Review: Parc

Those scantily clad lasses, of course, are also part of the subterfuge, of the meticulously crafted and considered prestidigitation that has transformed a cavernous space on Rittenhouse Square into a Cinecittà Studios-worthy take on the Platonic Ideal of the neighborhood French bistro. But that’s the kind of spot that Parc seems to be: A meticulous rendering of a beloved dining archetype that, thankfully, doesn’t take itself too-too seriously.

Sometimes, that occasionally off-the-cuff vibe can get the place into trouble; service, until recently, had been inconsistent, with fortnight-seeming gaps of time between visits from harried waiters and waitresses, an occasional sense of tentativeness and uncertainty at the hostess stand, and bread too often not arriving on time.

But what bread! I’ve always maintained that this city’s bread, with the exception of a few notable standouts, caps out at good-not-great. But there must be something magical in the air at Parc, some magnificent strain of airborne yeast floating around (did monsieur Starr import some of the ambient yeast-cells from Paris’s famed Poilane bakery?).

Whatever the reason, the bread here is a revelation. Baguettes, all chewy and tender inside, are cocooned in an almost flaky, delicately hearty (despite the seeming paradox of such a characterization) crust. And the croissants at breakfast, thankfully modest in scale by Philadelphia standards (who really needs a forearm-sized one at ten in the morning?), shattered into a thousand little pieces of buttery goodness with the smallest bit of wishbone pressure at the center.

Speaking of breakfasts, there must be no more pleasant spot in the city right now for that first meal of the day, especially considering the Al Gore-like warmth we’ve been enjoying lately. At an early hour, if you get there either well before or just after the delivery trucks have completed their appointed rounds, the park itself seems somehow greener, more densely verdant, like an old-fashioned Meg Ryan-movie version of what a calm urban space is supposed to look like. A cup of coffee, a croissant, and a perfectly rolled omelet are all you need to set you at rights with the world.

           
The more complicated fare of the lunch and dinner menus, while a touch less consistent, has been improving from the outset. The kitchen seems to be working through the kinks that inevitably caused a few hiccups at the beginning, that resulted in the onions on one lunchtime cheeseburger to range from barely sweated to nearly blackened. The lamb sandwich with harissa, however, was an earthy, unobtrusively exotic treat that made for a deliciously affordable indulgence at $11.

But dinner is where Parc is really finding its footing. By 9:30pm one recent Saturday night, the bar was two or three-people deep, and the dining areas were packed with wine-flushed revelers looking thoroughly at ease in the yellow-lighted, tile-floored space. At one point, I looked up from my fruit-sweet glass of Loire Valley sparkler and saw, reflected in the perfectly tarnished mirrors, a swath of lightly drunken humanity reveling in their Saturday night shenanigans: Imagine a cross between the lighting of Manet’s “Bar at the Folies-Bergere” and the gurgling-beneath-the-surface energy of a Cecil B. DeMille crowd scene.

All of this, of course, played out amid the nutty-sweet aroma of butter and more butter. Moules frites (mussels with fries) done in the classic white wine – shallot – Dijon mustard style, were plump, turmeric-toned beauties. Skate Grenobloise with brown butter arrived far crispier than any other preparation in the city I’ve tasted lately, a brave move that highlighted the ray’s fleshiness without sacrificing any of its delicacy. Accompanied by buttery crisp croutons and the briny sharp pop of a judicious scattering of capers, it was both impossible to stop munching on and almost too rich to finish…just like good French bistro fare should be.

There was a similar balance between richness and bite in the Lyonnaise salad, a pitch-perfect rendering of the classic and the best one I’ve tasted in Philly since Pif closed. An airy mound of frisée came to the table vinegary bright and anchored by the bass notes of chewy lardons, simple croutons and potato cubes. Those disparate elements were brought together, and given full-throated voice, however, only after the poached egg cosseted in the middle was broken and its yolk mixed throughout. Salty, earthy, piquant, and warm: Is there any more we could ask of a humble salad?

Only the onion soup gratinee failed to show as well as I’d expected. Much as I wanted to love it, the broth was too delicate to carry the weight of the melted cheese on top, though the onions floating sweetly throughout managed to charm nonetheless.

The dessert menu reads like a greatest-hits list of neighborhood French restaurants, and both the comfortingly heady spice of the apple tarte Tatin and the simpler pleasures of chocolate sauce-drizzled profiteroles bring the meal to a sweet, satisfying close.

Parc, then, plays its role to the hilt without resorting to the hauteur or the self-seriousness that a less carefully conceived spot might have fell victim. Bistro dining, after all, isn’t necessarily about perfection; it leans far more heavily on well-prepared, flavorful standards and a sense of conviviality to carry the day. Which, with or without the risqué collage in the men’s room, Parc does with as great a sense of joie de vivre as anyplace in the city right now.