Even the immensely satisfying signature "Gemelli" comes from his list of golden oldies - a bowl of gemelli, the twisted twin pasta (he has 11-year-old twins of his own), with a robustly earthy lamb bolognese, mildly spiced merguez sausage from D'Artagnan, a vivid, al dente crown of broccoli rabe on top. "Italian," he calls the cuisine, "with a nod to French."
He is no longer hand-making his own silky pastas. At Gemelli they come from Severino, the well-regarded Jersey pasta house - a supplier, also, of Whole Foods.
But what he does offer is a dialed-up level of cookery that is extraordinarily rare to find in a 42-seat bistro in a leafy, half-mile-square borough in the near-western suburbs that unfold to become the dining-challenged Main Line.
Because Gilbert has worked in Wayne, and at La Terrasse in West Philly, at the star-crossed Mio Pomodoro in Jenkintown, and elsewhere - in fact, in more kitchens than are a plus on a resumé - he is not an unknown quantity. So in the mere weeks he has been open here (replacing a Creole cafe and, most recently, a modest dining room called Margot's), he has attracted customers from Bala Cynwyd and Merion, Penn Valley and, well, some call and ask how far the walk is from the Narberth train station. Five or six minutes.
So on his first few weekends, he (and his Laotian prep crew and waitstaff from his days at Taquet) has seen the room turn over twice - 85 covers on Friday and Saturday nights. Old fans have been offered occasional tasting-menu flourishes - bites of slivered duck breast over a crunchy fingerling-potato-and-hazelnut salad, a creamy, dime-sized quail egg on warm pumpernickel toasts. (A seven-fishes tasting menu, $50, is on tap for December.)
