Wine Tuning

Meritage mixes BYO-style fare with fine-dining surroundings (and prices).

by Elisa Ludwig

Mark Stehle QUACK ATTACK: Chef Jason Goodman's succulent roast duck is plated with duck jus, haricots vert and an Okinawa sweet potato purée. (CLICK IMAGE FOR LARGER VERSION)

Everyone loves a good BYOB, but sometimes, it's nice to relieve yourself of the responsibility of hunting down wine and toting it to dinner in an embarrassingly yuppie neoprene bag. Sometimes, you just want more choices than the Keystone state allows, the guidance of a good sommelier, or — you can admit it — the option to keep drinking.

Named after the term for Bourdeaux-style wines produced outside that region of France, Meritage originally opened in 2004, but a year and a half ago, Irene Landy and Michele DiPietro purchased the operation from its original owners. Working with chef Jason Goodman, they've retained the wine focus and reined in the original globe-hopping menu to choices that, truth be told, look a lot like what you find at local contempo-American BYOs.

Where Meritage differs from its non-licensed counterparts — besides, of course, the license (you're actually authorized to bring your own Monday through Thursday) — is its atmosphere. The dining room, up a few steps, is wrapped in oxide-red walls with original artwork and dimmed sconces, hushing heavy curtains and what look to be family photographs. Think of it as your refuge from the Philly BYO, a place where the décor is soft and plush, the service is always serious and you don't have to shout above a din of noisy diners. In fact, you might even feel inspired to whisper.

There's a more casual but still older-urbanite-a la-Tank Bar vibe in the front, where the sleek black-topped bar offers a view onto 20th Street. The wine cellar, left intact with its more-than-200-bottle collection from the previous management, stands opposite. There are 14 wines available by the glass, and the selection is international and interesting, spanning New Zealand, Europe and the Americas. At the bar you can get a three-glass flight, choosing your own varietals for $12.

You can also dine from the affordable bar menu, choosing starters like a citrus-infused beet salad with pickled onions and velvety crumbles of Bulgarian feta; or an uncannily creamy chive-dotted hummus with daggerlike triangles of comforting grilled flatbread. The burger, served with caramelized onions and a choice of cheese, is encased in a shiny brioche bun, but with too much bun and too-crumbly, too-dry meat, it's not the upscale beefy gem you'd hope for.

Goodman has an especially judicious touch with fish and seafood. In the tuna tartare appetizer, cubes of fish glisten with olive oil and, on the palate, flare with shallot and jalapeño. Mussels in a sweet and spicy puttanesca are juicy little bursts of brine. Bar-side scallops with a speckled pan-given crust are well-matched with just-wilted spinach tossed with thin slivers of hearts of palm, the mild flavors of vegetable and shellfish accented with equal parts lemon juice and garlic.

A similar principle is at work in the Hawaiian butterfish (aka escolar) entrée, a thick, seared filet with the texture of salmon that sits over a bed of creamed salsify. It's a pleasing play of subtleties. On the other hand, the dry-edged fish could use some saucing, and the only option here is a red wine salmi reduction, a salty, inky pool beneath asparagus spears that overwhelms the quiet flavors on this plate.

I wonder if the price point of the entrées is slightly high — not that the $27 roast duck breast, with its crisp, caramelized skin and side of purply Okinawa sweet potato purée redolent with thyme, is not luscious. And in some circles, $31 might be reasonable for a tender rack of herb-crusted Australian lamb glistening with Burgundy sauce, plus a handful of braised glassy onions, peppers and baby zucchini.

The issue becomes especially disconcerting, however, when encountering a $22 plate of potato gnocchi in a thyme-flecked crimini and oyster mushroom sauce with a truffle nage. The truffle, ostensibly the big-ticket ingredient, is imperceptible, and while the gnocchi are beguilingly light and appealingly irregular in shape, they are practically flavorless. Seventeen dollars would be much fairer for this dish.

Desserts, which can be paired with pre-chosen wines, are hit or miss. The concept is there when you're talking about chestnut-scented chocolate mousse profiteroles. But when they arrive, three small puffs to a plate, they're stuffed with a sandy homemade bittersweet chocolate sorbet that smothers the mousse and any nutty flavor therein.

Banana bread pudding is of the very heavy and bready camp — you pretty much need that paired glass of port to wash it down — though it wins points for its accoutrements: caramelized bananas, butterscotch sauce and homemade vanilla ice cream demurely tucked into a cookie tuile.

The winner is a citrus napoleon, stacked wafers of phyllo dough alternating with lemon curd, blackberries and raspberries and whipped cream, the whole thing brilliantly soaked in limoncello syrup. The pastry goes toppling pretty quickly, as napoleons do, but the crisp, creamy mess on your plate is flawless. Here's where you can raise your restaurant-provided glass and sip your standardized pour with pleasure.

(e_ludwig@citypaper.net)

Meritage

500 S. 20th St., 215-985-1922, meritagephiladelphia.com

Hours: Tue.- Thu., 5-10 p.m.; Fri.-Sat., 5-10:30 p.m.; Sun., 11:30 a.m.-3 p.m.; closed Monday.

Appetizers, $8-$14; Entrées, $22-$31

BYOB Monday through Thursday.

Reservations recommended.