Top restaurateurs team up at Cru

PHOTO BY KAREN FELDMAN Shannon Yates and Harold Balink at Cru Restaurant. Shannon Yates and Harold Balink have been at the forefront of the local restaurant scene for the past decade. Now they are teaming up to pour their considerable collective energy into a single enterprise: Cru.

Mr. Yates, who created the Bell Tower hot spot then left for a while to revive his former creation, Bacchus, returned to the bar and restaurant a couple of months ago. Mr. Balink, who owned and operated Harold's On Bay then the popular bar and tapas joint, H2, in downtown Fort Myers, recently parted ways with his partners there and was looking for a new opportunity.

"I am ecstatic," says Mr. Balink. "We're the yin and yang of the restaurant business. He's a marketing genius and I think I bring a solid ground game, a consistency and deep-seated food and wine knowledge. We both have a great work ethic and both of us have that natural desire to please people."

Mr. Yates seems equally enthusiastic. "I can't say enough about Harold's positive energy," he says. "He really understands and believes the same things I do. He's going to allow us to take the restaurant to a level it's never been at before."

The management team consists of Mr. Balink, who will be the executive chef and overseer of the wine program; Mr. Yates, who will serve as the tasca (bar) chef; Lee Richardson as general manager; and Kenny Tolles as bar manager. Liz and John Kagan remain the owners.

The restaurant will get a revamp at the same time with a new look for the dining room and an expanded private room for meetings and special events. Rather than shutting down for the renovations, Mr. Yates says Cru will be closed on Sundays and won't serve lunch for a while.

He says his cooking station in the bar will double in size, allowing him to offer greater variety, including soups, fresh pastas and lots of proteins. Small plates will continue to be the primary focus.

"It's still a bar but we're trying to transform those bar seats into a place where people come and eat," he says.

He expects his new cooking station to be operational in a couple of weeks.

The options offered by the new arrangement should allow customers to stop in more often.

"I really believe we're creating something where people will be able to come four times a week," Mr. Balink says. "You'll be able to have drinks or lunch on Monday, late-night tapas on Wednesday with Shannon, a business dinner on Thursday and then bring your wife in for dinner in the restaurant on Friday."

Prices will be moderate, he says, with a wine list that reflects both of their tastes.

"We won't have any $50 steaks or a $100-a-person ticket average," Mr. Balink says. "It will be real food, the menu will change a lot and it will be imaginative and fun."

Highlights from his starter menu include mango crab cakes with vanilla butter sauce, crab bisque, shrimp tempura with kimchee mayo, tenderloin tartare, scallops with white truffle pecorino potatoes and smoked bacon, prime New York strip with garlic mash and Marsala sauce, poached yellowtail with lobster tomato nage, créme brulee and warm white chocolate peach bread pudding with caramel sauce. Appetizers run $4-$12, entrees $16-$27 and desserts $7-$12.

They'll expand the menu in November, once the renovations are done and everyone is settled in.

Meanwhile, dinner will start at 5:30 p.m. and run until 10 p.m. Monday through Thursday and until 11 p.m. Friday and Saturday. The bar will remain open later.