Ain't That America

Noble backs up its trendier inclinations with serious food and drink.

by Trey Popp

Jessica Kourkounis DINNER FROM THE LAST FRONTIER: Noble chef Steven Cameron's rye-dusted Alaskan black sable with mussel chowder/salad and pea purée.

[ review ]

There are plenty of ways a restaurant can signal its determination to be taken seriously, but nothing does the trick quite like a name fitted out with a colon and subtitle. So it is with Noble: An American Cookery. From its sustainably harvested hickory floorboards to the much-trumpeted food garden on its roof, this lovingly crafted newcomer to northwest Rittenhouse is as earnest as a Greenpeace activist on a Michael Pollan kick. Before you even cross the threshold, it wants you to ponder what "American cooking" really means.

It is by no means the first restaurant to lay claim to that infinitely elastic adjective. Center City's late, unlamented 707 — to take one example — did American by way of a "petite hot dog trio," funnel cake and free chocolate sauce with every dessert.

Noble's servers are of a piece with that brand of Americana; you'd have to hit a square dance to find a brighter collection of plaid button-down shirts. But its kitchen has more idealistic — if somewhat conflicting — aims.

On one hand, owners Bruno Pouget, Todd Rodgers and Steven Cameron play up their cosmopolitan bona fides, listing "German, Italian, Irish, Chinese, African, Mexican and Canadian" among the heritages that figure into their conception of American cuisine. On the other, they cite "our great-grandmothers, our histories and our hometowns" as the driving influences at the stove top.

In reality, that nod to melting-pot globalism is just window dressing. Noble is all about the cult of the local, and little on its menu suggests that its owners' great-grandmothers hailed from Africa or China. But that's quite all right: In his first two months, chef Cameron has served the bounty of the mid-Atlantic spring with a level of focus and creativity befitting a two-time semifinalist for the James Beard Foundation's regional Best Chef award.

His seared scallops, sourced from nearby Barnegat Light, N.J., are blanketed in an emerald-toned tapestry of watercress, peas, asparagus and mint that settles ever so lightly over a rich avocado purée. And that's just the beginning of the green goodness. In mid-May, fiddlehead ferns gave a crunchy counterpoint to a striped bass cloaked in savory oyster mushrooms and tangy artichoke hearts. In early July, with the short fiddlehead season over, fresh favas stepped into that role like an understudy. Duck confit gets an uncommon treatment, tossed with warmed chicories and orange segments for a trifecta of fat, bitterness and sweet acidity.

Cameron's free-range veal flank came outfitted with potato dumplings that would have had winter written all over them — if not for the intense cinnamon-spiked tomato preserves that crowned the dish, touching the delicately flavored meat with a deep-seated summery sweetness even a few weeks before local tomato season peaks.

Seafood occupies the spotlight here, and for once, the offerings live up to all the lip service about sustainability. Out of the starting gate, Cameron has put together a brilliant lineup of fish that the most ardent environmentalist can eat with nary a twinge of guilt. Atlantic squid and mackerel, Alaskan sable, sardines, Pocono River trout: There's not a single thing on the menu that you'll find on the Monterey Bay Aquarium's list of species to avoid.

That’s no small service to conscientious diners. As Mark Bittman noted recently in The New York Times, the work of figuring out which fishes are OK to eat and which ones should be avoided is so daunting that when his publisher asked if he wanted to update his 1994 book Fish: The Complete Guide to Buying and Cooking, he declined.

Of course, that would matter little without Cameron's kitchen chops. With one exception — a naked lump of tilefish that was too rubbery to be rescued by the accompanying creamy hash of country ham and shrimp — Noble lived up to its ambitions on both of my visits. The fresh, clean taste of that Pocono trout was reflected and reinforced by a brightly flavored mound of pickled maitake mushrooms. The luscious, almost creamy texture of Alaskan black sable was heightened by a crispy, paper-thin dusting of rye that put a novel, countrified spin on blackened fish.

Nevertheless, it would be hard to recommend any dish ahead of the grass-fed short rib, braised all day with veal stock and lemons. The outside was so exquisitely crispy and caramelized you'd wonder if someone had gone over it with a blowtorch. Yet beneath that outer eighth of an inch, the interior strands slid apart from one another at the merest prod. A relish of fava beans and parsley attempted to bring some garden balance into the mix, but the sweet onion rice pudding ensured a plate that couldn't have been richer had it been cast out of gold bullion.

Noble's portions are generous as upscale restaurants go, and I didn't have much room for dessert either time. There's undeniable talent in the ice cream department, though. A hazelnut version, made of ground-up hazelnut praline incorporated into crème anglaise, was easily the richest I've ever had. And the frozen Greek yogurt sweetened with just enough honey was just as decadent.

The restaurant's strident environmental correctness may earn it a share of derision as a trend-chaser — particularly among East Coast wine drinkers who know that trucking bottles from California is way more carbon-intensive than sending French ones by sea. But Noble's all-American list is interesting, fairly priced by Philly standards (with more than a dozen options under $50) and has a few surprises from places like New York's Finger Lakes and New Mexico's lauded Gruet Winery. The varied but compact beer list is also attractively priced, and Noble has hitched a ride on another recent trend by investing in a serious bartender, Christian Gaal, who was profiled in this space two weeks ago.

And as far as restaurant fashions go, if it's trendy to build your bar from a piece of naturally fallen 400-year-old African rosewood, or to gather skyloads of sunlight through a window-riddled roof, or to train and feed your waitstaff until they're rhapsodic with the earnestness of true believers, then Noble's chasing — and catching hold of — something well worthwhile.

(t_popp@citypaper.net)

Noble: An American Cookery | 2025 Sansom St., 215-568-7000, noblecookery.com. Mon.-Thu., 5-11 p.m.; Fri.-Sat., 5 p.m.-mid; Sun., 5-10 p.m. Appetizers, $8-$16; entrées, $19-$38. Reservations recommended. Wheelchair accessible.