Expanded Menu, Bigger Place

Chef Chris Trovas beamed as he reflected on the private, Italian wine tasting dinner he had served the night before.

He values such occasions as opportunities to push himself and truly shine.

“We had big boards with picanha steak on them,” Trovas described the fare. “Brussels sprouts. Parsnip puree. We had pork osso bucco for the main course and paired it with a Barbaresco and a Barolo, side by side.”

Both wines are made from nebbiolo grapes, Trovas explained, but Barbaresco is a traditional, young, fermented wine, whereas a Barolo spends three years in the barrel and two years in the bottle before it is sold.

“The response was amazing when the diners discovered the difference between the two wines,” the chef said. “It was an eye-opening part of the dinner.”

Trovas thrives on delivering enjoyable, memorable and sometimes unexpected experiences to diners. He had thought about retiring before committing to his latest project, Wild Olives 30A, located in a new Ricky Ruckus development on South Walton’s renowned scenic highway.

An expansion from the original Wild Olives location, the new dining room features seating for 141 and a full bar. Photo by Dave Barfield

“Building it was a big ordeal, but after being in the business for basically my whole life, I wanted to have my dream restaurant,” Trovas said. “Everything I ever wanted in a restaurant and never had, I tried to put in this one. Ninety-nine percent of it came out exactly like I wanted it.”

Trovas said he wanted his building to have a South Beach VIP vibe and feel. To achieve that goal, he retained designer Walt Chancey, who has been active lately in creating spectacular homes at Alys Beach.

An early fascination

Trovas has been intrigued by food preparation since he was a small boy growing up in Texas. His mother used to place a bar stool in front of the kitchen sink so that young Chris could help out by washing the dishes. He always wanted to be in the kitchen.

At the University of Houston, Trovas majored in hotel and restaurant management and played middle linebacker and long snapper on the football team. Before he had his first restaurant, he worked for Weston Hotels.

Yielding to wanderlust, Trovas departed Texas in the early 2000s, headed, he thought, for Key West. He never made it.

“I came through this area, fell in love with it and decided to stay,” Trovas said.

In 2005, he opened a restaurant in Rosemary Beach that he would operate for 15 years. It emphasized Mediterranean cuisine, just like Wild Olives 30A, but was less than a third of the size of his new place.

While the tuna poke and paprika chicken are new menu mainstays, dishes like the Greek-style catch will rotate the featured fish daily based on Gulf-fresh deliveries. Photo by Dave Barfield

“Rosemary Beach was a classic little Norman Rockwell town,” Trovas said in recalling his early days in South Walton. “It’s been amazing to watch the evolution of 30A. I used to joke that if you had a blowout and wound up at the side of the road, you would be alligator food because no one would find you. Now if you have a blowout, you’ll immediately run into someone on a bicycle or a golf cart, and you’ll be right in front of a house.”

At 7,000 square feet, Wild Olives 30A seats 141 and offers something that the Rosemary Beach location did not: a full bar.

Nick Robison is the bar manager, and Trovas raves about him.

“He’s like a chef,” he said. “The staff sampled his cocktails before we opened. He’d make a margarita, and we all agreed it was a good drink, and then he’d add a drop of rose water or orange extract and it was over the top. Watching him prepare his cocktails is exciting for me because it’s very similar to what I do.”

Wine connoisseur

While the bar is a welcome new complement, Trovas is a chef with a passion for wine.

Front-of-house manager Slayde Martin oversees it all while crafting signature cocktails and curating wine pairings. Photo by Dave Barfield

“We named it The Wine List,” Trovas said of the wine shop that adjoins Wild Olives 30A. “You can pick any bottle of wine you want, bring it back to the restaurant and we will give you full wine service. And there is no corkage fee.”

Slayde Martin, a Texas native like Trovas, is the front-of-house manager and is easily recognized with his shaved head and trophy beard.

“He does it all,” his boss said. “I just boil water.”

Martin’s wife, Alicia, is the personal assistant to Trovas and the management team. Jeff Simpson is Trovas’ right-hand man in the kitchen and worked with him in Rosemary Beach. Prospective employees complete a five-day tryout period after which the chef decides if they are keepers.

“I am very, very fortunate,” Trovas said. “I have the best staff on 30A. At the restaurant, we are all part of a family, and people can sense that.”

With the larger restaurant has come more expansive menus. Trovas has added several vegan options. He endeavors to source his produce locally and obtains never-frozen fish from seafood dealers in Destin, Panama City and Apalachicola.

On Trovas’ dinner menu, the seafood entrees are all listed as “catch” versus specific fish species.

“Every day is different,” Trovas said. “I don’t know what the boats are gonna catch. In the last few days, we’ve had golden tilefish and cobia. One day, they brought me yellowfin tuna.”

Trovas gets grass-fed, free-range beef from Joyce Farms in North Carolina.

Greek Style Catch with Shrimp. Photo by Dave Barfield

“It’s a spectacular product, the best,” he said. “It makes me look like a really good chef.”

Trovas, 60, shares a home on Choctawhatchee Bay with his black lab, Bear. Privacy affords him uninterrupted periods in which to think about menus and dream up dishes with which to freshen his menus, something he does quarterly.

“Life outside of the restaurant doesn’t exist,” Trovas said. “I treat this place as if it were my own home. It’s long hours, but I get the enjoyment of watching people thoroughly enjoy fine food. When somebody turns to me and says, ‘Oh, you paired the prawns with this flavor profile with this vermentino that we were drinking, and it was perfect,’ I get tremendous satisfaction from that.”

Wild Olives 30A

Wild Olives 30A is located at 4771 E. County Highway 30A in South Walton County. To check out his latest menu, visit wildolives30A.com.