Copper Bistro
This Northern Liberties addition already lends low-key style to the neighborhood. It has a way to go, but like the metal in its name, should only improve with age.
I used to think nothing was quite as dazzling in the kitchen as a set of gleaming new copper pots. But then I tried to keep the darn things clean, and quickly realized it was a thankless task for anyone who really wanted to cook.
So I've come to the conclusion that copper - no doubt one of the most wondrous metals known to chefs - is even more beautiful after a little age. Time paints it with a patina of luminous blue-green mottles that is infinitely more interesting than the uniform polish of brand-new.
I think a lot of restaurants are the same way, too, especially promising yet still imperfect new places like Copper Bistro. It's already a nice addition to Northern Liberties' growing repertoire of restaurants, with a sense of low-key, white-tablecloth style that adds a little more polish to the neighborhood's pub-centric scene. But it will only get better as the young restaurateurs who own it - boyhood friends Daniel Connelly, the chef, and Jason Serock, the manager - get a season or two more under their belts.
The cozy 45-seat dining room has a soft-touch elegance that is considerably brighter than its previous brooding Mediterranean look as Aden, with walls of patina blue reflected in the brassy glint of the copper hood that hangs over the open kitchen near the front door. A cool jazz soundtrack floats through the room as the charmingly earnest, mop-topped waiter delivers a pre-meal amuse-bouche gift, a citrusy spoonful of quick-cured salmon.
The menu that follows will likely not reveal any astonishing new culinary inventions to the savvy BYOB crowd that arrives from the Main Line, Jersey, and yes, the neighborhood. I wonder: Is there a bistro in this entire region that doesn't currently braise short ribs?
Copper Bistro doesn't buck the trend. But it does provide yet another good example of why the dish is so popular. Connelly's rib was a silken bundle of tender beef still balanced on its bone, and practically dissolved when I ate it with the mashed Yukon gold potatoes.
A grilled loin of lamb, beautifully seasoned and perfectly pink, was like devouring a slice of southern France over delicate green flageolet beans streaked with mint pesto. Enormous seared day-boat scallops were juicy and sweet beneath an earthy wild mushroom ragout.
One fad Copper Bistro thankfully does not exploit is the outlandishly-priced chicken entree (though I think anyone who spends $24 to eat chicken breast in a restaurant deserves to be disappointed). Connelly charges a very fair $17 for his - in fact, almost the entire menu is under $23 - and it is actually quite memorable. The succulent Giannone bird from Quebec was served with caramelized bosc pears over a Swiss chard tortino, and the crisp skin, sweet winter fruit, and earthy greens made a perfect harmony.
The food wasn't always harmonious. But Connelly, 33, who spent eight years blowing up mines in the Army before heading to the Restaurant School (followed by stints in Manayunk with Derek Davis), is relatively inexperienced as a chef-owner. Some of his good instincts simply need a little tweaking to reach their potential.
I love the idea of preserved lemon to spark the pairing of seared branzino with lentils, but it was so sparingly used that it was like pixie dust. The beet carpaccio starter was a colorful montage of sweet scarlet rounds topped with shavings of fennel - but the salad needed more dressing to bind the raw ingredients.
The house-made falafel was flavorful, but too pasty inside. A special venison with sweet pureed parsnips was beautifully cooked to medium-rare, and actually quite tasty, but the meat had apparently rested too long before service because it was oddly dry.
The kitchen dabbled in some sweet-and-savory pairings, but seemed uncomfortable keeping those flavors in register. The syrup cherry gastrique, for example, was too cloyingly sweet for an otherwise earthy combination of seared duck with fregola sarda couscous filled with nuggets of confit meat. A roasted lobster tail over udon noodles offered a clever contrast of sweet meat, chewy noodles, and a sneaky togarashi spice, but the orange butter sauce went overboard on sweet vanilla.
Connelly's comfort zone, it seems, really lies in more straightforward bistro preparations like the hearty bowl of plump mussels in saffron broth with grilled olive-oil crostini. Or the tender gnocchi served as the menu's vegetarian offering, tossed with arugula, pine nuts and fontina cheese.
The payoff can be rewarding when the kitchen adds a little extra effort to those preparations, like curing its own duck prosciutto (silky, salty ribbons of crimson meat and fat) for the charcuterie platter. Attention to such details can help separate one pleasant neighborhood BYO from the next, as it crafts its own distinct identity.
The desserts tell a similar story, with adequate renditions of the same old standbys - creme brulee, cheesecake and flourless chocolate tart - alongside an unexpected treat of something unique, a buttery pastry cup filled with walnuts tossed in a caramel that was still warm and chewy.
As Copper Bistro's shiny newness acquires a little patina, a quest for more of those surprises will really help it begin to gleam.