August 21, 2008 Issue                                       

©2007 The Chestnut Hill Local

Parc your fishy appetites at Devon Seafood Grill
by LEN LEAR

Devon Seafood Grill has a stunning dining room with lots of rich mahogany woods.

While Parc, the newest Stephen Starr restaurant, has been getting lots of buzz lately — even a front-page article in the Philadelphia Inquirer, not exactly standard practice for a restaurant opening — there’s a much-lower-profile restaurant just a couple doors down from Parc on Rittenhouse Square that’s not exactly too shabby.

Devon Seafood Grill, 225 S. 18th St., between Walnut and Locust Streets, opened nine years ago in a building formerly occupied by Houlihan’s, and it has become one of center’s city’s most popular fooderies for Happy Hour frivolity, late-night dining and people-watching. The huge bar, which can seat 40, is usually packed between 5 and 7 p.m., in part because of the sharply reduced appetizer prices, e.g., calamari and tuna tartare, which normally sell for $10.95 and $11.50, respectively, are $6.50 each.

And at the bar one can get a one-pound lobster for just $12. Another magnet at Devon (named, by the way, for the city of Devon, England, not Devon on the Main Line) is the $35 prix fixe menu — for a complete three-course dinner — that is available seven days a week, unlike most other center city restaurants that offer a prix fixe menu but almost never on weekends.

A few weeks ago, Devon Seafood Grill invited area food writers to sample several food and drink items on their menu. In our view, the two most impressive dishes were easily the George’s Bank scallop appetizer ($9.50) and the tuna tartare appetizer ($11.50, or as mentioned earlier, $6.50 at the bar). Our favorite drink by far (and most of the people around us agreed) was the “X-rated boyfriend” martini, with its explosive fruit flavor. A Sangria was also one of the best ever.

Executive chef Jitendra Gulgule answers questions about his fresh seafood selections in the dining room at Devon Seafood Grill. (Photo by Len Lear)

The pan-seared scallops were topped with proscuitto shavings, a combination I have never seen before. It worked big-time, with the saltiness of the proscuitto offsetting the sweetness of the scallops. Even those who don’t normally eat scallops or who find them bland will almost certainly love this dish. And the tuna tartare has a smoky, charred flavor that makes for an absolutely dreamy pairing with pickled cucumber pieces (we could have eaten them all night long), wasabi vinaigrette and crunchy, homemade sesame crackers. Another winner — not quite as ethereal as the two previously mentioned dishes, but still very good — is the entree of Hawaiian yellow fin tuna ($28.95). It is sushi grade and char-crusted, which seals in the fatty flavor, accompanied by a bearnaise sauce, roasted Yukon potatoes and fresh asparagus.

On the down side, I agree with the Zagat Philadelphia Restaurant Guide for 2008, which calls the upscale seafooder “as noisy as a construction site,” which it certainly has in common with most Stephen Starr restaurants. And while the Zagat Guide calls the service at Devon “prompt and courteous” — and one of the two servers at our table was exactly that — the other was just the opposite.

The first glasses of wine we ordered took about 25 minutes to show up, and the second one I ordered was completely forgotten. Eventually, after an interminable delay, I had to ask the manager, Harry Weckerly, for it, and he saw that it was promptly delivered. (There is a very large selection of both reds and whites, by the glass or bottle, including some pretty good buys.)

For more information, call 215-546-5940 or visit www.devonseafood.com

GREAT BARGAIN AT MARIA’S Ristorante

Last Wednesday night, Maria’s Ristorante, 8100 Ridge Ave. in upper Roxborough, had a full house, and it’s no wonder. The five-year-old Italian restaurant had its first-ever Beer Dinner, and the entire four-course dinner, including a different craft beer with every course, was only $30 per person. The entrée alone, a healthy portion of savory grilled hangar steak with mashed potatoes, would cost $30 or more at many center city restaurants.

The first course was sublime scallions wrapped in crispy bacon with a citrus glaze, accompanied by Blue Moon Belgian White Ale. Then came a lusty wild mushroom risotto with a no-nonsense Brooklyn Brown Ale, the excellent hanger steak mentioned earlier with a Yards Philadelphia Pale Ale that tasted suspiciously to me like one of the mass-produced national brands; and a luscious panna cotta dessert with a spectacular peach-flavored beer, Lindeman’s Peche. This Belgian king is bursting with fruit flavor and very expensive. We were told that a case of it, purchased retail, is $129.

Maria’s has a loyal regular clientele, many of whom obviously know each other, and when the restaurant is full, it is quite noisy, but as I wrote when they celebrated their first anniversary, “Maria’s offers fine dining in a part of town where it is just slightly more commonplace than kosher delicatessens in Libya.”