Stone's Throw

At Slate, the gastro trumps the pub.

by Trey Popp

Jessica Kourkounis PURE BREAD: Slate's panzanella brings together fried basil, crispy bread, tomatoes, queso fresco, roasted red peppers and truffle emulsion.

Every winter, humpback whales travel 5,000 miles from the Antarctic to raise their calves in warm water. Every summer, flocks of sooty shearwaters show up in California coastline during an even more epic journey, riding the Pacific winds in circuits measuring 39,000 miles.

But in terms of migration, the term "gastropub" gives both of those marathoners a run for their money. Time was, everyone knew what one was: a good drinking hole with a kitchen to match its suds. But as Jamie Lynn Spears can tell you, a lot can change by your 18th birthday, which gastropub also celebrates this year. (The word was coined in 1991 by David Eyre and Mike Belben, who kicked off the trend with a London spot called The Eagle.)

Slate, Laurentiu Muras' spot on 21st, has the gastro part down, but I'd stop short of calling it a pub. There's nothing really tavern-like about the cream-colored marble topping the bar, and the drink lineup is plain boring next to standard-bearers like N. 3rd or the nearby Pub & Kitchen.

Yuengling, Yards Philly Pale Ale, Anheuser-Busch's Shock Top ... maybe it's just that the mad variety of Philly Beer Week is still fresh on the tongue, but Slate's eight draft options are far too cautious. With the exception of a Flying Fish Dubbel — which Muras erroneously (and repeatedly) called an English-style ale during one of my meals — the selection is about as close to the lowest common denominator as you can get. The wine list is worse. Canyon Oaks and Pepperwood Grove are fine if you're a grad student throwing a charity fundraiser, but you can get better reds off an airline cart. In a town where a liquor license can cost more than a Lexus, it's a shame to see one squandered on this kind of plonk.

So it's a good thing Muras hits the bull's-eye in the chef department. Eric Paraskevas, Lolita's former chef de cuisine, sallies forth from that haute-Mexican training ground with the confidence of a cook who bears watching. Working from a small menu that runs from spring rolls to seared snapper to a juicy pulled pork and cheddar sandwich, he excels at understated surprises, and during my two visits there wasn't a single misstep.

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The south-of-the-border influences are evident, but Paraskevas deftly weaves them into a broader culinary cloth. A block of seared queso fresco sits at the bottom of a panzanella salad that's otherwise pure Tuscany: crispy bread cubes anointed with olive oil, cherry tomatoes, roasted red peppers and the sparest dash of truffle emulsion — no heavy hand here, praise be — then crowned with a thicket of fried basil leaves that collapse on the tongue with a featherweight crackle. A lamb shank comes with a red onion and chayote escabeche whose acidic twang plays soprano to the meat's murky baritone. High marks too for the accompanying parsnip purée, which got its bold flavor straight from the root, not an overdose of butter and cream.This is food that prizes honesty over artifice.

With summer on the way, it's also worth noting that Paraskevas makes inspired slaws. A mix of jicama, red onion and planed asparagus pumped up my seared snapper, while matchstick-cut pears anchored the sweet slaw that came with the pulled-pork sandwich. Pears found another good use alongside chicken and Brie in a spring roll special whose sweet mustard dip had a nose-tingling zip that I was surprised hadn't been toned down. But what a treat! Mustard ought to give you a jolt. Here were the guts that were missing from the beverage service. Same went for a salad of artichokes, spinach and feta, uplifted by ras el hanout, that shape-shifting Middle Eastern spice mixture which sometimes gives meats an extra layer of warmth.

Slate's ample portions prevented me from diving too deeply into the dessert menu, but a Rolo candy bread pudding got a nice crunch from salted pecans. The biggest potential dinner pitfall is the decibel level, which can climb quickly amidst even more hard surfaces than you'd expect from an establishment named after rock. Prices are also fair, with the head-scratching exception of a $16 tempeh chili, about which one can only wonder, how big is the bowl?

Yet surely it says something that the only critical dart I can toss Paraskevas's way is aimed at a dish I passed up. Hopefully, Muras will make good on what he says are plans to introduce more adventurousness to the liquid end of the spectrum. Food that strikes such an excellent balance between creativity and comfort deserves it.

(t_popp@citypaper.net)

Slate | 102 S. 21st St., 215-568-6886

Hours: Food daily, 5 p.m.-1 a.m.; bar till 2 a.m.

Appetizers, $6-$9 Entrées, $11-$21

Wheelchair accessible