The first restaurant from an acclaimed Philly cafe chain is a local brunch gem, but it’s no dinner destination yet

Among the many things that have bloomed along the corridor threading the heart of Fishtown and Kensington over the past decade, North Front Street has become the Boulevard of Big Pancake Dreams.

If you haven’t already experienced the giant pancake at Middle Child Clubhouse, you’re missing out on one of the most joyful plates in Philly. Not only do these puffy cakes rise to giddy heights before getting drenched in honeyed citrus caramel, the butter pat on top grins back at you with a molded happy face.

There’s now another mega pancake vying for your brunch-time affections a few blocks north, at Percy, a two-month-old restaurant and bar from the team behind the Forîn cafes, whose breakfast-y all-day menu is served daily until 3 p.m. on the ground floor of the enormous new Urby apartment complex.

Whereas Middle Child’s pancakes go high, Percy’s spread out. Yet the Frisbee-size rounds are surprisingly light thanks to ricotta in the batter. It’s brightened by citrus in the compound butter piped into a peak at its center, poised to melt over the cinnamon sugar-dusted expanse of what amounts to a ¾-pound hotcake, helping to start your day — or induce a midday snooze.

Whichever direction you’re headed, Percy’s drink program has you covered. There are high-quality beans from Montréal’s Traffic (the same as Forîn); house-made honey wines (aka mead) made with ube and fruits, which remind me, in a good way, of slightly oxidized, not overly sweet sherry; and a cocktail called the All Night Diner, made from all-Pennsylvania spirits depth-charged with a shot of espresso for those who want to imbibe and stay awake. (Less sweet than an espresso martini, it’s more inspired by a Mexican carajillo.)

Philly’s next-gen brunch culture — exemplified by Middle Child Clubhouse, Enswell, La Jefa, Front Street Cafe, and Suraya — plays it all the ways these days, blurring the lines between coffee shop, stylish restaurant, and cocktail lounge. It’s a contrast to the focused approach of old-guard brunch icons like Sabrina’s Cafe, Sam’s Morning Glory Diner (the original), Green Eggs Cafe, and Honey’s Sit ’N Eat, which aspire to freshen up the genre with better ingredients and wacky stuffed French toast.

You’ll get your dose of updated comfort foods at these new wave bruncheries, too, but the shredded potatoes for the fancy latkes at Percy are confit in garlic oil before they’re crisped into golden bars, then topped with silken orange curls of house gravlax cured in everything spice. A bougie bump of caviar is just $4 extra. (That’s another echo of the menu at nearby Middle Child, where the “latka-ed” hash browns come with optional trout roe.) One can argue the latke + caviar riff is ubiquitous now, with the best currently at Alice. But seeing it here, I could not help but wonder if there could be something more original to add to the genre.

One might wonder if Percy is simply a hodgepodge of trends — it includes a “sound lounge” with couches, DJs spinning vinyl, and a fireplace flickering year-round — intended for residents within a few block radius, where several thousand new apartments have sprung up during the recent construction boom. (The lounge taps a current listening room boom that’s had mixed results locally, but Percy’s DJ roster showcases artists like Rich Medina, whom my colleague Dan DeLuca calls a “Philly hip-hop institution.”) There are 200 units alone in the five-story Urby that hosts Percy, many of them rented by millennials and Gen Zers who work remotely at least occasionally, consider brunch a favorite meal, and crave a third space to nibble on mushroom toast with artisan boursin while Zooming through the workday.

At any rate, I’m not convinced Percy is up to being a citywide dinner destination that can command $30 to $40 an entree, as its current evening menu asks. It’s certainly confusing set against a daytime identity built on accessible, updated comforts. But I’ve seen glimmers of potential for Percy to become a legitimate draw for brunch within the river wards.

That, it turns out, has been the priority all along. “We definitely want to be an amenity for our neighbors first,” says Seth Kligerman, 36, the general manager and co-owner of Percy along with his Forîn partners, winemaker Kyle Horne, 40; and Will Landicho, 36.

Staying focused on their most immediate audience is a solid proposition for a team that’s had success with the curated coffees, local wines, and lighter fare at three Forîns and is now eager to tackle a full-service restaurant experience.

During the daytime, the sunny space is appealing, with patterned tile floors, warm woodwork around the bar near the entrance, and mid-century style furniture in a 62-seat dining room lined with comfy blue banquettes. Designed by Shawn Hausman (Parc, Dandelion, Butcher & Singer), the effect is soothingly retro.

A tray of fresh mandel bread stuffed with walnuts, golden raisins, and cocoa, offered as a complement to Percy’s coffee program, certainly evokes wistful childhood memories. It also signals a nod to homey Jewish flavors that is one of the persistent themes here. A stack of French toast made from the house babka, swirled with a chocolate ribbon and moistened with crême anglaise before it’s topped with a cinnamon pecan, is even better than the pancakes. There’s also a house-infused mandel bread liqueur steeped with the pastry’s key ingredients — raisins, chocolate, walnuts — which is used in the All Night Diner.

Jack Smith, 30, is an a.kitchen alum and Johnson & Wales graduate who also worked in Southeast Asia for a number of months, followed by several years in Denver (including a stint at Uchi, the Japanese chain coming to Center City). He also happens to be Kligerman’s cousin.

This is his debut running a kitchen, and despite the newly constructed space, he’s had some logistical challenges to conquer, including the lack of a gas range. It has created some limitations for the kitchen, and also led to some confusing nomenclature, including the curious “Spanish omelet” that is not an omelet so much as a precooked egg casserole layered with potatoes, more closely resembling a tortilla Española — a name avoided to prevent diners from expecting a quesadilla. It was delicious nonetheless, topped with a pipérade of roasted peppers with Manchego cheese; the crispy cube of a portion was small for $20, though.

The baked egg dish is an ideal concept for an oven-centric menu and would have been a heartier value at $16. But the egg cracked into the casserole of ratatouille was overcooked well beyond the chef’s desired “dippy” yolk stage.

There were several winners here though, both on the daily brunch and dinner menu, which runs three nights a week.

The chef’s creativity pays off with a chilled zucchini version of cold vichyssoise, amped by wild garlic kosho and preserved lemon. The house duck sausage, made like Bob Evans breakfast links as an alternative to the usual pork, was a fun option for the breakfast sandwich built on house brioche with provolone and fermented carrot-fresno chile hot sauce.

I also loved Smith’s local twist on the croque monsieur, tucking South Philly-style roast pork with fermented broccoli rabe beneath a creamy gratinéed layer of Mornay cheese sauce tanged with sharp provolone.

Percy’s lamb hash is a satisfyingly rich variation on the diner standard that I also admired. It’s a smart way to repurpose meat from the lamb shank braised with guajillo and coffee over white beans, which is one of the dinner menu’s better choices, and one of several dishes here that qualify the offerings as the most caffeinated menu in town. Coffee figures prominently in the roast chicken, a moist and crispy deboned bird whose jus is deglazed with shots of espresso.

Smith’s inventive spirit benefited another poultry highlight, the Buffalo chicken deviled eggs, which manages to tuck actual chicken inside the eggs, with a chicken rillette enriched with Birchrun blue cheese and piped into the centers to great effect. But there were also moments when the chef outsmarted himself, burying a lovely whole dorade beneath so much bok choy and so many radishes that we had no chance of registering the roasted allium emulsion on its skin or the vivid aromatics of the Thai curry beneath it.

Even more confounding was a determination to incorporate Cooper Sharp into the grind of the burger as if the processed cheese had the meat-enhancing magic of bone marrow once it’s melted away. (It doesn’t.) The addition softens the beef so much that the kitchen is obliged to overcook the patty to prevent it from being mushy. Thank you to the staff’s willingness to cook my burger twice, but the replacement was equally disappointing — a failed $21 burger experiment that, as the only sub-$30 dinner entree, is a problem.

There were other small letdowns to follow — a puck of Cinnamon Toast Crunch semifreddo so deeply frozen that an affogato shot of espresso could not melt it. At least there were hot beignets to cushion the dinner’s finale, the airy fritters dusted with powdered sugar and drizzled with caramel infused with ... more coffee.

Dinner is a work in progress on multiple fronts. No matter the price point, any restaurant that clearly acknowledges upon arrival that someone is celebrating a birthday should offer some sort of gesture instead of only remembering to ask “so, whose birthday was it?” as we were walking out the door.

Percy’s standing as a destination is clearly still on hold. But there’s no shame in being the best amenity you can be in the heart of the city’s fastest growing neighborhood. The small joys in a big beautiful pancake just down the block — or a dreamy babka French toast — are their own reward.

1700 N. Front St., 215-975-0020; percyphl.com

Brunch menu daily, 9 a.m.-3 p.m. Dinner Thursday through Saturday, 5 p.m.-midnight.

Brunch plates, $13-$22; dinner entrees, $21-$42.

Wheelchair accessible.

There are several gluten-free items on the brunch menu (lamb hash, latkes, Spanish omelet) and about 75% of the dinner menu is gluten-free.

Menu highlights: Brunch: latke; croque monsieur; braised lamb hash; breakfast sandwich with duck sausage; ricotta pancakes; babka French toast; beignets. Dinner: Buffalo chicken deviled eggs; roast chicken; coffee-braised lamb.

Drinks: a full bar built from all-Pennsylvania ingredients delivers fun cocktails with simple house touches (try the watermelon-infused Crystal Lake, or the Big Iron with a house liqueur inspired by Benedictine). The house-made honey wines and bottles from local vintners (Wayvine, Pray Tell, Mural City) are solid, and sometimes better than that.