Chef Alison Barshak is known for incorporating flavors, ingredients and techniques from her travels into the ever-changing selection of dishes at her eponymous bistro. The restaurant’s contemporary American cuisine has Mediterranean, Southwestern and Asian influences — among others — with an emphasis on seafood.
The menu is updated frequently to include the freshest seafood and seasonal produce. Recent menu items include a Southwestern shrimp salad with salsa fresca; chilled seafood vichyssoise with lobster, shrimp, scallops and squid; grouper with curried mussel chowder and mango chutney; and whole pompano with pineapple salsa.
The menu of homemade desserts includes fig and raspberry tart served with homemade honey semifreddo and peach crisp. Desserts are made fresh daily.
The atmosphere at Alison at Blue Bell is warm and friendly. It is not unusual to find guests visiting friends at other tables, meeting the people at the next table and offering them a glass of wine, or sharing confidences about favorite appetizers.
Alison at Blue Bell serves a small, food-friendly list of liquors including wines, peach sangria and, soon, beer. The carefully-selected wine list includes four reds, four whites, a champagne and a sparkling wine. Guests are also welcome to bring their own bottle, for a $5 corkage fee.