We were really looking forward to our first visit to Serpico last night. Though it has been open for a while now (Peter Serpico teamed up with Philly restaurant monolith Stephen Starr last year to open the place, to much fanfare, after he moved from NYC), and despite our living only a 5 minute walk away, we hadn’t yet made it there. We even had reservations once, but had to cancel. I very much enjoyed Serpico’s cooking when he was at Momofuku Ko, and the menu looked promising, as did many reviews. I was all set to find what I hoped would become our new go-to neighborhood place. But what we found was confusing, awkward and ultimately even more of a disappointment for having been so excited going in.
Here’s what we found. I didn’t originally intend to write something this long, but if I’m going to be this critical, I want to give a detailed picture.
Room – The space is attractive, if a little dim (hard to avoid this state of affairs in fashion-conscious restaurants these days) with chalkboard walls, a small but well provisioned bar, a few tables and a massive open kitchen with counter seating on two sides. The acoustics are reasonable, music is not intrusive, and you can have a conversation with your dining companion without screaming or being distracted by those tables beside you. This is at least true at the counter, where we ate – can’t say for sure for the table area, but there was no discernable clamor, so I’m assuming it was fine there as well. Sitting at the counter, there was considerable heat coming off the range in the center of the kitchen, so I suggest dressing appropriately for a warm environment, and bringing your wines extra chilled.
Service – very pleasant if a little unpolished wait staff and front of house. The really odd thing, though, was that there was ZERO interaction between the chefs/cooks behind the counter and the diners eating there. We had two chefs right in front of us the whole time and they not only never said a word, or responded to anything but direct questions, but actively avoided eye-contact. It was not a very busy night, and there were times when I saw the cooks in our area staring off into space rather than watching us to see how we were reacting to the food, much less attempting to interact with us. Even more oddly, every dish was completed by the chefs, and then sent to a service station on the other side of the kitchen area, to be picked up and subsequently delivered to us by a server. That meant some dishes were made right in front of our eyes, close enough to touch, and then traveled all the way around the kitchen, around the other length of counter and back to us. I’ve never been at a “kappo” style restaurant where the food was not handed directly to you by one of the ones who prepared it. We paid close attention, and this was the approach all around the bar. I guess this arrangement went along with no conversation between cooks and diners – if they were handing us our food, it would have been difficult not to talk at all. The no-talking was also true around the whole counter: not one of the kitchen workers or the chef was interacting with diners, even a little bit. To me, this is a very strange choice – and I really do believe it was a choice, or at least encouraged, otherwise at least someone in the kitchen would have been talking! I get it that not all cooks or chefs are into interacting with the diners, but why build an environment that puts your cooks within touching distance of half the patrons in your restaurant if you are going to foster an environment of no interaction? It doesn’t make sense to me. It also means you, the restaurant/chef, can’t benefit from the feedback you might receive. In my and my husband’s many interactions with chefs on the other side of the counter, we’ve always been carefully watched to see if we were enjoying the food and, if not, a discussion would often arise about what we thought. Last night there was none, even though Jonathan and I were 1) clearly very knowledgeable about kitchens and food (commenting on the brands of equipment, asking about a certain steam station etc.) and 2) were having an detailed conversation about our opinions of the food, which were pretty clearly analytical and even critical. Very strange and confusing choice to me. I mean, you can have an open kitchen, if that’s what you want, where the diners are cleanly separated from cooks. Setting up this environment and then trying to maintain total remove was totally disconcerting.
Beverage program/service –There is a full bar and a small, expensive wine list. I don’t know if there is a sommelier, or the equivalent, but there didn’t appear to be anyone there last night of that ilk. We checked in advance and were told we could BYO with zero corkage, which is a delight, so we brought a number of bottles, planning to open 2 or even 3 depending on what we ended up ordering. The staff was amiable when we brought out our first bottle, but brought over glasses which were both stem-less and had very thick rims. They were about the size and shape of “O” stems, but were much heavier, thicker and clunky. I can’t imagine drinking any wine at all out of them. When we asked if there were other glasses, we were told that was all they had, except for champagne flutes. Since we don’t even like to drink champagne out of flutes most of the time, this did not help. Fortunately, living close has several advantages and Jonathan ran home and came back with good stems before the first course appeared. Our 2001 Zind Humbrecht Riesling Clos Windsbuhl (the only bottle we ended up opening) showed brilliantly.
Food – The menu is arranged in categories of light, medium and heavier, with a few specials written on the chalk walls and described by the server. There is also a tasting menu available, which we were told has no dishes in common with the regular menu. The menu is quite clearly Momofuku influenced, which, given Serpico’s history, is more than understandable and acceptable. There seemed to be a deliberate leaning towards snack and comfort food, which is, again, perfectly acceptable and even a positive thing, for us. We decided to order a la carte, as we wanted to taste what was on the menu on our first visit, rather than things that were entirely off menu. Usually, our approach with a “shared plate” restaurant is to order a first round of dishes, then order a second round (might be only one more thing, might be several) based on how we’re feeling, what we’ve liked and what we’re still craving; so we ordered four lighter dishes: the raw scallop in buttermilk dressing with chive oil, the sliced pig’s head, the corn ravioli, and the pho sandwich. The server told us that would probably not be enough food, and that they usually recommend at least one of the larger dishes for two people, along with some smaller things. We assured her that we planned to order more.
The raw diver scallops with buttermilk, poppy seeds, green yuzu kosho, white soy and chives came first. This dish has much in common with a Ko dish of raw fluke, which was included in the Momofuku cookbook. I have made that recipe several times myself, sometimes using scallops instead, which is a suggested substitution. My first impression as I watched this dish being assembled in front of us was that the scallops must have been tiny, or else they were cut into pieces instead of sliced across into thin disks (all the slicing was done prior to service, and the pieces were removed from a tray of pre-sliced scallops. Not a terrible thing, but I don’t think it did the flesh any favors. The result was the equivalent of about 2 medium scallops, as far as I could tell. I also noticed that there was a lot more dressing than was used either in the Ko version or the ones I’ve made at home – more of the buttermilk dressing, more pools of chive oil – so that it became a kind of soup with scallop pieces nearly submerged in it. The flavors (when it finally arrived, having made that journey all the way around the large island, instead of the arm’s-length journey across the counter) were good, but the scallop was totally overwhelmed by the sauce it was swimming in, obscuring the delicate sweetness of the scallop. So for my second and third bite, I nipped the fish out of the sauce, and shook it a few times to get just a bit of the flavor. That was an improvement, but the scallop itself was kind of unremarkable. To my mind, that does not excuse drowning it in sauce! Unfortunately, this was to be the theme of the evening…. It is worth noting that the ’01 ZH was an excellent pairing with this dish.
Next came the sliced pig’s head with burnt onion mustard. Also assembled right in front of us, this plate consisted of a generous smear of the mustard, covered by very thin slices of pig’s head terrine. The plate was passed briefly under the salamander to take the chill off the meat and active the fat, then it was topped by some friseé leaves. At this point in the meal, I was a little surprised that the greens were completely nude of dressing, and I wished a little something had been used to give a bite of acid and a different texture than just plain, dry friseé (little did I suspect that I would end the meal grateful that one element hadn’t been drowned in a condiment), but it was still a pretty good dish, though nothing to keep you thinking about it hours later. It turned out to be the most successful dish of the night. It also paired nicely with the ZH.
Our third dish was the Cope’s Corn Ravioli with chorizo, white cheese, sour cream, lime and cilantro. We were really looking forward to this dish, as it sounded particularly interesting and we thought it would sing with the ZH. It turned out to be the most frustrating dish of the night. The raviolis themselves, when fished out from their overdose sauce, were delicious – a touch sweet, a touch earthy, cooked properly – but they were totally overwhelmed by the gloppiness of the sauce and overall presentation. The cheese crumbled over top was very good, and an excellent flavor element, and proportionally correct. The chorizo, however, while good chorizo, was cut in such large pieces that it overwhelmed anything else in the same bite. Why not a fine dice, like the crumbled cheese, or even a use a microplaner for a fine dusting? We both agreed that the dish was just ruined by sloppy, heavy-handed execution. Those delicious ravioli, with just a tiny fraction of the sauce, and a much finer treatment of the chorizo would have been a very strong dish. I can only guess they were trying to avoid fancy and go for “homey” but what ended up happening was a mess, and frustrating, because the base idea was so good.
The final plate of our meal was the so-called Pho sandwich, advertised as having grilled beef, jalepenos, bean sprouts and thai basil. Now, Philly has a very large and thriving Vietnamese community, centered just a few blocks from Serpico, so Philly diners know what Pho is. I also know what Pho is – one of the largest Vietnamese communities outside Vietnam is 5 minutes from where I grew up. Not to mention the fact that I’ve been to Vietnam three times, and in fact just returned from there a week ago. Though there are a number of elements which can vary in Pho, none of the versions I’ve ever encountered or heard of involve hoisin sauce. OK – so he took some license in the title, no big deal. No big deal if that were the only issue…The sandwich was served on a nicely toasted hoagie-ish roll (a nod to the Philly cheese steak, maybe?), and consisted of small chunks of beef, some minced jalapenos (I think these were mixed in with the beef, but I could be wrong) two small sprigs of thai basil, about 8 bean sprouts, and what looked like a quarter cup of hoisin sauce. Since this sandwich, too, was assembled right in front of us, we could see exactly how much of each things went on. In this case, too, all the beef was pre-cooked and cut, and was rewarmed under the salamander before serving. A beef sandwich should be a pretty forgiving thing, but in this case the beef was sadly overcooked and completely dried out. The only moisture came from the inexcusable overabundance of hoisin sauce, which made the whole thing so sweet that my husband, who has little tolerance for overly sweet savory dishes, couldn’t eat more than a few bites. The jalapenos brought some welcome heat, but the only reason I knew there was thai basil in there was that I saw it go in. The bean sprouts were also lost, which was too bad, as a nice crispy fresh element was badly needed.
A Pho sandwich could have been a rocking dish – some nice pink, thinly slice beef, some brisket, some tendon even, flavored with star anise and other Pho-elements, served with a pile of basil and cilantro and bean sprouts and limes, just like the soup, and let people put their own sandwich together? Could be awesome. Why, oh why, do you need to drown the whole thing in sweet sauce? Sauce that has nothing to do with Pho! It’s honestly what we sometimes do for my 5 year old stepson when we want to get unfamiliar protein down him – add some teriyaki sauce and he’ll eat anything. Maybe the sauce was meant to give it something “Asian” as nothing else about the prep was.
At this point, we both looked at each other said “I think I’m done.” The problems we’d encountered were so consistent as to be a clear choice or at least a pattern. It was enough to make us think we wouldn’t learn anything more if we ate more dishes, and I had also seen a few dishes go by that seemed to be suffering from some of the same issues. We were done with our wonderful bottle of wine, and, after only an hour, felt ready to leave. I could tell the kitchen and front of house both were surprised we were leaving, but other than one cook, someone who hadn’t even been in front of us, who smiled and wishes us a good evening, no one in the kitchen said anything to us as we left. The hostess asked “was everything enjoyable” (or something like that) as we left and I said, with little enthusiasm, “it was fine thanks.” “Great!” was her response. It made me wonder if she heard me, or if that’s her response to everyone. After walking out, Jonathan made a joke about the great hot dog place a few doors down. We didn’t end up stopping there, but we did talk all the way home about how disappointed we were, what exactly we thought was wrong and why, and how it could have been improved.
It felt like the kitchen was calling it in, frankly. There was no energy in the kitchen, though everyone was doing his or her job, and the no-eye-contact, sometimes staring off into space thing was really off putting. Jonathan wondered if maybe chef thought things needed to be dumbed down for Philadelphia, that chef would choose to go the route of what’s essentially kids’ food (put a lot of sugary sauce on things – teriyaki, ketchup, tonkatsu, whatever - and they gobble it up). If this is the case, it’s really not true – Philly has some really good restaurants, and the general quality is rising all the time. We were so excited to have Serpico in the neighborhood, but at this point, it’s proximity, and the zero corkage policy are really the only things that would inspire us to go back. Petruce et al blew it out of the water without a backward glance, though it is a more expensive restaurant – we got out of Serpico for about $35 a piece, admittedly not having eaten as heartily as we usually do. I’m willing to reserve complete judgement, as it is always possible it was a totally off night, and if someone invites us there, I probably would go back, despite what I wrote. But the (to me) mistakes in execution were not just slip ups. The really sad thing is that that it could be better – Serpico absolutely knows how to let ingredients speak for themselves, and I know he can put together a menu that is both accessible and balanced and run a kitchen that executes properly. It’s a real shame that they’ve erred so far on the side of heavy-handedness. A shame and shame on him. He can do so much better. I really hope he does.