SouthFlorida.com | City Link Magazine

Not only does Alligator Alley serve up an eclectic roster of national and local bands, it also offers a menu teeming with gator. In fact, the funky Oakland Park bar and restaurant has become renowned for its gator dishes and was featured a few years ago on the Food Network's BBQ With Bobby Flay. We sat down with the Alley's Chef Iggy (a.k.a. Mark DiLeonardo) to talk gator.

Did you have much experience cooking alligator prior to coming to Alligator Alley?

I started cooking alligator at [Fort Lauderdale's] Café Bluefish, when it first opened in about 1984. They wanted me to run the kitchen, and alligator was on the menu, so I learned real quickly how to make alligator.

Growing up in Florida, were you familiar with gator dishes?

We used to play with them more than we ate them. A lot of people didn't eat them back then. But over the years, I guess with people expanding out [west] and the Seminoles moving out of the swamp, it became more popular. It was just more of a tourist thing, where, you know, "Hey, we're in Florida, we gotta eat alligator."

Do Florida gators differ significantly from Louisiana gators?

At first, we were only getting the New Orleans gator, which always seemed a little more muddy; the meat was a little dingier, a little grayish. When we started getting the Florida gator, it was real white, very clean, I guess because the water's better. They don't sit in mud all day.

The Alley has become famous for its gator ribs, which were featured on BBQ With Bobby Flay. How did that recipe come about?

At Bluefish, the supplier, whom I still use, introduced alligator ribs, but you could only get them [pre-]cooked, and they had some kind of batter on them. They were horrible. Then, when we opened up the new Alley in '99, the same guy came, and he had gator ribs, but they weren't cooked anymore. So I did them the same way as baby backs, and they were successful. Now, we're doing them different from the television show. We're slow-cooking and smoking them, so there's more of a smoky edge. I like them better; they have more flavor without drowning them in barbecue sauce.

What about gator tail?

They call the tail the tenderloin, but there's nothing tender about the tail. I get a tail, I like to smoke those slow, maybe wrap some bacon around it. But I try to keep away from the tail.

What's your favorite way to eat gator?

I like it sautéed. The sautéed gator is pan-fried in virgin olive oil and sherry. And I add cilantro because I was eating a sushi roll at Sushi Toi, and the Bangkok Roll came out and had cilantro in it. I'm like, "Awesome! Who would have ever thought?" So I started putting it on top of my alligator. I use a Szechuan sauce, which gives it a nice little bite, because the sherry is sweet.

What is the most popular gator dish you serve?

The sautéed alligator, by far, is what wins people over to alligator because of the sweetness of it.

Do you think of gator as more of a seafood or "the other" white meat?

I can go either way, but I look at it more as a chicken product, though most people categorize it as a seafood. It's not fishy. The reason people think it tastes like chicken is because they're getting it fried with the same type of breading you're getting on a chicken. And it is a white meat, very low-fat.

What has been the biggest change you've seen in the 20 years you've been cooking gator?

In the last few years, they've loosened the nuisance law. Before, [the gator] had to physically eat your poodle before they'd come and get it. Now, because they're starting to get the population back, they've loosened the lottery for hunting them. So now if it threatens your poodle, they can come out and get it; it doesn't have to actually eat it anymore. So we are getting a lot bigger gators. In all the years I've been cooking gator, usually the tails are little, like 5-inch tails, but I got, a couple of weeks ago, tails that were, like, 2 1/2 feet, so you know they're getting the nuisance gators, the big ones that are in somebody's canal.

Alligator Alley is located at 1321 E. Commercial Blvd., in Oakland Park. Call 954/771-2220 or visit Alligatoralleyflorida.com.