Michael Fusco's Riverside Grill focuses on fresh, seasonal and local foods

Fusco grew up in New Jersey, where he developed a love of food at a very young age.

“I loved the applause and reward as a young boy when I cooked with my mom for my family,” he said.

Fusco graduated from Johnson and Wales University in Providence, R.I. He received his associates in culinary arts degree and a bachelor’s in food service management. Right after graduating, he moved to Oklahoma and began cooking at Bodean’s Seafood in Tulsa.

Eventually, Fusco opened his own restaurant, Flavors, a mainstay in Tulsa for 12 years. Seeing new opportunities, he took a chance and opened a new restaurant on the banks of the Arkansas River in south Tulsa.

Fusco opened Riverside Grill two years ago. He describes it as a non-pretentious, fine dining, white-table-cloth restaurant. It focuses on fresh, seasonal and local foods.

Riverside Grill is a chef’s steakhouse. Fusco explained that the menu offers a variety of dishes from top quality, certified angus beef trimmed in-house, to the freshest seafood every day.

Because of the focus on fresh and seasonal foods, the menu at Riverside Grill is capable of changing any given day. The restaurant does not have a set time for this, but the menu is flexible around the natural order of food — when it is available and at its peak freshness.