Tampa, Florida
Thursday evening, I had dinner at Meat Market Steakhouse in South Tampa, tucked into Hyde Park Village — that upscale mixed-use area with living spaces, retail, a movie theater, and restaurants all built together. Every time I’d driven past Meat Market before, it was busy. Thursday night was the night I finally made a reservation and found out why.
The Room
This is clearly an in, happening spot right now. I’d booked ahead, and the place was completely full — bar, interior, exterior, even through a Tampa summer — with a line of people still waiting to get in. Always a good sign for the kitchen.
We were seated right on time, and the service stayed sharp the whole evening. Attentive to the point of nearly being too much: water glasses never dropped below full, drinks stayed topped off, plates cleared the moment we finished. When we asked a passing question about their coffee cups, the manager himself came over to answer it — more on that later.
They offer a choice of bottled or filtered water at the start. We went filtered, and it stayed full throughout.
The Bar (Which I Skipped)
I’m in the middle of a not-drinking-for-health-reasons phase, so I can’t speak to the cocktails from experience, but the list was genuinely impressive to look at. Four different Old Fashioneds on the menu — always a good sign — plus a mix of sweeter and stronger builds, and an extensive wine list beyond that. Plenty here for anyone looking for a serious drink program. I just wasn’t the one testing it this round.
Oysters
We started with oysters. Four species available Thursday night; I asked the waiter which was smallest, and the Massachusetts-sourced option won. A dozen of those arrived on a raised plate with a rack underneath — the kind of presentation you sometimes see under a pizza, functional and a nice visual touch at the same time.
The oysters themselves were very fresh. Served with horseradish and cocktail sauce, which I ignore on principle — cocktail sauce just buries the oyster’s actual flavor. The freshly ground horseradish sauce, though, had a real kick, and I used it on two or three. Most importantly, they had a proper mignonette. In my opinion, mignonette is the correct accompaniment for oysters — it enhances rather than overpowers — and this one did exactly that. Tiny micro-spoons came alongside it for precise dosing onto each oyster, which made me laugh at first, but by the end I’d come around completely. Far more accurate than trying to tip the whole container. All twelve oysters disappeared happily.
Skipping to the Entrées
We skipped the salad course, betting correctly that dessert would need the room. This is a steakhouse — when in Rome, order the steak.
My friend had an 8oz Prime, which was very good — nothing made it into a to-go box. Since it was my first visit, I went for the premium option: a 7oz Wagyu Filet. Wagyu is expensive, and this was A5, the designation for a specific Japanese province’s grading. It performed exactly as advertised — nearly melts in your mouth, needing only the lightest chew, tender in a way that’s hard to fully process while eating it.
The waiter offered to enhance the steak — truffle butter, bone marrow, Blue Crab Oscar style, a lobster tail on top, all listed as add-ons. Normally I’ll try those enhancements on a more traditional steak. On the Wagyu, I hesitated — why mess with something already that good — but the waiter suggested the roasted Wagyu bone marrow specifically, framing it as an enhancer rather than a flavor change, the same role the mignonette played for the oysters. He’d been right about everything else, so I trusted the call. I tried the steak both with and without. No clear winner — genuinely good both ways, which says more about the steak than the sauce.
One menu note: the printed menu lists the 7oz Wagyu as Australian, but the waiter specifically called it A5 from Japan. I’m assuming he was right and the menu just hasn’t caught up.
Sides
Like a lot of steakhouses, the entrées don’t come with sides included here. We tried two: the standard menu’s Crispy Brussels Sprouts — bacon, thinly sliced almonds, pickled red onion, genuinely good, nothing left over — and a daily special, smoked carrots with a shoyu-style Asian sauce, a generous portion that also didn’t survive to a to-go box. Both sides were excellent. Neither came close to the quality of the meat, but that’s a compliment to the meat, not a knock on the sides.
Dessert
Skipping alcohol and skipping salad left plenty of room for dessert. The specials that night included a peach crème brûlée and red velvet cake, both tempting, but the standard menu’s signature item pulled us in: the Flaming Key Lime Pie. That sounded like dinner and a show rather than just food, so we split one to see for ourselves.
They flame it tableside with tequila, then torch both the key lime custard and the coconut gelato. Genuinely good theater, and it delivered on flavor too. This isn’t a traditional crusted pie — more a key lime custard with a graham cracker crumble, torched meringue on top, served alongside coconut gelato, with chunks of passionfruit running through a white chocolate glaze connecting the custard and gelato. Well executed across the board — looked great, tasted great, disappeared fast.
The Tea Cups
With dessert I ordered a caffeine-free rooibos tea, served French press style — fun on its own, with a sugar stick you swirl into the hot tea to dissolve rather than a spoon and packet. But the real story wasn’t the tea. It was the cups.
They’re translucent, and unlike most sushi restaurants where a ceramic teacup gets too hot to comfortably hold, these stayed cool to the touch despite the tea inside being properly hot. We asked the waiter about it, and he brought the manager over, who admitted — with no pretense — that they’d sourced them off Amazon. Simple double-wall insulated glass, nothing exotic, and inexpensive. They use the same style, just smaller, for espresso. My friend got curious and had them bring out a tiny espresso shot in one just to see. All’s well that ends well.
The One Complaint
Noise. This is a genuinely hopping restaurant, and even on a Thursday, the room was full of groups — some business, some pleasure, plenty drinking, most talking loudly enough to be heard over everyone else. It would be a tough spot for a first date purely on conversational grounds. Everything else about the evening was excellent.
The Verdict
Wagyu that lives up to its reputation, an oyster program that respects the oyster, tableside theater with the key lime pie, and a manager willing to admit the good teacups came from Amazon. Meat Market earns the line out front.
The Menu
Meat Market Steakhouse — Tampa, FL (Hyde Park Village) Cuisine: Steakhouse Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐½
