Dropping Science

Mavericky chef Jonathan McDonald slows his roll at the simple, splendid Pub & Kitchen.

by Trey Popp

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Published: Nov 11, 2008

Michael T. Regan RULE OF THREE: P&K's $3 bar snacks menu features roll mops, toasted baguette slices topped with pickled white fish, dill dressing and apple matchsticks. (CLICK IMAGE FOR LARGER VERSION)

At some point between the creation of the Happy Meal and the invention of appetizers made out of foam, the act of reading a menu changed. Hamburger still meant hamburger, most of the time, but the pricier the restaurant, the less sure you could be. Dish names began appearing in quotation marks, and "spaghetti and meatballs" was apt to signify cardamom ice cream passed through a pasta press to accompany spheres of gulab jamun.

Now, you can't even count on winking punctuation. By the lights of Food & Wine magazine, Daniel Stern's veal stew is among the best restaurant dishes in the country — as long as you're not tricked by those unmodified eight letters into expecting actual stew.

So I have to admit that Pub & Kitchen threw me for a loop with this offering — boiled eggs: sea salt.

Just what sort of sly trick was Jonathan McDonald up to this time? The Salt alumnus and opening chef at Snackbar has been slinging nitrous oxide and powdered gelling agents almost long enough to get an honorary degree in chemistry. This is a guy who's pickled shallots in passion fruit juice. Boiled eggs and sea salt, eh? The whole thing would probably be made out of bubbles.

But it turns out that McDonald's new spot on 20th Street is a different sort of charm. The old Chaucer's has gotten a splendid makeover and a fancier list of entrées, but it's all in the service of old-fashioned comfort. Feel like a prosaic shot of protein with your pint of Old Speckled Hen? That boiled egg is just what the menu says it is: an egg, boiled, with salt.

Same goes for the duck liver toasts and the homemade malt vinegar potato chips (where the sodium count really gets serious; time for another beer). It's not for nothing that "pub" merits pride of place in this establishment's name.

The bar snacks here are about as straightforward as they come — and at $3 a pop, a rare bargain in the high-rent corridor between Rittenhouse and Fitler Square. A bowl of olives simply contains what would be three bucks' worth of good olives at Di Bruno Brothers. The roll mops may well be a loss leader: two toasted baguette rounds heaped with pickled white fish in a crème fraîche and dill dressing that gets a tart complement from a few matchstick-cut apples on top. A double order of those, plus a low-alcohol session beer, and you've got a Dutchman's rainy-day lunch.

But that would mean overlooking the rest of an admirably varied menu. Dinner options are split more or less down the middle between traditional pub fare and the kinds of dishes that have come to typify Center City BYOBs. I heard a bit of grumbling and disappointment during Pub & Kitchen's first couple of weeks — chicken wings gone wrong, a cold lobster BLT sandwich that didn't hold together — but by the first of my three visits, the kitchen seemed to have found its groove.

McDonald has shelved a lot of the hypercreative impulses that initially reigned at Snackbar during its first few challenging months, but that doesn't mean he's just painting by numbers now. Stellar homemade bacon elevates Pub & Kitchen's Windsor burger into the ranks of Philadelphia's best — even if the $12 price tag makes it one of the most expensive, as well. The fish and chips aren't cheap, either, but when hake this moist comes in batter as crispy as what hit my plate, you won't be aching for another version. And if there's an award for the glummest-sounding side dish that ends up stealing the show, the "mushy peas" has got to clinch it.

A changing selection of somewhat more creative appetizers and entrées more than held its own. A filet of fluke came perfectly cooked atop a savory bed of mustard greens and French lentils whose earthy, slightly tangy profile provided a perfect foil for the sweet, flaky white fish. Skate also came out flawlessly, which is a good litmus test of a kitchen's seafood chops. A tiny pyramid of razor-thin fennel shavings pumped up the anise notes of a lobster bisque daily special just enough to focus, but not dominate, my attention.

Now that I think of it, seafood dishes far outnumbered meat ones during my visits to Pub & Kitchen. Every piece of fish I tried seemed to have been yanked out of the pan at precisely the second when it needed to be — and those roll mops drew me back for seconds. A daily special of chicken cassoulet did manage to tempt one of my dinner guests, though, and we both appreciated that hearty, beany effort.

This location at 20th and Lombard has always been a prime spot to grab a sidewalk table, but during the many years that the lease belonged to Chaucer's, the interior could seem dark and uninviting. Not anymore. The brains behind Pub & Kitchen did a lot more than paint that cute rabbit-pig icon high on the outside wall. All along the western façade, the tiny Romanesque windows that let so little sunlight into Chaucer's have been replaced with wide openings framed in richly toned wood. A couple of floor-to-ceiling windows swing wide open to really let the place breathe. (The second floor, with its hodgepodge of mismatched chairs and awkwardly hung flat screen TVs, makes for an endearing contrast to the smart renovation below.)

This hip makeover has drawn a crowd that might have amused some of Chaucer's laid-back loyalists. The pert young hostesses bedecked with rouge and mascara were a little jarring the first few times I passed by the entrance — especially since there sometimes seemed to be as many as three of them.

Yet there's a lot more to celebrate than to lament about this upscale reincarnation. It can be annoying when a neighborhood taproom moves upmarket, but Pub & Kitchen is a model for how to do it right. After all, there may be other places that make their own bacon and sear a mean skate wing, but this is probably the only one that will let you opt instead for the unpretentious pleasure of an ale and an egg.

(t_popp@citypaper.net)

Pub & Kitchen | 1946 Lombard St., 215-545-0350, thepubandkitchen.com

Hours: Daily, 4 p.m.-2 a.m.; brunch served Sat.-Sun., 10 a.m.-4 p.m.

Appetizers, $8-$12; Entrées, $16-$27

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