Mattison's Restaurants, Grill, Steakhouse & Catering in Sarasota, Siesta Key, Longboat Key and Bradenton, Wedding Caterer

Sarasota Herald Tribune's Style Magazine, Style Magazine " March 2005

The Midas Touch
By Deborah Seeber / Photos by Mark Sickles

If you ask Paul Mattison when he sleeps, he'll laugh. It's clear that right now he's too busy and having too much fun to slow down. With four restaurants, from St. Petersburg to Siesta Key, a bustling catering business and a few other irons in the fire, he s always on the move. He never seems to take himself or life too seriously, which may just be the key to his success.

Over the years that we have talked, Mattison has impressed me as resilient, innovative and, above all, indefatigable. He has looked back at adversity either with humor or philosophic acceptance.

Whether spinning the tale of a shiitake business "mushrooming" out of control, recounting the story of gallons of scorched turkey gravy on the eve of an 800-cover Thanksgiving Day event, or referring to the demise of his partnership at The Summerhouse, he has managed to turn life's lemons into lemonade. While other businesses on Main Street were struggling to stay afloat amid the chaos of torn-up streets, Mattison patiently waited for the rubble to clear while turning his energy to a new restaurant on Siesta Key. Most restaurateurs would be daunted by the double wham-my of two places opening and reopening almost simultaneously, but not Mattison.

"I love what I do," he says as way of explaining how he can juggle so many plates at one time. "And I have great people working for me, some for many years." The right concept helps, too. Mattison's grilles - the Siesta Grille on Siesta Key and Mattison's City Grille downtown - might be seen as sister restaurants. While each has its own unique dishes emphasizing locale - laid back on the Key, more cosmopolitan, downtown - there are signature dishes one will find at both venues: a salad of seasonal greens with gorgonzola and pine nuts; shrimp, tempura-flashed with a Thai grace note; or a marvelous take on Greek salad, featuring baby spinach, cucumber-yogurt sauce, and rib lamb chops cooked to order.

There are many nods on the menu to Mattison's Italian-American upbringing in upstate New York; his grandmother's crispy fried artichoke hearts; the presence of classic ingredients and dishes, such as fresh mozzarella, basil andrisotto. One senses the seare not merely an attempt to capitalize on the ever-increasing popularity of Italian cuisine here, but a part of Mattison's make up, an inherent knowledge of what pleases, born of early years spent in a warm, Italian kitchen where food reigned supreme.