Vesper: A return to Center City swank

For decades, the Vesper Club was a Mad Men-ny, ol'-boy private dining club tucked on a Center City back street. On Friday nights from the mid-'50s through at least the late '70s, that's where you'd find Frank Rizzo, for example.

Tastes changed, members died off, smoking was banned, and it was booted from its home on Sydenham Street (near 15th and Locust Streets) pending the building's sale in late 2012.

The building has been brought back as a swank, supper club-style restaurant open to the public with nightly dancing and a downstairs bar that bans cell phones.

Public premiere will be Tuesday, April 14.

The Vesper (223 S. Sydenham St.) brings together Chuck Ercole, a lawyer who owns Misconduct Tavern next door, and Brendan Smith and John Barry of the nearby Smiths Restaurant. Running the whole shebang as vice president of operations is Jim Israel, who founded and later sold the catering company Culinary Concepts. (Through Israel, the Vesper has created a catering department, booking events not only at the Vesper but at the nearby Arts Ballroom.)

Irish-born chef Ken Wallace worked at Thornton's in Dublin, which was two-star Michelin at the time.

The continental menu (here) is primarily small plates. There's a raw bar at the end of the main bar. Effectively there are five entrees (two meats, a fish, a chicken, and a vegetarian pot pie), most of which are priced either for one person or two people.

Jesse Cornell, whose resume includes Chick's Social, Sbraga, and most recently Franky Bradley's (to resurrect another old-time Philly name), heads the bar. (Menu is here.) Cornell calls the cocktails "classics without the twist" - meaning that the list of 12 drinks hew to the basics, including an old-fashioned, a daiquiri, and a Manhattan. Nine wines are by the glass.

Interior opens to a long bar seating about 20 (the wall is lined with high-tops), which segues into a comfy nook that they're calling the Skyline Room, which has a stage for live music and a dance floor. A curtain separates this area from the sumptuously appointed main dining room. Later, after dinner, the curtain will be peeled back to expand the dance area.

Cool feature off the entrance is a black rotary wall phone bearing the old Vesper number - PE5-7810. (The Vesper's number is now a prosaically 21st-century 267-930-3813.) This phone - next to a bookcase - is a hotline to the downstairs bar, open Wednesday through Saturday. Pick up the phone and speak the password to seek admittance, and the bookcase will open as a door leading downstairs. No cell-phone use is allowed, and the underground bar is naturally impervious to cell signals. If you need to make a call, there are two rotary phones on the bar. The password, by the way, will be a fairly open secret. Management will give it to concierges at the local hotels to generate a little buzz.

Dinner will be served nightly. Main bar will open at 4:30 p.m., dinner starts at 5 p.m., music (jazz, swing, singer-songwriter) begins at 5:30 p.m.