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Breakfast or Lunch? They both work at Plate

There are two schools of thought about brunch. These are implicitly spelled out in the very name of the meal itself. To paraphrase a certain ruffle-collared Englishman, to omelet or not to omelet? That is the Sunday-morning question.  I find myself firmly in the camp of the former. As a person who is entirely unable to function without my morning coffee and daily a.m. routine, I look to brunch for breakfast-type foods. Ms. Martini, however, preternaturally chipper at even the most ungodly hour of the morning, is more than happy to start off her Sunday with lunch-like dishes.

So when it came to our meal at Plate, she found herself in a very happy place indeed. Now, don’t get me wrong—Plate does serve traditional breakfast dishes at brunch, and generally does them very well. But it was through the more lunch-style offerings that the meal truly stood out.

The roasted plum tomato soup ($5.95), for example, was a fabulous rendition of the classic. The texture of the soup was far more velvety than the one mom probably de-canned when you were a child, and deeply flavored with the subtle richness of basil, caramelized onions, olive oil and garlic. And as if in homage to those days gone by, it was served with a mini-grilled cheese sandwich, a happy little square of buttery, cheddarcheesy goodness that was even better when dipped, Oreo-style, into the soup.

It wasn’t classic breakfast food, of course, or even typical brunchtime fare, but it made sense.

Plate: Preppy Pickup Scene

Plate. Suburban Square’s Plate is family-friendly, with a special kid’s menu, but the handsome horseshoe-shaped bar that dominates the entrance to the restaurant has quickly become a popular Wasp pickup spot. Conversation flows as easily as the signature cocktails in the dimly lit bar, and the tables for two along the wide-open windows are a coveted place to share a bottle of wine from the “20 under $30” list. For the less social, the 42-inch plasma-screen TV is its own attraction (Suburban Square, Ardmore; 610-642-5900).

At the Plate

Don’t expect cathedral ceilings and an intimate dining room hidden in a bank vault at Circa owner David Mantelmacher’s new Suburban Square restaurant. Mantelmacher has gone basic, from the name — Plate — to the minimal DAS Architect—designed space.  The dining room, painted warm vanilla and chocolate tones, with an orange concrete floor, evokes a Pottery Barn store, and Circa executive chef Tom Harkin’s menu complements the comfy atmosphere with unfussy entrées, most priced under $18. At lunch, gourmet pizzas with smoked salmon and goat cheese or skirt steak and feta fill the stone oven; at dinner, the focus turns to garlicroasted chicken and smoked pork chops, plus turkey meatloaf and mac and cheese. Kids get a special menu — chicken fingers, french fries, homemade doughnut holes coated tableside with cinnamon and sugar. Plate’s horseshoe-shaped bar, which opens onto the restaurant’s outdoor café, boasts a wine list with 20 bottles under $30, and specialty cocktails like the “Plateini,” with Sauza tequila, Midori and pineapple.

Home Plate

Who knew a bank could be sexy until David Mantelmacher unlocked the vault in 1993, unleashing the Center City phenomenon known as Circa? So even before the Penn Valley resident fired up in Suburban Square in April, foodies across the Main Line were predicting that any sibling of Circa was sure to be hot.

If the crowd around the glowing horseshoe-shaped bar for a recent happy hour was any indication, Plate is fast becoming a favorite. Could it be the Plateinis (a signature concoction of Sauza tequila, Midori and pineapple, $10), mango daiquiris ($8), melon margaritas ($8)and six draft beers ($3.50 to $5), or is it the 42-inch plasmascreen TV?

Plate occupies the site that most frequently housed La Parisienne and Za Stonefired Pizza. Mantelmacher went for comfy instead of high concept. Though the mahogany-accented, Italian-furnished restaurant probably doesn’t look like your mom’s kitchen, the hearth does make it homey—and it turns out sizzling comfort food that bears the savvy signature of executive chef Tom Harkins.

Macaroni - and - cheese will make you feel warm and gooey inside, especially when accompanied by barbecue shrimp and buttermilk biscuits ($8.75). June Cleaver would have appreciated homespun deviled eggs with smoked salmon and black bread ($7.75) and the mini grilled cheddar cheese sandwich perched in the center of a steaming bowl of roasted tomato soup ($5.50).

Circa Owner fills his Plates

Mantelmacher opened Plate in Ardmore’s Suburban Square last month and is finalizing plans for a second helping of Plate in Wyncote’s Cedarbrook Hill Apartments, where the owners are spending at least $10 million on renovations and retail additions.

“I didn’t want a city concept in the suburbs. I didn’t want to detract from what’s going on in Center City. I didn’t want to compete with Center City,” he said.

His first suburban venture, Plate, opened last month in the former La Parisienne restaurant, which closed 18 months ago. While Circa is housed in a cathedral-like former bank, Plate would have to make the best of a one-story suburban building; while Circa offers ginger-crust Ahi tuna at $25 a plate, Plate offers entrees like slow-smoked beef brisket at $16.50. In short, Mantelmacher wasn’t trying to extend Restaurant Row westward.

With the menu, Mantelmacher and Harkins hoped to offer reasonably priced food — what Mantelmacher calls “modern American comfort food.” “It’s ‘comfort’ with a twist, contemporary with a twist,” Mantelmacher said.  On a recent Friday night at Plate, the 110-seat restaurant had a long wait for tables. The round bar area overflowed with patrons.

Wining & Dining: Plate is packing the in at Suburban Square

It seems almost superfluous to report on the new Plate Restaurant in Suburban Square because most of the Main Line seems to be dining and wining there already. And for good reason: The food is fine.

The cool new spot, fronted in deep avocado green and black, is mobbed nightly. Since a no reservation policy is currently in play, the small front bar area and any standing room are packed with people waiting for a table, a hightop or a barstool. Suburban Square has long needed good places to nosh and dine. La Parisienne and Za opened as two eateries in one a few years ago, years after early successes like seasons and chains like Proud Popover.(Remember them?) LaP/Za was a short rental, however. Now, David Mantelmacher, the owner of successful Walnut Street restaurant, Circa, has created Plate in the same Square space.

Billed as a casual family and fun eatery with upscale comfort food, Plate in its opening weeks is holding to its promise. Our testing dinner was at a very early hour, but on a weekend. Still, management seemed to handle the crush of business with aplomb. Whether that is possible throughout each long evening remains to be seen. The U-shaped bar was designed for 20; it should have been built to hold 40. For now, Plate attracts families and seniors to early dining and a hip bar crowd later in the night. The menu has good choices at reasonable prices for both of them.

The Doughnut's Moment

Pastry chef Angela Tustin says executive chef Tom Harkin — who also heads up Circa on Walnut Street — was smitten with a doughnut dessert he sampled in Seattle and asked her to come up with one. She’d had something of a head start, being familiar with the bomboloni, the fancy custard-filled doughnut holes that once graced the dessert plate at Avenue B. But her take ($6.50), served with a dipping cup of coffee-flavored creme anglaise, is playfully blue-collar, influenced by her high school job as a doughnut-icer at Dunkin’ Donuts. The hot, cakey doughnut holes come to the table in a white paper bag into which a server sprinkles cinnamon sugar, then shakes up and snips open, releasing a cloud of fresh-doughnut aroma. Eyes across the room lock on and seek out the source. A basic instinct has been aroused, a hunger to fill — in one big bite — the emptiness that eternally haunts the center.

Culinary Currents: Plate, Ardmore, PA

In style, presentation, food offerings and pricing, Plate is a sign of the times, says executive chef Tom Harkins. With dinner offerings such as a barbecue beef brisket sandwich and sesame-crusted tuna ranging from $9.50 to $19.75, Plate was designed to serve stylish fare and comfort food at affordable prices.

As a result of "seeing the way the economy is and seeing what’s going on in the world, we’re trying to open a place that is affordable. We wanted to keep the ingredients comfortable," says Harkins, who also is the executive chef at Philadelphia’s Circa restaurant.

Teaming up once again with restaurateur David Mantelmacher, Harkins helped create a restaurant that was more casual than their nearly 10-year-old Circa. By contrast, Plate, which opened April 28, is located in the Suburban Square shopping center in the Philadelphia suburb of Ardmore.

Plate’s design and menu, however, also reflect the affluence and sophisticated dining habits of the upscale suburban community.

"Some of the food is hip," and some of it is along the lines of barbecue baby back ribs and slow-smoked beef brisket, Harkins says. He even placed 4-ounce filet mignon on the kids menu with sides of peas and carrots and mashed potatoes. Other offerings on the kids menu are more common, with selections such as macaroni and cheese, chicken fingers and grilled cheese. Kids also may order capellini with pomodoro sauce.

Harkins, who has worked as a chef at Restaurant 210 in Philadelphia’s Rittenhouse Hotel, says he has styled Plate’s menu so that it caters to a broad range of tastes in the community. It is designed to generate a check average of about $30.

Stepping up to the Plate in Ardmore

The man said, "If you build it, they will come." And come they did, to La Parisienne, a bistro, and ‘Za, a pizzeria, built smack in the center of the Ardmore Suburban Square shopping center, where there was a great need for a restaurant. They came in droves, for the onion soup and French atmosphere, and brought the kids for pizzas. It seemed infallible, but fail it did — to this day I don’t know why— and stood idle for quite some time. Now, David Mantelmacher of Circa in Center City and Tom Harkins, his chef, have created their own restaurant in this high-profile spot.

Alain Ducasse may have his Spoon and Ellen Yin her Fork, and now we have Plate, a big, airy spot with an American menu and a casual attitude. They’ve taken down the walls that existed between La Parisienne and the pizzeria, and replaced them with frosted glass panels. They exposed the kitchen and the wood-burning oven, and placed flowery fabric banquettes back to back, down the center, so that there is a view from everywhere. They’ve hung modern, highvoltage lamps from the ceiling and given the entire room a streamlined, chic-but-not-too-chic look,although the banal, commercial salt and pepper shakers are a jarring note.

The large, circular bar to the right of the entrance has been left intact, and it is as busy as the restaurant when we arrive. The whole neighborhood seems to be there, seniors as well as the stroller set. Mantelmacher has brought some of the Circa group, including some stunning, black-clad young women and the dishwasher, with him to his new outpost, but even they cannot keep the service moving, a problem I’m sure they will eventually work out. Meanwhile, like everyone else, we sip our drinks and graze the menu. There are salads, sandwiches, entrées: nothing to shock the bourgeoisie. This is a different crowd from Center City and Mantelmacher knows it. They want homey food and lots of it, and a wine list with 20 wines under $30 doesn’t hurt either.

Plate brings 'Modern American Comfort Food' to the suburbs

When we met Emily DiNubile, she seemed to be posing behind her Painter’s Palette of Ice Cream, midlick, savoring the homemade chocolate ice cream in the homemade cone, served with chocolate sauce and sprinkles.  Then she slurped again, this time the vanilla, and smiled broadly. This happy 6-year-old had just graduated from kindergarten that day, so her parents, Dr. Nick DiNubile and his wife M.B. took her to Plate to celebrate.

This was not their first visit to the popular new family dining spot in Ardmore’s Suburban Square. Emily’s father enjoys the whole menu, but this time he was talking up the desserts. "I love the Doughnuts in a Bag [freshly made donut holes sprinkled with cinnamon sugar served with a coffee dipping sauce]. But Plate is great for the whole family. M.B. is a vegetarian, so she can always find some food she likes here. And our 2-year-old Dylan really likes the Capellini with Pomodoro Sauce from the Kids Menu."


As the DiNubiles were enjoying their little celebration at their table just before the open kitchen, where Executive Chef Tom Harkins and his staff were conjuring up all manner of culinary magic, several parties of friends were toasting the end of the work day in Plate’s ultra-sophisticated lounge. Sitting at the base-lighted U-shaped bar or standing around it under an amazing rounded lighting fixture resembling an inverted bowl (or plate), they appeared at ease in this new haven on the Main Line.
 

Feed a Full Plate: This Main Line eatery holds potential

 Plate, Ardmore’s new retroesque ode to comfort food from the owner and executive chef who brought us Circa on Walnut Street, is the kind of place I can’t wait to try. For one thing, I go everywhere on foot and hardly ever get to see my car, so the seven-minute drive out to Ardmore gives me a chance to check whether my vehicle is still parked where I left it, or whether the Philadelphia Police Department has once again towed it due to street construction.

Second, the low buildings and antiseptic cleanliness of the suburbs have a calming effect on me, as long as I keep my visit short. And Plate’s location in Suburban Square near the Ardmore Farmer’s Market is just too enticing. Its octagonal front windows framed in soothing olive and neutrals open out to the quiet street, the fat lowercase letters of its name promising...well, comfort.

Table Talk

Monday is opening day for Plate, a contemporary comfort-fooder taking over the space in Ardmore’s Suburban Square (105 Coulter Ave., 610-642-5900) that last housed La Parisienne and ‘Za. Owner is David Mantelmacher, who owns Center City’s Circa, which will mark its 10th anniversary later this year. The decor — by Center City’s DAS Architects — is focused on a wood-fired stone oven (which has a six-seat food bar) and includes Italian furniture, glass partitions, mahogany and a concrete floor. There’s a terrace for outdoor dining. (With a nod to the neighborhood, there’s seating for families away from singles/couples.) Chef is Tom Harkins, overseeing both restaurants; Gerald Petrus Jr. will run the day-to-day. Harkins’ menu includes cedar-plank salmon, organic chicken, woodfired smoked pork (dinner entrees $18 and under), burgers and meat loaf with pizzas at lunchtime. There’s a U-shaped bar that you might take for granite. It’s not; it’s fiberglass. At the bar, there’s a 42-inch plasmascreen TV and 20 wines under $30 a bottle.

Dining Restaurant Buzz

David Mantelmacher of Center City bistro Circa (celebrating its 10th aniversary this year), has opened Plate at Suburban Square in Ardmore. The Circa quartet of executive chef Tom Harkins, chef de cuisine Jerry Petrus, pastry chef AngelaTustin and general manager Peter Mooradian will assist in operating the 200- seat facility, which features contemporary American fare. Plate features entrees priced at $18 and under, 20 wines priced under $30 and a 50-seat bar area with televisions.

Circa owner opening a new Plate

DAVID MANTELMACHER, owner of swanky Circa (1518 Walnut St.), will open Plate in Ardmore tomorrow (105 Coulter Ave., 610-642-5900). Designed by DAS Architects and Designers, the 5,000- square-foot space will offer upscale comfort food in a casual setting. Circa’s chef, Tom Harkins, will be overseeing both spots. Menu highlights: calamari with a crispy rice crust and chili vinaigrette, spicy ahi tuna flatbread, roasted tomato soup with mini grilled cheddar cheese.

Fork it Over!

Plate Restaurant and Bar is the newest baby for Circa’s David Mantelmacher. Located in Ardmore within the shops of Suburban Square you’ll find homestyle American fare.

Off the Menu

Appearances matter: Center City-based DAS Architects and Designers recently completed Plate, Circa owner David Mantelmacher’s new venture in Ardmore’s Suburban Square. DAS was also behind the designs of Le Bec-Fin, Savona, Novelty, and Twenty 21, and provided architectural services for Stephen Starr’s Pod and Morimoto.