Positively Fourth Street

Café Estelle is easy to miss, until you've eaten there.

by Trey Popp

If you've driven down Fourth Street from Northern Liberties toward Old City in the past two months, you probably know how easy it is to pass Café Estelle without noticing that it's there. The place is situated behind a parking lot in the ground floor of a new condo building on a block without much in the way of street life. Strings of white Christmas tree lights call attention to it at night, but daylight robs it of even that modest lure.

So co-owners Marshall Green and Kristin Mulvenna have come up with a simple solution. They're serving up food that's delicious enough to make Café Estelle a destination — not just the kind of spot you swing through on your way to work.

I didn't even need to open my mouth to be convinced of that. All it took was bringing one of Green's little flatbread pizzas to my nose. The fetching cargo of artichoke hearts, Kalamata olives and ricotta salata was pretty enough, but wait a minute — what was that divine smell?

"Are you getting cloves from this?" I asked my companion. Mouth full, she nodded with happiness. Cloves it was, plus a little star anise, it turned out. Now that's a pizza sauce.

If I had a pot full of something that perfectly aromatic, I'd slather it on every pie I sold. But Green, who's spent the last few years line-cooking for the likes of Django and Ansill before taking the sous spot at Meritage, does too much else well to stick to a single note. Another pizza found duck confit scattered with gorgonzola and ripe pear slices, with a superb tuft of cool, lemon-dressed frisée on top.

I didn't taste a single thing at Café Estelle that wasn't done just about perfectly. The food, like the atmosphere, is casual, but it's made with unusual skill and care. A panini filled with dry-cured ham, manchego cheese and a splendid pearl-onion relish was the best hot sandwich I've had in ages. A cherry scone broke apart just as a good scone should, and was plenty generous with the cherries.

My evening cup of decaf coffee came in a French press. There's not a boring drink in the cold-case — cane sugar sodas, jasmine-infused spring water, etc., and the tea comes from Two Leaves and a Bud, which makes the best satchel teas on the market.

If I had a complaint, it would be that Café Estelle closes down at 4 p.m. The lunch fare here works just as well as a laid-back dinner. On the other hand, Green and Mulvenna intend to expand their eggs-and-pancakes breakfast menu into a full-blown weekend brunch sometime soon.

When they do, a piece of advice for the folks driving past Café Estelle: Double back.

(t_popp@citypaper.net)

Café Estelle

444 N. Fourth St. Lofts

444 N. Fourth St., 215-925-5080

Hours: Mon.-Fri., 7 a.m.-4 p.m.; Sat.-Sun., 9 a.m.-4 p.m.

Food and snacks, $2-$8.50

Wheelchair accessible.