At Maia, you walk in past a coffee bar with baked-on-premises pastries. In the back is the market, which has a communal table. Decor has antique whitewashed brick walls and end-block wood tables. Behind the coffee bar is the bar area with bistro seating (entrees $10 to $21). Upstairs, serving dinner only, is the restaurant proper with a second bar, underlit with fiber optics and made of white onyx. A strip of incandescent ice glows from the center of the dining room's long, dark-wood communal table (see photo). There's a fire pit out back near patio seating.
The restaurant menu (entrees $10 to $34) focuses on Western Europe, basically from Germany to Scandinavia. The all-day bar menu ranges from $6 soup to $26 lobster en croute.
Patrick Feury's resume includes Le Cirque in New York, Les Olivades in Paris, Suilan at the Borgata in Atlantic City, and Nectar in Berwyn. Terence Feury worked at Le Bernardin in New York, and in Philadelphia at the Grill at the Ritz Carlton and Striped Bass. Sommelier Melissa Monosoff was recruited from the Four Seasons' Fountain.
Toscana in Bucks
The old Bob Evans on Street Road just west of Route 1 in Bensalem has been radically transformed into
Toscana 52 (4602 Street Rd., 215-942-7770). Owners Mario Longo and his son, Riccardo, also have the Italian Bistro chain, Toscana in Cherry Hill, Tuscan Tavern in Blackwood, and Tuscan Brick-Oven Pizza in Mullica Hill.
