This one won't let go
Top chef Terence Feury, hooked by the tiny tank that is Fork, is hands-on all the way.
From the moody, palm-fringed dining room at Fork, you can view the catch that is Terence Feury, framed in the stainless steel of the open kitchen, dark bistro apron past the knee, shaven head glinting in the light from above.
He's a trophy fish, an exceedingly big fish (time at Le Bernardin in New York, top chef jobs with various Ritz-Carltons and, most visibly, before its demise, the city's celebrated Striped Bass), suddenly, though ostensibly contentedly, aswim in a far, far littler pond.
How much littler? At his last stop, the sprawling, now-downsizing Maia in Villanova, he presided over 30 cooks; at Old City's Fork, he commands 10. Maia could seat 400 between its fine-dining room and downstairs bistro; at Fork, you can squeeze in maybe 120, if you count every seat in the private dining rooms (40) and the intimate bar up front (11).
In fact, Maia's kitchen alone - which Feury shared for a stressful six months with his brother Patrick (who also oversees Nectar in Berwyn) - is more than 4,000 square feet, almost twice the size of Fork's entire footprint.
"We're still tiptoeing around until we get to know each other better," says Fork owner Ellen Yin, who hired Feury, 41, to replace her retiring chef and friend, the poetic Thien Ngo. "But he seems so serious; so happy to be at work. He's in the kitchen morning till night."
Indeed, he is, a chef in his element, calmly sauteing on the line, making pastas, hand-grinding sausage. Even in his larger venues, he kept a hand in by choice. But in these tighter digs, hands-on is almost a requirement.
So you could notice, just two weeks into his tenure, trademark Feury touches emerging. With the tender block of braised pork belly was a slice of poached Granny Smith apple, its center stuffed with the house-ground sausage.
With the seared Long Island duck breast came a rustic hash, the local turnips diced with duck legs corned on the premises. And for a special on the Wednesday "Chef's Bistro Menu" in adjoining Fork:etc., he'd sliced up Barnegat Bay day-boat scallops delivered by his legendary Striped Bass fish supplier Tony McCarthy that were so fresh, Feury said, "they were still wriggling": The 18 diners at the sharing table that night had them showcased in an uncomplicated seviche, "cooked" with jalapeno, lime juice, and onion.
Estimable Fork will remain a new American bistro, not convert to an all-fish menu. But Feury is making full use, nonetheless, of his seafood contacts. My portion of crispy-skinned, elegantly moist wild striped bass one evening was from a prime 25-pounder procured by McCarthy from a fishing boat off North Carolina. (The glazed salsify, golden beets, and turnips served with the bass were from local farms, Green Meadow in Gap and Branch Creek in Perkasie among them.)
Feury is brainstorming with two loyalists he brought along with him, under-chefs Andrew Wood and Michael Ryan, who served with Feury at Maia, and in Ryan's case, at Striped Bass as well. One possibility: centering the no-reservations Wednesday chef's table each week on a whole animal or fish. Recently the centerpiece was a Lancaster County suckling pig, boned and stuffed with sausage and pork butt. Future contenders? Spring lamb, maybe, striped bass, or baby goat.
One thing that hasn't downsized by Feury's account is the amount of work. He has less to manage, which means more time to actually cook - to roll the gnocchi himself, reduce the sauce, make the salad dressing: "There's a 99.9 percent chance," he says, that the food on your plate on any given day has had the Feury touch - and not just in the figurative sense.
Fork
306 Market St.
215-625-9425
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