Well Enough

Sporadically good food is keeping the Wishing Well out of the gastropub conversation.

by Elisa Ludwig

Neal Santos BID ON SQUID: The Wishing Well's Indonesian-inspired fried calamari, served with a sambal aioli, is one of the bar's more successful snacks.

[ review ]

It takes some cojones to serve the SHAME burger, a dastardly coronary-wich of ground beef, scrapple, American cheese and a fried egg on a Kaiser roll. (SHAME stands for "scrapple hamburgers are meaty eating," an irrefutable proclamation.) And it takes some, er, thymus glands to come up with a turkey burger layered with fried sweetbreads, slaw and buffalo sauce.

Both of these colorful concoctions are on the menu at the Wishing Well, which opened in Bella Vista in the spring — and they're a needed novelty, given its thoroughly nondescript interior. These old taproom bones have housed a series of short-lived restaurants (Pat Bombino's and, before that, Meze), and a gastropub is a good fit for the long, dark space. There's an almost purposeful avoidance of character in the unassuming shades of cream, the high and low cherry wood tables and chairs, the slate tiled floor. A few shaded sconces and framed photographs of Phillyscapes seem like token additions to an unimaginative décor. But it's not necessarily a handicap: Amazing gastropubs have grown out of more modest environs than this.

Co-owner Carmen Cappello, a Philly native who sharpened his knives at Atlanta's Ritz-Carlton, seems to have big ambitions, of which his creative burgers are only one component. A proponent of Slow Food, he sources his ingredients locally, changes the menu seasonally and throws around offal like it's going out of style. A serious beer list includes 12 taps and 50 bottles with all the usual local suspects, plus such lesser-knowns as Prism Bitto Honey IPA and Left Hand JuJu Ginger Ale.

All of the elements for gastropub success — daring dishes, beer nerdery, nostalgic '80s soundtrack — would seem to be in place here. But so far, the food, divided into "plates," salads and burgers, is not rising above average old-school bar fare. Which is to say, this is a fine place to eat mozzarella sticks and poppers, but even modern updates like smoked tomato coulis don't make them terribly memorable.

Cappello seems to have a special fondness for the deep fryer, with plenty of oil-sizzled foods to encourage beer consumption. But these efforts are hit-or-miss, like overly thick slices of dill pickle whose juice outweighed their breading. Reputable fries, skin-on and finger-thick, were well-seasoned, if less than crisp. Batter-fried strips of firm white catfish fillet would have been terrific if they hadn't been paired with a too-piquant buffalo mayo dip, and if they hadn't further dampened their bed of those fries.

Better were the Indonesian-inspired fried calamari rings, tender beneath a breaded exterior, redolent of peanut and cilantro and paired nicely with a ruby-flecked sambal aioli. The coating flaked off too easily, making dipping a logistical challenge — it was easier to spread the thick sauce on with a fork — but they were tasty all the same.

Normally, I regard any sort of fusion cuisine stuffed into a spring roll with suspicion, but the Wishing Well's Southern-fried invention, plump with smoked chicken, bacon and collard greens, was a winner, and its side of red cabbage slaw was wonderfully crisp and creamy. (A side dip of apple cider foam, on the other hand, was vinegary and pretentious.)

The edamame falafel burger, meanwhile, was green delight on a Kaiser roll. Its fragile fried crust broke open to a creamy-textured bean purée spiced with celery seed and complemented by a yogurt slather, making it one of the more compelling veggie dishes around.

The non-fried items were also a mixed bag. Deviled eggs, an increasingly visible and welcome trend in bar staples, were unfortunately over-relished and over-boiled. A vegetarian small plate of wild mushrooms, served over a bed of truffle oil-drizzled pecorino grits in an individual cast-iron skillet, was lackluster despite its appealing presentation, with no pecorino or truffle flavors coming through.

A simple arugula salad was cleverly tossed with pickled eggs, pickled beets and blue cheese. I might have enjoyed it more if the eggs and beets were chopped smaller, but that is a minor quibble.

In keeping with its chef-centric focus, the Wishing Well offers a Sunday night family-style dinner. On Tuesdays, the kitchen adds another entrée option, turning out three-course fried chicken dinners on oversize white platters for $19. With some fine-tuning, these might lure in patrons for destination dining nights. The chicken had a nicely gnarled, golden, snappy crust, but both the meat and its accompanying cream-based gravy could have used more zip. Buttermilk biscuits were cool and slightly gummy. On the other hand, the grilled corn, a summer substitute for the usual green veggie on the plate, came alive with a slather of cumin-spiced butter.

Desserts are sparse here, but there's a reputable scrawl of funnel cake, its sugar-dusted graffiti of airy fried dough interspersed with fresh blueberries and strawberries. The fruit crisp, which was peach and blueberry on one visit, was not terribly crisp at all, but warm and sweet all the same.

For me, it all came down to the SHAME burger, which, for all its hype, should have made a deeper impression. I really wanted to love this signature acronym-ed sandwich, if only for its joyful embrace of a guilty Amish pleasure. The almost curry-like Lancaster scrapple spices were an inspired layer of complexity, but even with the melty white American cheese and the unctuous slab of fried egg, the overcooked, mealy patty was anything but luscious. In a city where every great bar has a delicious burger, the true shame of it was that this one, wacky as it may be, was not delicious enough to put the Wishing Well on the map.

(editorial@citypaper.net)