Nicks at Night

Two guys with the same name are making Pennsport proud.

by Trey Popp

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Published: Jul 1, 2008

Shirley Nicole Fonner LUMP SUM: Nicholas' perfectly cooked mini crab cakes are nearly outshined by a crisp side salad of watercress, radicchio and green apple. (CLICK IMAGE FOR LARGER VERSION)

Here's a theory. The farther a restaurateur lives from the place he sets up shop, the less likely it is that the receiving neighborhood will get what it really needs. That would explain, among other things, the Olive Garden around the corner from City Hall.

Turn the statement around and it works just as well. (Ah, modus tollens. You never fail.) One reason that Sidecar smacked the bull's-eye in G-Ho — my 'hood — is that the owners hardly need a sidecar to get there; they live two blocks away.

Maybe that's why Nicholas, the new 30-seat BYOB at the bottom of Moyemensing Avenue in Pennsport, is so on-target. One of its chef/owners, Nicholas Matteo, lives so close he could practically use his home oven to ease an order backlog. He'd had his eye on the spot for years, and pounced when its erstwhile gelato-shop tenant pulled out. In May, Matteo and co-chef/owner Nicholas Sweeney opened their eponymous restaurant.

As it happens, it took two chefs who have worked in some of the priciest eateries in town to come up with this admirably inexpensive new one. Sweeney and Matteo list Striped Bass and Morimoto on their résumés. The price of an entrée at either of those places could buy you a three-course meal here.

"After working at some of the bigger places in the city, kind of corporate places, we wanted to do something anti-that," Matteo says. "We wanted to keep it as simple as possible. We're doing all the shopping, prepping, soup to nuts. There's not a whole staff of prep workers, you know, sprinkling magic dust."

It is amazing how many dollars you can cut out of a quality meal when you lose the magic dust — which, in Nicholas' case, means such amenities as a hostess, busboy or more than one server on a Thursday night. When's the last time you had three perfectly seared day-boat scallops for $8? The Nicks' miniature crab cakes were even better, sautéed to an impossibly delicate crisp that made their almost creamy interior seem even more luscious. And the accompanying salad almost overshadowed that appetizer — tart matchsticks of green apple mingling with peppery watercress and vibrant radicchio.

All the starters are hefty — sometimes even a little too big, as in the case of a giant bowl of chilled strawberry soup. There was no denying the visual appeal of this dish, and when I got enough balsamic in my spoon it was summery and delightful, but after a few bites the natural sugars overrode everything else. I was instantly reminded of FrozFruit popsicles; one companion likened it to a smoothie. A smaller portion, perhaps punched up with something sour to add another layer of flavor, would have been more successful.

No complaints about the giant bowl of mussels, though — or the thick chunks of bacon whose smokiness permeated the onion-rich broth.

There was plenty to like in the entrée course, too, but some dishes needed a little tweaking. The exception was a very pretty piece of bluenose bass — white flesh perfectly supple, skin deliciously crispy — perched over a creamy risotto studded with a dice of pencil-thin asparagus spears. That plate left nothing to be desired. I guess it should be no surprise that seafood is a strong suit here, given Matteo and Sweeney's curricula vitae.

I loved the wild-rice pilaf that came with a Cornish game hen: the tangy sun-dried tomatoes a perfect counterpart to sweet sugar snap peas, each component bursting with color against the black grains. But I thought the fowl, moist though it was, could have used a sauce to provide an extra dimension. That yearning was only underlined by the vanilla-cider reduction that accompanied a grilled pork chop, a flavor explosion that served as a bold reminder of how exotic vanilla really is. Had the chop itself been half an inch thicker, this dish would have stolen the show.

The only entrée that fell flat for me was a flank steak that was a bit rubbery in texture, served with a pile of yam fries that needed more time to crisp up in the oven.

But Nicholas should have no trouble inspiring repeat visits on the strength of its seafood alone, especially since the menu changes weekly. My only real beef with the place is how noisy it gets. Tile floors conspire with wood and marble tabletops to raise the decibel level in a hurry, even when the restaurant is less than half full. It's a bad sign when you find yourself wishing for acoustical tiles on the ceiling. How about setting up a few tables on the extra-wide sidewalk?

At these prices, though, it's hardly fair to expect utopia across the board. Nicholas is off to a great start. The south end of Moyamensing has gotten all it could have asked for, and more.

(t_popp@citypaper.net)

Nicholas | 2015 E. Moyamensing Ave., 215-271-7177, nicholasphilly.com | Hours: Thu,, 5-10 p.m.; Fri.-Sat., 5-11 p.m.; Sun., 4-9 p.m.; closed Mon.-Wed. | Appetizers, $5-$8; Entrées, $12-$17 | BYOB

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