Too many restaurants, frankly, rest on the laurels of "family," as if a portrait on the mantel excused slapdash food on the plate. So I'd approached Fish & Grill with expectations lowered by un-stellar experiences.
Those anxieties, happily, were dispensed with the arrival of the appetizers - a subtly seasoned (with parsley and dill) fried eggplant and tomato salad, and airy, still-warm zucchini pancakes, given loft with egg whites, and texture with a shred of zucchini and yogurt-cheese in a whole wheat-and-semolina batter.
The fresh-faced, 52-seat BYO is shades of coffee and gold, the Turkish platters of Canca's homeland decorating the walls, the imperative copper coffee tureen on a counter, the imperative Pepsi cooler glowing in the corner, white tablecloths and comfortable wooden chairs.
It is reminiscent, in that sense, of a couple of my favorite "family operating businesses" - Aya's Cafe at 21st and Arch, with its cilantro-infused Egyptian falafel and fava-bean dips; and at 23d and Grays Ferry (a block south of South), Balkan Express, known for its Serbian stuffed cabbage, house-smoked cold cuts, and chicken paprikash.
Those are family restaurants (wives, uncles and grandmothers at the stove) that rely on family not as mere labor, but for family recipes and carefully rendered dishes, the ingredients attentively chosen, the seasoning applied with precision, the cooking well-practiced and sure.
