Ernest Richard Dematt, 60, of the Gold Standard restaurant

Ernest Richard Dematt, 60, part of the seat-of-the-pants adventure that was the West Philadelphia restaurant the Gold Standard in the early 1980s, died Monday, Feb. 27, at Pennsylvania Hospital of complications from kidney cancer.

Mr. Dematt, known by his middle name, was a longtime resident of University City.

Roger Harman, an owner of the Gold Standard, now at 48th Street and Baltimore Avenue, said that from 2005 to late 2011, Mr. Dematt was the baker in the eatery's most recent incarnation.

The adventures happened earlier.

"He worked at the original Gold Standard, a little storefront that we opened in 1979," Harman said. "It was a beautiful place that just served dinner . . . originally on 47th near Chester."

Harman said that, with partner Duane Ball, "we had, like, four to six people working."

"One night you might cook, the next you might be a waiter." Mr. Dematt, he said, "was a great cook and a great waiter."

It was, Harman said, stressful.

"We changed the menu every week completely. We would rotate who was in charge of the menu. . . .

"The first couple of nights" in a given week, "if you were in charge of the menu, you would start the week cooking" whatever you had written into the menu.

"Some dishes were very successful, some not so," he said. "An adventure."

After Mr. Dematt left the Gold Standard in 1983, Harman said, the restaurant moved into the Christian Association building on the campus of the University of Pennsylvania, where its main dining room was called the Palladium.

Mr. Dematt worked as a waiter at several Philadelphia restaurants, Harman said, before becoming a cook in the late 1990s at what is now Marigold Kitchen, at 45th Street and Larchwood Avenue.

John Rastelli, whose family has owned the Marigold and its building for more than 40 years, said Mr. Dematt then leased the restaurant for "three years, four years," until August 2003.

Born in Butler, Pa., Mr. Dematt graduated from Butler Area Senior High School in 1969 and from Pennsylvania State University in 1973, said his brother, Joseph.

Mr. Dematt began his career then as a waiter at La Camargue, the former restaurant across Walnut Street from the Forrest Theatre.

Besides his brother, Mr. Dematt is survived by two nieces.

A memorial service is being planned.