Michael Klein: Kosher cuisine, new in Merion Station

After tackling fried chicken and doughnuts, Israeli food, and Texas barbecue, restaurateurs Steven Cook and Michael Solomonov are focusing on kosher cuisine.

Citron & Rose (370 Montgomery Ave., Merion Station, 610-664-4919) is a collaboration with philanthropist David Magerman.

The contemporary dining room, lined with white subway tiles and floored with stained ebony oak, has a marble-topped chef's counter and bar (serving kosher wines, craft beers, and an extensive list of Scotches).

For inspiration, Cook and Solomonov traversed Europe to eat in kosher restaurants. Because Solomonov also is affiliated with non-kosher restaurants (Zahav, Percy Street, Federal Donuts), the kitchen is in the hands of chef de cuisine Yehuda Sichel, a Zahav veteran who grew up in a kosher home. He executes a dairy-free menu of modernized Eastern Euro dishes. Sample dishes: chopped liver with sour cherry, chocolate, and pumpernickel; mushroom knish with smoked kasha, tsimmes, and carrot-mustard; salmon gravlax; and baked whole fish en papillote, parsley potatoes, sweet peppers and riesling. Entree prices are $14 to $28.

The restaurant will be under the kosher supervision of Community Kashrus of Greater Philadelphia.

Because the restaurant will observe the Sabbath, Citron & Rose will avoid that sticky situation of the overpopular 7:30 table on a Saturday night. To respect the Sabbath, Citron & Rose is open for dinner Sunday through Thursday.

NoBL in Lansdowne, the ambitious Mediterranean small-plate BYOB in Lansdowne, closed last weekend after nearly five months. "It needs a reboot," said owner Steve Wagner, who also owns Sycamore a block away. He referred to the menu, which required more labor than anticipated to execute. Chef Sam Jacobson is chef at both restaurants. Wagner would not say when it would reopen but said it would be in "short order."

Andrew Totaro is ushering out an era in Conshohocken, as Totaro's - the landmark restaurant that grew out of his parents' blue-collar taproom on Hector Street - will close after New Year's Eve after more than 51 years.

Brian Pieri, who owns the StoneRose on Fayette Street in the borough, is the prospective buyer. Totaro said the sale was precipitated partly by his business partner Dan Kreglo's planned move to Florida. "I was looking for partners and I got no takers," Totaro said. Pieri "has so much enthusiasm, the likes of which I haven't seen [in the restaurant business] in years."

Pieri said he planned to develop a Mediterranean/pizza kitchen serving smaller plates of cooked-from-scratch pasta and pizzas from an oven to be built by an Italian craftsman. Pieri, who does not yet have a name for the new restaurant, likened the concept to Barbuzzo in Center City.

Totaro's was opened in 1961 by Vince and Yolanda Totaro as a shot-and-a-beer place. In the 1980s, it picked up a blackboard menu served in the rear dining room behind the bar, and began to find its way onto the culinary map thanks to solid word-of-mouth from Main Line patrons.

It is unrelated to Trattoria Totaro, which Andrew's brother Vincent owns nearby.

The fourth Cavanaugh's is now open in Society Hill on the former site of the Dark Horse and Dickens Inn (421 S. Second St.). Owners Patrick Pawliczek and Ken Hutchings have hired chef Ben McNamara, perhaps the best-known Dark Horse chef and an early practitioner of gastropub cuisine. (His resumé includes New Wave Cafe, St. Stephen's Green, and Philadelphia Bar & Restaurant.) Owners have introduced family-friendly deals such as the Family Roast Nights on Thursday and prime-rib nights on Friday. Hours are 2:30 p.m. to 2 a.m. Monday through Thursday, 11:30 a.m. to 2 a.m. Friday, and 9:30 a.m. to 2 a.m. weekends.

Ah, the circle of life on Head House Square: The phone is disconnected, and there's that uncomfortable lights-out look across the way at the Artful Dodger, the long-running pub.

Around the corner, another English pub is on the way - taking the building where Swanky Bubbles last was, at 10 S. Front St. Edward Strojan (a vet of Tria) of the English Gardener gift shop in Haddonfield and the British Chip Shop across Kings Highway is readying the Victoria Freehouse for a March opening.