What was he thinking when he installed fluorescent lights in the dining room windows? They're tucked up behind a fussy window treatment, but not nearly enough. So instead of basking in the warm romance of a converted Chester County home, which these two parlorlike rooms could so easily be, my guests were washed in a ghoulish white glow better suited to an accountant's office.
The upscale New American menu looked tempting. But my friends wore a polite but uncertain look as to whether it had been such a great idea to drive all the way to Downingtown for dinner.
I was thinking the same thing when the cheerful waitress approached us with a husky hello: "So . . . are youz guyz repeat offenders?"
Experienced servers are hard enough to find in the city, but they're an endangered species this deep into exurbia. And DiFonzo is doing his best to train them up into $27-entree shape.
I was thrilled to discover, though, that DiFonzo's solo act is already up to speed in the kitchen.
It was clear from the first sip of the complimentary amuse-bouche, a silky potato-leek soup that was served hot from an espresso cup.
The meals that followed were just as eye-opening. Deceptively light tubes of gnocchi came in a delightfully bisquey tomato broth infused with olive oil. Crab cakes filled with sweet meat and bound with a delicate seafood mousse took on a confident Asian flair beside a glass noodle salad blushing sweet and spicy with caramelized sriracha.
Crepes came elegantly rolled around a mushroom puree so rich, it had the intensity of a good rich soup. And the perfume of mini-kobe Rossini burgers splashed with demi-glace was so heady, the entire table inhaled their truffled aroma when those foie gras-topped sliders landed before me.
