Ohio Player

Centennial Café breathes tasty life into a storied building.

by Elisa Ludwig

At the 1876 Centennial Exhibition, you could sample innovations like English pickles, Worcestershire sauce, French chocolates, Hires root beer and popcorn.

At Centennial Café, a eatery that opened last December in Fairmount Park's newly restored Ohio House, the big draw is a brisket sandwich.

The stone-faced building, originally constructed for the Exhibition, is one of two structures left from that event. (The other is Memorial Hall.) It's a stately Victorian affair, set just off the intersection of Belmont Avenue and Montgomery Drive. In the front room, a mural-size etching depicting the Ohio House at its momentous opening hangs above the counter, with its displays of salads, baked goods and candied pretzel sticks.

The service here is awkward — you might be attended to by one counterperson too many. Or you might be told that Boston clam chowder is entirely different from New England clam chowder. As it's served here, it isn't — though the soup, creamy and peppery with plump little clams, is pretty good.

But Centennial oozes historic charm and, with its ample parking, provides a needed stop-off in the midst of the enormous park. The cozy sitting rooms, painted an orchid purple and streaming with light through 8-foot windows, seem to be a lunchtime favorite with area employees.

The salads, with house-smoked chicken or tuna, olives and sliced avocado, are simple and fresh. A smoked turkey and sharp provolone sandwich with Dijon mustard arrives on crusty bread, warm and quilted from pressing. A meatless rendition includes whatever vegetables are on hand. On a recent visit, that meant spinach, yellow and red pepper, avocado and crumbled blue cheese, with horseradish sauce on the side. Given the panini treatment, these disparate-sounding ingredients somehow melded favorably.

One staffer bakes thin, crispy chocolate chip cookies, and GM Doree M. Vereen is responsible for an array of other goodies — scones, brownies, sugary-glazed mini bundt-shaped carrot cakes.

Then, of course, there's the brisket, owner/developer David Groverman's signature item. The lean top-round beef, also smoked on the premises, is thinly sliced, lightly laced with "special sauce" (a sweet slather strewn with translucent onions) and tucked into a Kaiser roll. Though it has the flavor impact of the sloppiest of sandwiches, it's a demure little package that requires but a single napkin for mouth dabbing. Modern innovation at its best.

(e_ludwig@citypaper.net)

Centennial Café

4700 States Drive (off Belmont Avenue)215-877-3055thecentennialcafe.comHours: Mon.-Fri., 7 a.m.-6 p.m.; Sat.-Sun., 8 a.m.- 4 p.m.Sandwiches, $5.75-$9; Salads, $5.95-$7 Wireless Internet available.