Margin of Erin

A new chef dresses up Marigold Kitchen in fine Southern dandies.

by Trey Popp

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Published: Feb 19, 2008

Michael T. Regan Y'ALL THE RAGE: Erin O'Shea, Marigold Kitchen's new head chef, has reinvented the West Philly BYO with her take on modern Southern cuisine. (CLICK IMAGE FOR LARGER VERSION)

Some places just don't change, and for about 70 years, Marigold Kitchen was one of them. People have been filling their stomachs at the corner of 45th and Larchwood since 1934, when Penn profs frequented Marigold Tea Room, as it was first called.

But that was then. Since 2004, when chef/owner Steven Cook remade the old Victorian row house into West Philly's most lauded BYOB, reincarnation has become something of a theme. A year after Cook laid down his contemporary American vibe, he passed the reins to Michael Solomonov, who injected the Middle Eastern flavors of his native Israel into the menu. Now, Cook and Solomonov are off creating a new place, Zahav, leaving Marigold in the hands of a new chef with a new direction.

Her name is Erin O'Shea — and the direction is decidedly Southern. Before landing in Philadelphia, O'Shea was slicing her Vidalias at a place called The Frog and the Redneck in Richmond, Va. But don't go fearing green beans boiled to mush. The old Confederacy is in the midst of a culinary reawakening, and it's starting to spill over the Mason-Dixon line. The South may not rise again — but stone-ground artisanal grits just might.

Evidence of a revival abounds. The authors of the Lee Bros. Boiled Peanuts Catalogue are now contributors to The New York Times. Gourmet magazine devoted its January 2008 issue to Southern food. Earlier this month, the Burlington Free Press revealed that Vermonters are scarfing down she-crab soup.

That wasn't on O'Shea's menu when I visited, but the dishes on offer still managed to cover a lot of ground. An appetizer of shrimp and grits, a South Carolina classic, was traditional rather than innovative, but that was fine by me. The grits were creamy, the shrimp surprisingly flavorful this far from Charleston, and tufts of grated Pecorino Romano cheese gave the dish all the dressing-up it ought to suffer.

On the more creative side, a square of buttermilk-chive corn bread topped with collards, paper-thin shavings of country ham and the bright yellow yolk of a neatly trimmed sunny-side-up egg was almost too pretty to inflict a fork upon. But it turned out to be the breakfast combo I've been looking for all my life — something like eggs Benedict with an injection of Southern soul.

Sweetbread nuggets won converts who usually steer clear of pancreas. Their toothsome breading countered the often slippery texture of the glands, whose richness was expertly cut by a bed of French lentils that rang with a pleasantly acidic tanginess. The subtly hammy flavor of O'Shea's milk-white turnip soup married well with a little biscuit frosted with apple purée in the middle of the bowl.

O'Shea extends her palette further in the entrée course. Two dishes were particularly good. The first was a chicken breast — an item that big agribusiness has sucked virtually all the flavor from. This one came stuffed with pears and corn bread, whose flavors penetrated the succulent meat, while a side of braised cippolini onions added an earthier sort of sweetness to round it out. Even better was a perfectly pink cured pork tenderloin topped with pickled peaches — an almost forgotten gem of the Southern pantry that brought a dazzling ray of summer into the heart of this winter meal.

Short ribs were so tender I found myself wishing the meat had more resistance, but that's the kind of criticism that many would regard as a compliment. They came with a seasonably sensible cauliflower purée. If there was a dud among the entrées, it was the flounder fillet draped over basmati rice and topped with roasted scallions and little sweet potato sticks. The fish was perfectly cooked — it's just that the simplicity of the dish paled beside the flourishes of the others.

One thing is true of all the entrées, though (and the appetizers, too): The price is most definitely right. Most of the mains are under $20, which places Marigold's new menu among the best restaurant values in town.

In the final course, I missed the cheese plate from Cook's original menu — which featured homemade crackers and wonderful fruit mustards — but the sweets were winners. The boring sameness of warm chocolate cake got a playful makeover by means of a shot glass of vanilla malt to wash it down. Banana bread pudding was yummy and messy with a scoop of coffee ice cream. And an apple tart featured a crust reminiscent of peanut brittle, plus, in a nod to different tradition, a scoop of sour-cream ice cream.

Here's hoping that Marigold Kitchen waits a good while before reinventing itself again.

(t_popp@citypaper.net)

Marigold Kitchen

501 S. 45th St., 215-222-3699, marigoldkitchenbyob.com

Hours: Tue.-Sun., 5:30-10 p.m.; closed Monday.

Appetizers, $6-$8; Entrées, $16-$21

BYOB.

Reservations recommended.

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