Monthly Archives: September 2011

Home to Roost – A young chef plus an old bar equals a recipe for rediscovery. By Adam Erace | Philadelphia citypaper

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HOORAY FILLET: The Happy Rooster's redfish, served in a lobster broth with plump mussels and heirloom cherry tomatoes, is a terrific example of chef Matt Savastano's abilities.

Home to Roost – A young chef plus an old bar equals a recipe for rediscovery.  

By Adam Erace | Philadelphia citypaper

Seven thousand, eight hundred and fifty-four. In my years living in Philadelphia, that’s probably how many times I’ve walked by the fire-engine-red front of the Happy Rooster. Seven thousand, eight hundred and fifty-four times, and never once had I gone in. I’d peered into the cranked-out café windows, at the bar full of lunching lawyers, racks of glasses hanging upside-down over their heads like a colony of slumbering crystal bats. En route to flashier neighbors, I’d even scoped the menu, but never gave this 43-year-old stalwart (currently under its third owner, Debora Reid-Jordan) the proper follow-through. Talk about disrespecting your elders.

Matt Savastano finally got me in the door. He had me at homemade gnocchi with braised duck and honey butter, the dish I’d earmarked for dinner while scanning Happy Rooster’s menu upon hearing the news that this 23-year-old former sous chef had taken over the kitchen for Jason Goodenough back in May. I didn’t care about the duck (even if it is slow-braised in chicken stock and white wine fortified with smoky bacon). It was all about the honey butter. On gnocchi. Like a biscuit, but with pasta. Genius.

So I walked toward the Happy Rooster for the seven thousand, eight hundred and fifty-fifth time, and I went in. Waxy late sun slunk in through the open windows, lighting the front room sympathetically. Still, there’s no hiding the four decades under this bird’s belt. You can see them, in the petrified collage of faded menus from fancy-shmancy restaurants in London and Rome. You can feel them, in the busted maroon booths so saggy you’d think elephants just had sex on them.

A little Walt Wit in my cup, a little Phillies on the TV, a little gnocchi on my mind. I was happy to finally be here. Savastano’s potato dumplings arrived, and then I wasn’t. Where was the pasta I’d pictured, lightly glossed, faintly sweet and fresh-herb freckled? Not here. These gnocchi were surrounded by a viscous, mud-brown sauce, making them look like innocent turtles caught in a sewage leak. There’s honey and butter in there all right, but mostly it’s the duck’s braising liquid, reduced until thuggish and dim and way too sweet. Snow peas, a curious addition, made the saccharine dish taste Asian-ish, truly capturing the spirit of a P.F. Chang’s.

The actual gnocchi were the sole bright spot, soft and light as marshmallows; I’d love to try them again in a different sauce — say, a reduction of the finessed, coral-colored lobster broth surrounding a block of redfish, the best-cooked piece of fish I’ve had all year and a dish far more emblematic of Savastano’s abilities. The chef cuts a strapping fillet, tall and thick as a stud o-lineman, and gets its well-seasoned skin so crisp it crunched like a cracker. Plump, buttery mussels and sugar-bomb heirloom cherry tomatoes joined in, wanting to see what all the fuss was about and creating the effect of a minimalist bouillabaisse. No need for 17 specimens of seafood in this bowl; Savastano knows the value of one or two good ones, something chefs twice his age still haven’t learned.

Schooled at the CIA in Hyde Park, the Northeast Pennsylvania native put in time at Supper, Chifa and Table 31, where he worked with Goodenough, before coming to the Happy Rooster. When Goodenough left for the Rooster, Savastano followed. And when Goodenough left here, Savastano found himself in executive whites when most of his peers are still working the salad station. Don’t think him some flashy hotshot, though; when he lumbers upstairs from the basement kitchen to cop a bottle of booze (to cook with, of course) or refill his plastic quart container with water from the soda gun, the baby-faced chef looks almost sheepish.

He’s got the right to swagger. Even bumps like a soupy vanilla custard and pallid fries scattered alongside a lobster roll can’t erase the sweet satisfaction of his grilled octopus, tender and smoky with grilled peaches, pine nuts and arugula, or his shirred eggs, a cream-baked diet-killer lavished with lobster salad and shiny lobster glace.

Noticing a recurring crustacean theme? Thanks to the Happy Rooster’s very popular lobster roll (a standby that is not his recipe), Savastano finds himself up to his claws in lobster shells and leftover scraps. What’s an intelligent, hardworking chef to do? Make lobster stock, all day, every day, and turn it into the powerful broths and glaces mentioned above.

But if you want the pure lobster experience, that sandwich is the jackpot. The meat of a whole Maine crustacean goes into each top-split bun, and while its presence on the menu precedes Savastano’s in the kitchen, he still deserves credit for not overcooking the meat and not gooping it up with unnecessary bullshit. Just a little mayo, lemon for brightness and celery for crunch.

The classy chicken cheesesteak was a close second in the sandwich department. Instead of slimy chicken slices, Savastano uses whole chicken breasts that are pan-roasted and chopped before being loaded with caramelized onions, mozzarella and shiitakes into a dense, chewy Metropolitan baguette — a cheesesteak you could take home to mom and dad. Fries came correct this time around. Browner, crunchier, saltier.

The same adjectives applied to dessert, a malty, vanilla-bean-laced, boardwalk-style waffle mined with crushed pistachios (right in the batter!) and crowned with mildly sweet, nutty pistachio-vanilla ice cream. It’s glorious — homey and chic at the same time, a joyful thing to eat. Being 23 has its advantages, apparently; while so many chefs are trying too hard to rediscover the lost flavors of their youths, Savastano’s are still fresh in mind. I love that. Now do something with Dunkaroos and I’ll really be impressed.