Baba On Central Launches New Raw Bar Concept, Closes Bakery

ST. PETERSBURG, FL — With little fanfare, the popular Baba on Central held the soft launch of its new concept, Barbouni at Baba, on Saturday evening.

With a simple Instagram post, the restaurant introduced diners to its new raw bar — serving everything from oysters on a half shell and shrimp cocktails to chilled Maine hard shell lobsters — to diners.

“We just left the door open. We didn’t say much. Just a quick social media posts and we saw several dozen guests, more than we thought,” Andrew Duncan, chef de cuisine, told Patch. “Everybody seemed to have a really great time.”

Baba, which opened in 2019, closed its bakery to make way for Barbouni.

“We loved the concept (of the bakery;) we thought it was beautiful, but to be honest it just wasn’t pulling its weight, unfortunately,” he said. “We decided to rebrand and try something new, and asked ourselves, ‘What isn’t being offered in St. Pete?’ At the same time, what fits our ethos and cuisines while we’re also doing something dynamic and new.”

The restaurant’s culinary team decided to open a classic raw bar in the space. The move was inspired by both trendy eateries in other cities, like New York and Miami, as well as Greek ouzeris, where guests drink ouzo and enjoy small — mostly raw, fresh seafood — plates, Duncan said.

Barbouni’s will offer feature set staff favorites, including a variety of oysters — mainly from the East Coast — as well as local shrimp, large prawns, Maine lobsters, raw fish crudos, Mediterranean-style sashimi and even more exotic offerings like sea urchin, from time to time.

The menu is meant to be “fairly agile and changing with whatever we find available and whatever we’re happy with, too,” Duncan said. “With the nature of a small space like this, things are subject to change based on seasonality and availability.”

What’s special about the concept is its “large and in-depth conservas menu,” he added.

These canned seafood products have been popular on the Iberian Peninsula for hundreds of years.

“They take this high-quality food, cooking and canning it,” Duncan said. “It’s usually eaten as a light meal or as an appetizer. You open a can of beautiful mackerel, and sprinkle it with a little parsley, lemon and butter. It’s eaten the same way as a cheese and charcuterie, but the flavor profile is different.”

There aren’t many restaurants in St. Petersburg, let alone the Tampa Bay area, that offer conservas, he added. “It’s something that’s kind of having its moment elsewhere in the country — New York, Chicago, Los Angeles. It’s very trendy right now. … Unfortunately, fish in a can tends to have a very bad rep in America.”

For now, Barbouni’s will only open Friday through Sunday. The plan is for the raw bar to eventually open six days a week and could, potentially, see the addition of weekend brunch.

“This is giving us the chance to test out our system without flooding it and crashing and burning,” Duncan said.

The small space seats about 26 people between the bar and patio seating and is available for special events.

Baba’s team is excited to bring this concept to the city.

“It’s a style of food that’s not really being served anywhere else in St. Pete, right now,” he said. “We asked ourselves, ‘What kind of restaurant, food, space isn’t really being done right now that St. Pete could really use?’ We’re just excited by the novelty of it. It’s not a new concept for the world by any means, but it’s new here. And St. Pete is a dynamic dining scene. We’re happy to be a part of that and pushing it forward.”