Vine Ripened

The revamped, newly casual Meritage gets nearly everything right.

by Trey Popp

Jessica Kourkounis LADIES FIRST: Meritage chef Anne Coll, a vet of Susanna Foo, has introduced a fun, focused Asian-inspired vibe to her new gig. Standout snacks include foie gras dumplings, tempura-battered jalapeño peppers and beef-stuffed grape leaves.

[ review ]

"So what about that place Meritage?"

I'm not sure how many times someone's asked me that question over the past few years, as a suggestion for dinner or in search of an opinion, but I've never been quite sure how to answer it. I'd eaten there once. The food was good. There was plenty of it. If you were in the market for triple-digit wines, you'd never run out of options. It's just that I always figured I'd wait until my grandfather visited to go back again.

Before I go on, a word about my grandfather. If you had a choice between him and me as a dining companion, it wouldn't even be a contest. (My wife, for one, would take him any day.) The man takes his martinis in a tumbler and rocks monogrammed initials on tailor-made French cuffs. Know any octogenarians who float down the Loire in a refurbished luxury barge one week and rig bottle-rocket booby-traps against a backyard goose invasion the next? Take it from the guy he so effortlessly outclasses: You're going to want to eat with him.

But unless you want to kiss a second dinner with him goodbye, you're not going to want to suggest something like Asian fusion, or the latest two-bite tapas sensation, or that place with the five-ingredient cocktails you've been itching to try. Better to stick to starched white tablecloths, heavy drapes and main courses that would suit Don Draper. My grandfather likes his restaurants like his gin: old-school and undiluted.

Such a place was Meritage.

Christopher Gabello

No longer. Almost four years after buying the place, owners Michele DiPietro and Irene Landy have finally exorcized the formality that made it too forbidding to really click as a neighborhood restaurant. They've ripped out the carpet. Tossed out the drapes. Covered the rust-red walls in a shade of yellow that would suit a kindergarten classroom. And those $30 racks of lamb and wine-reduction sauces you remember? Gone, too. The new Meritage is helmed by chef Anne Coll, a Susanna Foo alum who's running a menu filled with three-bite bar snacks, Asian fusion and entrées that top out at $21.

It's a refreshing change, from the palate-cleansing pickles at the top of the menu (splendidly crisp okra and tangy cippolini onions, on a recent night) to the shot glass of five-spiced apple cider that came out with bread pudding for dessert. Coll has impressive range, and a knack for unusual but effective flavor combinations. Take her sea scallops. Most chefs either complement their natural sweetness with something savory, or opt for an acidic counterpart. Coll does both —with mellow curried cauliflower on the one hand and a tangy Granny Smith apple purée on the other — but also adds an emulsion of Thai basil, tracing an eccentric arc between India and Southeast Asia by means of an offbeat herbal note.

A snack of beef-stuffed grape leaves played like an even longer trip along the old Silk Road, with the tingle of Vietnamese dipping sauce to pierce the grill-smoked depth of the Mediterranean specialty.

But there's a comfort-food aspect to Coll's cooking, too. Half-moon dumplings with crisp-crackle shells carried a soft and soothing cargo of foie gras. A warming sweet-potato purée flanked one entrée; giant medallions of crisp-fried potato slices added a simple pleasure to another. My tea-smoked pork tenderloin was a little overcooked, but it had a dusky, moody flavor that I can still feel on my breath. And that lean tenderloin cut — which I'd never order on its own — was just right as a foil for the fatty brick of pork belly on the other side of the plate. The full-flavored hanger steak, rose-hued in the middle with a perfect seared-salt crust, is the best I've had in ages.

Meanwhile, it's a lot easier to find affordable wine, with plenty of bottles below $50 — a few by a wide margin — and about 10 by the glass for $8. (Big spenders will still find plenty to choose from on the ample reserve list.) The physical wine menu itself is in dire need of a graphic-design overhaul — bizarre tab spacing makes it borderline unreadable — but that seems to be the only vestige remaining from Meritage's previous incarnation. The service is more laid-back. The menu is more flexible. There's a bar you could actually imagine snacking in — though the specialty cocktails all sounded too frou-frou fruity to inspire a foray beyond wine or bottled beer.

The view behind the bottles is of Pub & Kitchen, which probably deserves credit for the general contour of Meritage's makeover. In a way, the two properties are a barometer of downtown Philly's evolving — and perhaps narrowing — restaurant ecology. Just a couple years ago, pricey Meritage faced humble Chaucer's, each serving an entirely different budget category. The fact that their new incarnations now target the exact same price point is an interesting commentary on southwest Center City's changing demographics.

Be that as it may, Meritage edges out its across-the-street competitor in terms of dessert. That shot of apple cider was a cut above, and so were the caramelized bananas that came with a flourless chocolate torte and brown-sugar ice cream. The pieces of fruit were so pretty in thier translucent candied shells that you could have mistaken them for ornaments of blown glass.

The downside, I suppose, is that I've lost a place to take my grandfather. But the truth is that I'd have taken him elsewhere to begin with. Far better to have a reinvigorated option for a casual neighborhood meal. Not to mention something to say the next time I face the question, "So what about that place Meritage?"

(t_popp@citypaper.net)

Meritage | 500 S. 20th St., 215-985-1922, meritagephiladelphia.com. Dinner served Tue.-Thu., 5-10 p.m.; Fri.-Sat., 5-11 p.m. Snacks, $3-$6; small plates, $6-$13; large plates, $18-$21.