
DATE: Thursday, October 23, 1997            TAG: 9710210107

SECTION: NORFOLK COMPASS         PAGE: 02   EDITION: FINAL 

COLUMN: ON THE TOWN 

TYPE: RESTAURANT REVIEW 

SOURCE: Sam Martinette 

                                            LENGTH:   89 lines

HIDDEN GEM: AMORY'S 22ND STREET A SEAFOOD HOUSE WORTH LOOKING FOR

When Amory's 22nd Street Seafood restaurant opened last November, I made a mental note to wait to write about it and then forgot, simply because the 70-seat eatery is off the beaten track.

A gentle nudge from owner Michelle Amory's friend and fellow restaurateur, Gary McIntyre of The Wild Monkey, set me aright, and a visit last Saturday convinced me that Amory's is a hidden gem, tucked away in the 22nd Street shopping center on Colonial Avenue that houses the Bamboo Hut/Pastavita operation.

What a surprise to find a first-rate seafood house with a Northern California feel, offering straight-forward Chesapeake Bay seafood in a traditional presentation. Soft lighting and cool West Coast jazz set the tone for the evening, and I could almost picture a ``Beat Generation'' writer on a stool before the brick wall, reading poetry or a short story.

The poetry, however, was in the food - in the rich she crab soup and juicy oysters on the half shell, and in the scallops, shrimp, crab meat and flounder.

Michelle Amory wasn't surprised I had forgotten she was there. Her business card bears the legend ``worth looking for.'' The restaurant is her creation, literally, since she and friends did much of the renovation of the old Ferguson Associates office, building kitchen walls, painting, even stripping, refinishing and staining all of the tables.

``I basically gutted it,'' Amory explained. ``I knocked out the walls myself, and a friend built the bar. It took six months to get the restaurant ready to open.''

If Amory and seafood sound familiar, that's because Michelle's father has Amory's Seafood restaurant in Churchland, and her brother David owns Amory's Wharf on the downtown Portsmouth waterfront.

``I'm the sixth generation of Amorys to have been in the water and seafood industry,'' she said. Family still operates Amory's Seafood in Hampton, where trawlers unload their catch every day.

Michelle Amory worked in her dad's restaurant growing up, and at Rudee's in Virginia Beach while in college, but she set her sights on a career in communications, and had a television show for a time in the Outer Banks of North Carolina.

``I was working with environmental issues as a consultant and making quite a bit of money, when I got disgusted with the way the Allen administration deals with Virginia's environmental laws,'' Amory said. ``So instead of trying to save fish, I decided to cook 'em up and serve them.''

The menu at Amory's offers oysters and clams on the half shell (six for $3.95, $6.95 a dozen); fried shrimp and oysters, steamed clams, or roasted oysters ($7.50); steamed mussels in garlic butter ($5.95); crab balls or Dungeoness crab ($7.95), among appetizers; with Greek ($5.95) or Caesar ($4.50) salads, and seafood salads including tuna, crab and shrimp ($6.95).

Sandwiches include oyster, flounder, scallop, and crabcake ($6.95); a burger or chicken ($5.95); even a delmonico steak, or roast pork and pastrami combination ($6.95). Lobster roll ($8.95) is a New England favorite rarely found here.

Entrees, served with giant hushpuppies and a choice of two vegetables include broiled or fried crabcakes, or flounder ($14.95); fried or sauteed shrimp or scallops, or a combination of both ($12.95); fried or sauteed shrimp and oysters ($12.95); sauteed shrimp or scallops with backfin crabmeat ($13.95); pan-broiled oysters and scallops ($13.95). There's also a seafood combo of lightly breaded shrimp, scallops, oysters, crabcake and a fish fillet ($16.95); Flounder Supreme, with backfin, oysters, shrimp, and scallops ($17.95); a lobster tail with backfin, or steamed King Crab legs ($24.95); and a grilled 16-ounce lobster tail ($28.95). Add a house salad for $1.

A 12-ounce delmonico steak ($14.95) may be ordered with fried or sauteed scallops ($16.95); with backfin or a broiled or fried crabcake ($17.95); with a lobster tail ($22.95); and in other combinations.

We shared sauteed seafood, scallops, crabmeat and shrimp - fresh and clean to the taste - and a delicious fried combo including butterflied shrimp, crabcake and flounder. The she crab soup was excellent, and Amory's offers butter beans, which ranks high with me. The portions were generous. Ghent finally has a fine seafood restaurant.

``The family legacy has become a big part of it,'' Michelle Amory explained. ``I'm the first female in the family to ever do anything with the heritage of my family.'' ILLUSTRATION: Graphic

AT A GLANCE

WHAT: Amory's 22nd Street

WHERE: 2200 Colonial Ave., No. 14, 622-0133.

FOOD: Traditional seafood; full ABC.

PRICES: Most entrees $13 to $18 range.

HOURS: Lunch and dinner, Tuesday-Friday; opens at 5:30 p.m.

Saturday and Sunday; live music periodically.; call for closing

time.