Scenic Views and Delicious Fare At The Lookout - The Bend Magazine

Scenic Views and Delicious Fare At The Lookout

The Lookout at Bluff’s Landing serves up a masterpiece on a plate

By: Julieta Hernandez  Photos by: Rachel Benavides

On Bluff’s Landing, the sun stays shining and the Laguna Madre is welcoming. The Lookout offers waterside dining and a fresh culinary perspective to the Coastal Bend, served up by the culinary talent behind those revolving kitchen doors; and this time, Executive Chef Joe Brock let us back there to see what’s cooking.

 The pan-fried flounder with annatto rice pilaf on a Cajun crab tomato sauce and charred broccolini was born of Brock’s innate skill, which stems from Japanese and French cooking styles, and a vision on a plate.

 

“It might remind you of nature in a sense,” said Brock. “I envision looking down on this red sun in the center (to kind of commemorate that I was born in Japan), with trees that are standing up; the flounder, it’s kind of a cliff there in the center, and the rice being a part of that red sun’s aura.”

The flounder is delicately pan-fried in cornstarch and laid upon the colorful annatto pilaf, an ideal pairing for a waterfront sunset and a glass of house pinot grigio. In the making of a dish, Brock and the culinary talent at The Lookout spoke about working backward: seeing a perfect picture on a plate first before fine-tuning and filling in the blanks with different cooking methods and ingredients with the final feel in mind. “Reverse engineering, I guess?” Brock laughed.

 “We created The Lookout to be not just a restaurant, but a true dining experience here in Corpus Christi,” said owner Clara Dobson. “As much as possible, we try to work with local suppliers, small farms, and vendors to find our ingredients.”

 

With a varied menu that comes from land and sea alike, anyone can enjoy a meal by the waterfront. And that means anyone; nearly the entire menu is gluten-free, and anything can be made gluten-free upon request.

“Our team of talented chefs have worked incredibly hard to create recipes that everyone can enjoy, no matter your dietary requirements,” Dobson said. “It was really important to us to create somewhere everyone can enjoy foods that perhaps they haven’t for years.”

Equipped with a full scratch kitchen and skilled chefs enthusiastic to create, The Lookout offers guests unique dishes all made in-house, even down to the sauces and seasonings. Each menu item tells a story—one where ingredients are celebrated, creating a masterpiece on every plate.  


Contact:

4242 Laguna Shores Rd.  |  @bluffslookout