Canned Do

Philadelphia Bar & Restaurant is not yet blue-ribbon worthy.

by Adam Erace

Neal Santos

SUCKERS FOR IT: Though you might not be able to tell from PBR's name, the Old City bar puts out some great food, like this grilled octopus and fennel plate.

[ review ]

On Thursday mornings, the kitchen at Philadelphia Bar & Restaurant, better known (for better or worse) as PBR, smells like Gloria Borowik Maziarz's house. On these days, her grandson and PBR chef, Jordan "Red" Sauter, prepares a big batch of bigos, the traditional Polish hunter's stew that runs on special for $14. "We flick off the hoods and breathe it in," Sauter says. "It takes me back."

Borowik means porcini in Polish, and Sauter gives Gram her propers by including the earthy mushrooms in his Thursday blue plate. Ingredients vary village to village, but tradition dictates bigos must include white cabbage, honey, sausage and a second variety of meat, and the chef respects his old heads by incorporating all that — snappy Leidy's kielbasa, chicken thighs, Kissling's sauerkraut, green apples — in a malty beige broth of Yuengling, sauerkraut juices and pieds-de-cochon stock scented with caraway and marjoram. In Old City, where lots of things have dribbled down lots of chins, bigos is probably a first.

Served in a hollowed Hudson Bread sourdough roll, Sauter's bigos is soul in a bowl, but not exactly an everyday player on your typical Old City saloon lineup. Then again, PBR isn't your typical Old City saloon, with silver maple bar-tops and ivory-paned floor-to-ceiling windows; a gem-rich beer program that scored me a rare bottle of Stone Sublimely Self-Righteous Ale (yes, they also serve Pabst); and Sauter, whose presence gives this kitchen a fat dose of food-nerd cred.

Sauter spent the past two years and seven months rolling fresh gemelli, grilling whole branzini and feeding turistas as the chef de cuisine at Peter McAndrews' Modo Mio. "But it was never going to be my show," he explained during our interview, one of the reasons he started perusing Craigslist, where he found a post by PBR's owners, career bartenders Nicolas Moore and Shawn Gormley (Lucy's Hat Shop, Drinker's). Sauter went from one kitchen to the other without taking a day off in between.

"I really respect Italian food, but here I don't need to work within those restrictions," says Sauter, a freedom that allows the chef to amble from fish tacos to crispy calf's tongue with smoked black pepper to the bigos and back. The irony is that some of the best things here are Modo-ish in nature. Take the grilled octopus, one of the most appetizing dishes I've eaten all year. The pyre of smoky, singed tentacles sang, Mediterranean sirens enchanting octo-philes with their zesty marinade of garlic, harissa and sesame. Whisper-thin shavings of fennel bulb added crunch to the tender cephalopods, while thin fennel fronds, their tiny yellow flowers like painted fingernails on the end of each branch, brought an herbaceous, anise-y sweetness that cooled down the heat of the harissa.

Despite their oaky Heaven Hill Bourbon broth, the smashing sausage-studded mussels harkened to Sauter's previous post, where he "made every order of mussels that came out of Modo Mio for the past two and a half years." His talent for pasta-making was evident in the springiness of pumpkin cavatelli lightly sauced in Gorgonzola cream and showered with crushed pistachio nuts and frizzled sage leaves. The gratin of veal cheeks and dried figs was one Modo reprisal I didn't dig. The treacly casserole had a predigested texture, cloying sweetness and enough grease to oil the locks of a hundred guidos.

Of the crime of being too sweet and too greasy, the veal wasn't the only perp. I'd lodge the same complaints against the short-rib puffs, wine-braised beef and Gorgonzola locked in triangular puff pastry coffins and served over an odd honey-cayenne-lemongrass-lime sauce, as well as against the barbecue pork sandwich. Simmered three hours in pig's feet stock and tomato juice, the pork butt was totally tender, but the sauce, a spiced reduction of the braising liquid, was like a Bloody Mary and mulled cider in the same glass. Way overboard on the star anise — and that's coming from someone who loves star anise. The sandwich, served on another sourdough roll, left a gold halo of oil all over the fresh-cut potato chip-strewn plate.

Ironically, Sauter's deep-fried items (and there are lots) weren't greasy at all. Not the crusty orbs of fried macaroni and cheese. Not the Oreos in pancake cocoons. Not even the thicket of eggplant frites I couldn't stop picking at. Stick-cut aubergines are salted and pressed overnight to extract max liquid, then breaded in "something secret" — all Sauter will say is that it's gluten-free (yay, celiac sufferers!) — fried and served with a tangy goat cheese emulsion scented gently with cinnamon.

PBR is only two months old, and Sauter's menu is still trying to decide if it's more casual pub (scrapple cheesesteak, wings) or green-market bistro (escolar in olive oil beurre blanc, fava bean mousse-stuffed braised onion with tomato crudo). To be fair, PBR as a whole hasn't decided that, either. The handsome room, stripped down to its 200-year-old details, says one thing. Paper napkins say another. Ithaca Flower Power and Weyerbacher Merry Monks say one thing. Miller on tap says another.

Sauter says the PBR crew weeded out the "douchebagger crowd" in the first few weeks, but they're going to have to be careful. The slope to Miller Lite Girls and open mic night is greased with Goldschläger and L.A. Looks, and PBR's location means the temptation to service the wealthy and well-gelled will never be far away. When the itch arises, my friends, I'd suggest thinking of Sauter's grandmother. Red Bull and bigos do not mix well.

(adam.erace@citypaper.net)

Philadelphia Bar & Restaurant (PBR) | 120 Market St., 215-925-7691, philadelphiabarandrestaurant.com. Food served Mon.-Tue., 4-11:30 p.m.; Wed.-Sat., 4 p.m.-1 a.m.; Sun., 11-1 a.m. Bar till 2 a.m. nightly. Snacks, $5; appetizers, $7-$16; sandwiches, $8-$11; entrées, $14-$22; desserts, $5-$7.