explore by night. Much of that is through the redesign on a fall/winter seasonal lunch and dinner menu that was just launched last month.

“We’re kind of starting with the reputation that we have for our nightlife, but we have a whole unexplored realm during the day that we can tap into,” Kowalski said. “I mean, the food really does speak for itself, and the prices are just not something that I usually see around. We're trying to really do something with food here.”

With the restaurant’s newly designed dishes, Seville’s mid-day lunch crowd has already changed its tune with tables filled with hanging giant pretzels, po-boys and pork chop ribeyes. Kowalski said he is already hearing that lunch has not been this busy in decades.

By day, the beauty of the building’s French Quarter style — packed in all its vintage glory with stained glass windows, skylights, chandeliers, fountains and brick floors — is seen in an entirely new light than during nightfall.

White tablecloths dress the courtyard tables for guests to sneak away for a lunch break and soak in sunlight surrounded by greenery enclosed within its iron gates.

The Palace Oyster Bar doubles as the dark and moody dining room and perfect place to cut into a grilled pork ribeye topped with fontina cheese and wild mushroom marsala, served with mashed potatoes and roasted brussels sprouts, over the glow of chandelier light. However, whether its noon or 6 p.m., the dish remains the same price of $16, allowing for a touch of elegance on a budget.

Since Seville's executive chef Jason Duckworth was hired on two years ago, he has been quietly working toward two goals.

The first — to change the atmosphere surrounding Seville Quarter’s kitchen, letting people know that they have full kitchen service with good food.

“The second is to have better food than The District,” Duckworth quipped.

“When I first started here — not a lot of people came here for lunch. In fact, it was almost nonexistent. It just kind of got forgotten,” Duckworth added. “I want to change people's minds when they show up.”

Expanding the restaurant’s footprint in downtown Pensacola became a “blank canvas” for Duckworth and Kowalski, who worked on rewriting and promoting the restaurant’s new seasonal menus.

Culinarily trained at Johnson and Wales University and a former chef for the Ritz-Carlton group, Duckworth said he is carrying the same level of expertise over to Seville’s menu, but in an approachable, gastropub way.

The goal is to elevate classic menu items in new and exciting ways, while still keeping the pricetag affordable for the everday. Almost every item on the menu is below $20, with the sandwiches all in the $9-$13 range.

The short rib grilled cheese is a take on elevating something familiar, by making it a melt-in-your-mouth, 14-hour braised short rib laid on sliced cornbread.

Duckworth’s North Carolina roots show up in other classics, like the Carolina pulled pork sandwich made with his secret recipe and topped with coleslaw.

However, he also ties in flavors of the Pensacola region to give the menu a sense of place, like in the blackened red fish over roasted corn maque choux, or the hand-made beignet recipe that rivals any others in the city, he said.

Although customers should pick-up on the New Orleans and Cajun flair that the restaurant carries, his priority was to give Pensacola its own identity of flavors.

“Truthfully, I want people to think of Seville Quarter as a restaurant with great food, and an entertainment complex. Instead of an entertainment complex with a kitchen,” Duckworth said. “I want the food to come first.”

The lunch and dinner menu doesn’t stop there though, as they host a slew of other dining specials, like their weekly prime rib Saturdays from $15-$20, $1 oysters on Fridays, or $.75 wing Wednesdays.

Duckworth has also been adamant about letting his kitchen team get creative with testing out ideas for unique weekday specials.

“I treat my kitchen as a teaching kitchen. I have one cook when she first started, she's never worked in a kitchen before. Six months later, she's running the entire line,” Duckworth said. “I give my cooks some creative control. I want to know what they can come up with. They have to present it to me, and if it works out, I'll throw it on the menu and give them full credit for it.”

Though he enjoys testing the waters in seeing which ideas will sell, like his fresh ahi tuna poke nachos stacked with avocado, lime and a sweet Thai sauce drizzled with teriyaki glaze, there are some Seville recipes he would never touch.

The Aunt Jessie’s Gumbo, Seville’s own traditional seafood gumbo, for example, will always have a place.

“I think that this industry is about self-expression,” KowaIski added. “I think that it's something that you should never stifle, but not try to force. If somebody has an idea, if there's a tweak that we can do on something that makes it better — we're always learning and growing. But in order to do that, you got to find what works and what doesn't work. So far, a lot of our specials have actually been mind-blowingly good.”

What will Seville's culinary future look like?

Duckworth plans on rolling out a fresh spring/summer menu next year adding new flavors to the menu, while Kowalski plans on working toward revamping Seville's signature cocktail list.

Kowalski would also like to see the lunch and dinner crowd expand into other special rooms on the property, like the sophisticated Lili Marlene’s. The room is a favorite of his due to its artistic touches like pub mirrors from Edinburgh, Scotland, benches from London, or big chairs from the Supreme Court of Massachusetts.

They will also continue to work on developing an exceptional staff, while continuing to deliver exceptional food and service consistently, he said.

“It's cool, because now I'm getting to come to here, which has all of this potential for growth. I'm getting to apply the stuff that I learned over the years – I was a dishwasher, I was a busboy, I was a server, a bartender. So, you know, I know how it feels to be in that role. I know how it feels to do that job, and how to kind of coach that person,” Kowalski said. “But having good people in place, having good food in place, and having the consistency and the efficiency to provide all of that on a regular basis – I think those are the foundation for what would turn this place into one of the lunchtime and dinnertime spots.”

More up-to-date information can be found on the Seville Quarter Facebook page.

This article originally appeared on Pensacola News Journal: Seville Quarter's restaurant reimagined to become dining destination