High Street reinvents itself in new location as an accessible destination for refined comforts

Good restaurants are inevitably a reflection of their time and place. Great restaurants are adept at setting a new agenda with a compelling vision the dining public never knew it needed.

That was very much the case in 2013 when I first chomped into a Red Eye Danish layered with coffee custard and Benton’s ham, followed by a matcha-infused pasta with smoked duck ragù and extraordinary breads that defined the bold debut of the original High Street on Market as a creative agent of culinary evolution as well as Philly’s pioneer of next-guard baking. If its original Old City location beside Fork had previously suffered from little sibling syndrome (it was, after all, previously called Fork Etc.), chef-partner Eli Kulp and then-baker Alex Bois were determined to make High Street into the most inventive, boundary-bending member of co-owner Ellen Yin’s growing restaurant family.

A decade later and half a dozen blocks west of its first location, High Street’s reinvention at the corner of Ninth and Chestnut has a much different, soothing tone. Gone are the daring impulses of the squid ink bialy and broccoli rabe-bittered cocktail that drove some to label the initial High Street “esoteric squared” — a phrase from my original review that Yin says now gives her “stabbing sensations” when she re-reads it. Today’s High Street 2.0 is more like a warm embrace, an antidote of polished hospitality and refined comforts for our post-pandemic phase, with cozy church pew window nooks for a seasonally inspired pizza and roast chicken supper. And perhaps, that’s just what this moment, and that particular neighborhood, needs.

This menu may be built on the familiar draws of pasta and Caesar salad, but smart modern tweaks keep them from being boring. There’s black garlic laced into the buttery glaze that takes garlic knots to an umami zone where garlic knots have rarely gone. Tahini lends a nutty richness to the Caesar dressing. That roast chicken is superbly tender from its 24 hours in a buttermilk brine, then served over a thick slice of sourdough glossed with schmaltz.

High Street’s excellent pizzas are appealing showcases for seasonal whims, from delicata squash with Calabrian oil, burrata, and honey, to a pie layered with roasted chestnut cream topped with charred kale leaves and cipollini onion petals.

So much here is anchored by an exceptional bakery. No surprise, given that elevating local grain has always been a cornerstone of High Street’s concept. So many dishes are accented with crunchy bread bits here, they might have just as well renamed it High Street Crumbs. But this more approachable new version of High Street succeeds largely because of the steady hand of its new chef, Christina McKeough.

McKeough was a veteran of Fork from the early 2000s before moving to the Finger Lakes for over a decade, where she ran her own place, Hazelnut Kitchen, and worked for Cornell University and Gimme! Coffee. She is a self-professed lover of the classics who showcases great ingredients with crisp technique in simple combinations.

While High Street’s identity may no longer be quite cutting-edge, it can be just as impactful if it manages to succeed in its mission — as I think it will — to revitalize this quiet and sunny corner as a destination restaurant. It follows decades of other forgettable projects in this space in the Franklin Residences, the massive 99-year-old building designed by Horace Trumbauer that was once the Ben Franklin Hotel.

Between the daytime traffic of Jefferson Health’s thriving medical campus and Market East’s rapid growth as a residential neighborhood, there’s a niche for an all-purpose dining hub here to be filled. Along with longtime design collaborator Marguerite Rodgers, Yin and her partners have energized a once lackluster location by reorienting the 14-seat bar front and center toward the Ninth Street entrance, wrapping the bakery end of the kitchen behind showcase glass, adding a beautiful private dining room in back, and maximizing every awkward nook behind the room’s massive support columns into seating for 35 that feels intimate.

The bar does its part to stay on message, eschewing once jarringly bitter cocktail combos of the old High Street for polished riffs on familiar drinks that incorporate novel savory touches from the kitchen in subtle ways, like a fresh dill garnish for the gimlet, or a sesame tincture for the banana-cocoa take on an old-fashioned. There’s a focus on American producers for the wine list, including a well-rounded chambourcin that was the most impressive thing I’ve tasted yet from Kensington’s Mural City Cellars. There is also a thoughtful zero-proof cocktail program full of satisfying options (try The Other Pink Skies) that’s been a hit with the medical lunch crowd.

Considering the potentially strong lunch scene, this was one service where the kitchen execution was less than stellar. An otherwise delicious burger was slightly overcooked. High Street’s house-smoked pastrami was too lean and dry; the Reuben’s seeded rye sliced far too thick.

Our dinners, though, were beautifully cooked. A juicy citrus salad of vibrant purple blood orange segments burst against shaved fennel, black olive puree, and caper leaves for a sweet-and-savory beam of Mediterranean sunshine. A fluffy brandade of salt cod and potatoes made for a hearty nibble over crisped polenta. Earthy lamb meatballs paired with a celeriac tzatziki.

McKeough’s determination to gently cook the seafood for her starters — lightly poached shrimp with salsa verde and pistachios; grilled-kissed baby squid for garlicky white beans and broccoli rabe — preserved the delicacy of those ingredients.

The house pastas are solid, but not particularly dynamic in their more traditional Italian presentations, like the tonnarelli with clams, or the small but stunningly rich crock of Roman-style semolina gnocchi discs in sage-infused pecorino cream. But when McKeough takes a more contemporary American approach, the pastas suddenly become memorable.

Her rye-flavored creste di gallo noodles topped with soulful brisket ragù, fresh-grated horseradish, and caraway bread crumbs is a clever pasta nod to a beef on weck sandwich from her former stomping grounds in upstate New York. The tubular spaccatelli are a spectacular showcase for mushrooms — royal trumpets and dried black trumpets in deep mushroom stock — topped with an egg yolk that enriches the bowl carbonara-style when you mix it in and lends extra resonance to the crunch and earthiness of toasted buckwheat and crispy leeks on top.

The pastas and pizzas could make a perfectly filling entree for an affordable $18 to $24, but there are a handful of shareable entrees, too, that bring both mass appeal and solid values in the mid-$30s. Aside from the half chicken, there is a tasty hanger steak with Worcestershire aioli and crispy root vegetables for a winterized steak frites. My favorite, though, was less common, a half-pound hunk of monkfish tail still on the bone that was butter-roasted like an oceanic osso buco, then laid into a bowl of bouillabaisse-like saffron broth with roasted fennel and toast, topped with fermented pepper rouille.

If the old High Street’s penchant for inventive combinations persists anywhere, it’s most evident in pastry chef Kate Hughes’ desserts. There’s honey ice cream steeped with sesame semolina bread. A moist sticky toffee pudding whose molasses-maple sweetness is tempered by smoked malt, plus the tartness of pomegranate syrup and kataifi shreds dusted in sumac-sugar.

Hughes’ most inspired dessert, though, is a caffeinated-rye twist on a cannoli. The paper-thin crispy tube is made from ground caraway and rye bread. The chocolate mousse piped inside is spiked with coffee and spiced chai. Black tea caramel, apple butter, cocoa nibs, and rye crumbs complete the dish that deftly rides the sweet-and-savory line. When this finale ultimately lands gracefully on the sweet side of that divide, the time and place for such a creative gamble is always right.

101 S. Ninth St., 215-625-0988; highstreetphilly

Dinner Tuesday-Thursday, 5-9 p.m.; Friday and Saturday, until 9:30 p.m. Lunch Tuesday-Friday 11 a.m.-3 p.m. Brunch Saturday and Sunday, 10 a.m.-3 p.m.

Entrees, $18-$37.

Much of the menu can be made gluten-free, but given the on-site bakery, those with extreme gluten sensitivities should be cautious.

Wheelchair accessible.

Discounted parking is available for $14 in the Iparkit lot on the 900 block of Sansom Street but must be reserved in advance from a link in the email confirming a High Street reservation.