TAKE A LOOK around local sports bars, pubs and
rock venues and you'll see what was, just five years ago, an obscure
vision: salad. Clearly, bar food - a cuisine once characterized by
deep-frying, heavily saucing and boiling-till-melting - is not what it
once was. There are healthful options. Fancy options. And in general,
many, many more options.
These days, sidling up to a barkeep and asking for a burger is now a
process made more complicated by mentions of blue cheese and caramelized
onions and the origins of the beef.
Somehow, frilly fussy food has crept into the previously rough-edged
domain of Philly's taverns. The signs are everywhere. Tiny vegetables
plucked from their first spurt of growth. Organic cheeses. More
information about an entree than any diner really needs or wants to know.
And while it may still be possible to find the dollar-fifty liverwurst
sandwich at your neighborhood taproom, chefs are now working overtime
pumping out pan-seared foie gras in places that don't even have menus on
the table.
If you were to trace the bombastic bar food trend to its origins you
would find yourself at Third and Catherine at New Wave Cafe, an
unprepossessing neighborhood hangout hung with autographed sports
paraphernalia. For years, the bar played culinary stepchild to its
across-the-street neighbor, Dmitri's.
Two years ago, New Wave's menu was reconceptualized by formally trained
Chef Ben McNamara who came from the much more elegant Isabella's. "I
wanted to have a place where people could really enjoy either end of the
spectrum, and not have to dress up," said McNamara.
To the occasional befuddlement of the Flyers-fixated regulars, McNamara
brought in escargot and venison, puff pastry and remoulades. Patrons were
invited to enjoy these delicacies on the bar top or on austere black
tables with paper napkins. And in case they still couldn't swing with the
salmon tartare, there were still fries and melted cheese to be had - only
they were exacting and delicious.
With a little coaxing, New Wave's food has since been embraced by
sports fans and dress-down epicures alike. McNamara continues to innovate,
more recently adding lighter, Asian flavors to his French and Italian
palette.
A vegetable napoleon has a base of herbed goat cheese and seared baby
leaf spinach, layered with papery thin slices of grilled eggplant,
portobello mushroom, yellow squash, and zucchini drizzled with a sweet
balsamic reduction. And a chicken breast, pounded thin, is rolled up with
tender crab and lobster meat and served with a creamy garlic-potato mash
that sports a chive flower plume. Slim Jims, begone!
If New Wave set the new bar-food standard, Northern Liberties'
ever-popular Standard Tap is its keeper. The menu, prepared by chef
Carolynn Angle (alum of Striped Bass), is rewritten daily to reflect the
availability of local free-range meats (how about rabbit?) and freshly
caught fish - so much that its changeability can only be captured on a
mounted barside chalkboard.
A chopped beet salad, molded into a round pedestal, is topped with tiny
ribbons of lemon rind and accompanied by a dollop of sour cream. Cod with
toasted polenta and greens in a pancetta-enhanced sauce is arrestingly
rich, and a rack of St. Louis-style ribs has a wonderfully complex array
of spices.
"We don't even think of what we're doing so much as bar food. It's more
like we take our food and beers both seriously," said Angle. "You're not
going to have mozzarella sticks here. You can get that anywhere else."
Standard Tap and New Wave are both bars that happen to serve
restaurant-quality food. But another small crop of places are more like
hybrids, or bar-restos, a combination bar and restaurant. These are
eateries that are slightly more upscale though boozing is still at the
physical and spiritual center of things.
One place thriving on the bar-resto concept is N. 3rd, where chef Terry
Cherry combines soul standbys like fried chicken and mac and cheese with
neo-hippie creations like vegan mushroom ravioli in Asian rice wrappers
served with tomato sauce. Mussels, prepared with a fragrant broth of
lemongrass, cilantro and tomato, are delectably plump and light, and the
perfect match for a Heifenweissen brew.
Aspen, another bar-resto in a beautifully refurbished old tavern on
25th and Aspen streets in Fairmount, has both a bar and dinner menu. The
bar menu combines many of the dinner menu's entrees with additions such as
ceviche of the day, crispy conch fritters with rum-marmalade dipping
sauce, and a French bistro salad with sausage and crispy fingerling
potatoes over tender greens topped with a poached egg. Not exactly Texas
Tommy-type stuff.
"We wanted to keep things globally influenced - not so much an Asian
dish as an Asian-influenced dish. We get a lot of repeat business in here
and we wanted to keep it interesting for the person who comes in a few
times a week-as well as show off a little creativity," said Aspen's chef
and part-owner Robert Patton.
Does a bar menu like Aspen's reflect a city's changing taste buds or is
it further evidence of an urban population that cooks at home less and
demands meals at increasingly later hours?
"For us, it's definitely a neighborhood thing. These are people who are
not out for the night but they don't feel like cooking and they want a
casual dinner, a good, reasonably priced bite to eat," said Patton.
If said "neighborhood" is Rittenhouse Square, it may be less surprising
to find tuna tartare with baby pea pods and crispy wonton chips, as you
will at Walnut Street's new bar-resto Magazine. With its plump, soft
settees and elegant podium bar, a goat cheese, bacon and leek tart with
apple and endive salad sweet dressing hardly seems out of place. But
Magazine's reasonable prices and eclectic, consistently solid menu make it
a more appealing choice than nearby celebrity watchpoint Rouge.
Even rock venues seem to be getting into the culinary spirit of things.
It's possible to get African coconut chicken soup at the Khyber. And South
Street's moodily lit live music venue Tritone has a willy-nilly,
snack-all-the-time menu that includes crudites, hummus, spring rolls and
several incarnations of fries, as well as some authentic, if doughy,
pierogies. If you believe bar food can and should include dessert, try the
dessert variety, which are available in blueberry and strawberry flavors,
and are a surprisingly sweet revelation for a spot that is known for its
Pabst and shot o' Jim Beam special.
"I definitely think late-night dining has become a key point for
people. There didn't used to be places to go at midnight for a good meal.
Now it's just evolving," said Robert Patton.
Still, neither the salad-fearing jock boy nor the bar-food
traditionalist need fear. Pulled pork sandwiches are still a popular menu
item, making appearances at Standard Tap and New Wave. Wings might be
jerk-seasoned, but they are still around - and still spicy.
And the burger, though it might have some fancy trimmings, doesn't look
to be an endangered species any time soon. *
