If Jonathan McDonald got a little too big for his britches at a place called Snackbar with those escargot skewers, and crispy mackerel with fennel and apple gelee and some sort of powder derived from the dehydration of olive oil, he would like to make amends. Kick things down a notch.
He is installed in the kitchen now at a gastropub four blocks south of that once-effete boite, and at this gig - called Pub & Kitchen ("P&K" to the locals) - it's an entirely different story.
He is 30 now, with a baby on board, and he's got his feet more humbly planted: "It's the antithesis" of his last stop, he says - and, frankly, of his other finer-dining stops - Lacroix, West Philadelphia's Marigold Kitchen, and Salt, the brief forerunner of Snackbar, each of which honed his cutting-edge skills and won him no small number of groupies: "Johnny Mac," they call him.
But here at noisy P&K, in the space once occupied by Chaucer's at 20th and Lombard, he says, the food is not about him, not about "the celebrity chef thing." It's about honoring standards. The menu: oysters (actually, my favorite Cape May Salts), chicken wings, mussels and sausage, bangers with Gruyere and caramelized onions, lobster-salad BLT, burger (excellent when it is not, as mine was once, overcooked), sauteed chicken breast with Irish biscuits and spinach, and "black pepper" New York strip steak, all of which is as real-deal as things are likely to get on a menu of cooked food that you eat with beer.
It is, generally, very good stuff. There's one other item, however, that has given me unbridled pleasure, and underlined his attention to detail - the fish and chips ($16) with a bright Dijon-mayo-lemon aioli and side of mushy peas (boiled peas mashed with butter, a touch of mint and salt, a dish that defines the word comfort in the phrase "British comfort food").
Fish and chips ought to be simple enough. But you hardly ever get them right. I've had terrific ones at a joint called A Salt and Battery in Manhattan, and decent renditions hereabouts at the London Grill and St. Stephen's Green. But mostly they are way too greasy, or the fish, or the coating, is too wet and soggy.
