At Seagar’s, Steakhouse Fare Goes Beyond Prime Cuts And Potatoes

At first glance, Seagar’s Prime Steaks & Seafood at the Hilton Sandestin Golf Resort & Spa in South Walton, Florida, looks like your typical swanky steakhouse—dark polished wood, live piano music, an impressive wine list. And while they serve staples like seafood towers and prime steaks, on their new summer menu you’ll also find fresh Gulf seafood showcased in unique ways, flower petals rolled into fresh pasta and a clear key lime pie (more on that later).

The 2022 summer menu was developed by Fleetwood Covington, chef de cuisine at Seagar’s. Covington is a relatively new addition to the Seagar’s team, and with his second seasonal menu the chef is leaning more confidently into his distinct cooking style. For summer, he sought to showcase and champion local ingredients. “Destin, Florida, in my opinion, offers some of the best fishing waters on the planet full of red snapper and Gulf grouper,” he said. “I wanted seafood to be one of the main focuses of the summer menu because when I think summer, I think fresh seafood. Located directly along the Gulf Coast, we’re very fortunate to have purveyors who provide us with some of the freshest fish in the country.”

On the seafood front, one of the standout dishes is a monochromatic bluefin tuna ceviche with cubed watermelon and heirloom tomatoes that are cut to the same size. Ensuring these three elements were all the same color was a process of trial and error. “We had to figure out what kind of heirlooms to use, and we needed to change the way the watermelon looked from a color palette standpoint,” Covington said. When the final dish was plated, his team knew they had succeeded when they couldn’t tell the three ingredients apart. “I really want guests to enjoy and feel like they are discovering something through the food that they eat when they dine at Seagar’s,” he said.

For dessert, diners will find a taste of Covington’s childhood. “The desserts program at Seagar’s is and always will be very nostalgic to me because I loved sweets growing up as a kid,” he said. One of the new summer desserts is a deconstructed banana pudding featuring vanilla shortbread, brûléed banana, and banana and rum custard. It was inspired by a banana pudding Covington’s grandmother used to make, with some tweaks to elevate the dish and make it more modern. The other new dessert is a key lime pie with a transparent filling. The crust is Covington’s grandmother’s recipe, and the molecular gastronomy involved in making a clear filling is a nod to one of Covington’s culinary heroes, Grant Achatz. “We take different memories and concepts and recreate them into something new,” Covington said. “Our culinary team is always trying to reinvent traditional dishes to keep the dining experience exciting for our guests.”

Diners have been enjoying the Seagar’s summer 2022 menu for a few weeks now, and Covington notes that the response has been overwhelming. “Seagar’s ruthless pursuit of the avant-garde is refreshing to a lot of guests,” he said. “The diver scallop appetizer, for example, features a unique floral laminated pasta. I will see the dish go to a table and diners will just stare at the floral pasta, then when I glance back 15 minutes later there is not one bite left on the plate. That’s evidence that we’re on the right track.”

Ever the culinary creative, Covington is already planning the fall menu. “Fall is my favorite time of year, and there is a lot that the season encompasses that I wanted to be able to have our diners experience from a menu standpoint,” he said. “Seagar’s is already really great—the food is delicious and the service is top-notch, but as somebody who is a perfectionist the question for me has become, how do we continue to raise the bar, press harder into concepts, push things further, live up to expectations from prior menus and heighten the overall guest experience?” The fall menu will combine elements from the chef’s South Carolina upbringing (like the smell of bonfires) with classic seasonal flavors like apple, pumpkin, ginger and brûléed peach. “The next seasonal menu will offer items that will hopefully bring diners back to when they were a kid or remind them of their past experiences and memories, as well as my own,” he said.