Inconsistency and service problems undermine Restaurant Aleksandar’s upscale intrigue

Things at Restaurant Aleksandar had been going fairly well. But then we came for a revisit to try the ambitious new fall menu, and my confidence quickly unraveled as our middle dishes were somehow delayed until after the entrées and then — rush! rush! rush! — everything was delivered to our crowded table at once. This multi-course meal was mashed into total confusion.

My previous visit to this shiny new addition to Rittenhouse Square, an upscale destination in the space vacated by V Street, had delivered a meal that surpassed my expectations for a group of owners and chefs who have little leadership experience between them. Perched at a cozy round table near the front window, a relatively quiet corner in this buzzy narrow space, I dove into fresh pierogis filled with smoked cheddar and potatoes dusted with fresh horseradish. A lamb shank practically melted off the bone into creamy polenta after a 14-hour braise. Duck confit served over spaetzle in sour cherry jus. A fine N.Y. strip with gorgonzola potato croquettes was glossed in a dark sauce spiked with Serbian brandy.

The vivid green vegan cabbage rolls stuffed with rice and mushrooms with tamarind and soy glaze offered a delicious window into the intriguing collaborations possible at Aleksandar between its two creative forces. They evoked the modern twist on Slavic accents that operator Aleksandar Stojnic had hoped to showcase with his debut restaurant’s menu, with nods to the eggrolls chef Montana Houston grew up eating with his dad in South Jersey. A large whole branzino dramatically posed in tempura crust as if it had swam right into the deep-fryer, a spectacular centerpiece draped with charred broccolini with fiery chili sauce.

These dishes caught my attention in late September once the opening menu had settled into a practiced groove. Stojnic, 31, a German of Serbian descent who moved to Philly eight years ago, is the vision behind this operation. He worked his way up from a busser position to food runner and expediter at Brauhaus Schmitz, but has little restaurant management background. He’s relying here mostly on childhood experiences at his family’s Italian restaurant back in Bremen, as well as the support of his wife, Monika Maj, and her father, developer Marek Maj, who owns the space. They put plenty of DIY effort into the makeover of the room, from carpentry to the distressed mirror, and benefitted from the colorful original art painted by Stojnic’s mom, Svetlana Alimpijevic.

He’s found an intriguing talent in Camden-born executive chef Houston, 26, who was inspired early on by his grandmother Beverly (”We call her Dutchess”), and has since risen fast through the restaurant ranks. After starting out at Jordan Johnson’s in Northeast Philly, he worked at Brick Farm Tavern in Hopewell, Restaurant Daniel and Eleven Madison Park in Manhattan (where he made uni foam and pine needle dust), and Medford’s Braddock’s Tavern. With another young cook by his side, sous-chef in Ja’mir Wimberly-Cole, who, at 22, has already spent time at Per Se and the Fitler Club, this duo consistently produced beautifully plated dishes built around quality ingredients.

But the inexperience on all sides is apparent, particularly in the transition between summer and fall menus, with hardly a carryover dish and a format makeover from a three-course a la carte offering to a pricier multi-section menu with an option for a $95 five-course tasting.

Aleksandar’s dining room staff was friendly enough, but, having thoroughly fumbled our straightforward request for a few a la carte dishes, does not seem up to choreographing a five-course tasting. By October, the cocktail menu was out of sync with the seasons, still lingering on white spirits. And what did arrive was shaky. A Clover Club with beet syrup and raspberry was so bitter and sour I could not drink it. Try a rarely seen Zilovka from Bosnia-Herzegovina instead, a beautiful white that’s more on theme.

Menu evolution is to be expected. But I question the wisdom of completely replacing a menu that had already earned this two-month-old restaurant some early fans.

“We want to push boundaries,” Stojnic says. “But even our PR guy was upset.”

The new menu has increased entree prices into the mid-$30s, and the short rib from their now-unavailable excellent pasta dish has reappeared in whole chunks braised with root beer over vanilla-scented mashed potatoes, a tribute to the Weber’s Drive-Ins of Houston’s and Wimberly-Cole’s South Jersey childhoods. It was sweet, but also tasty enough — until I tried to bite through a pale undercooked onion ring whose gluten-free corn starch batter was as impenetrable as plaster of paris.

Houston and his creative crew want to grow quickly. But change as a reflex isn’t smart when your team can’t yet execute the plan. The fall menu shows plenty of cracks, in its increasing drift away from the restaurant’s early Eastern European-rooted identity towards a generic modern American do-anything-you-want template, in misleading menu descriptions and dishes that simply need more work.

The pierogi took a wrong turn into a Philly bar cliché by stuffing the dumplings with cheesesteak fixings. I’m usually OK with selling bread separately when the bread is good. But $12 is too much for the doughy, pale little Parker House rolls that arrived looking nothing like the brioche signaled on the menu.

The “wild mushroom risotto” was confusing, too, because it appeared to be a squash risotto topped with a single roasted maitake. Turns out it was made with mushroom broth, but why disguise it with squash puree? There is already a very good pumpkin soup garnished with chamomile oil and crispy parsnip chips to rep the Jack O’ Lantern orange fall mood. I want to taste the forest when I order mushroom risotto.

The fact that the risotto was still delicious reaffirms this kitchen has talent. But a more disciplined vision for its identity is essential. Several dishes here are vegan, a proper nod to this space’s history as V Street. But some, like the carrots in curry over coconut jasmine rice with baba ghanoush and chili crisp, seemed completely random.

There are some Louisiana references, too, like the head-on prawns with étouffée sauce, but over saffron basmati (an odd pairing for this Cajun-Creole dish) and with a sauce so scant I could hardly find it.

There were some positives in our second meal, like the tea-brined chicken with potato gratin and an Urfa pepper butter sauce. The seared halibut was a more manageable alternative to the 86′d whole fish, which apparently was too bothersome for some in the Rittenhouse crowd to debone, not to mention bad for Aleksandar’s food cost. I enjoyed that halibut in chowdery, buttered leeks with little necks, fingerlings, and truffles.

With desserts, however, the stumbles continued with beautiful plates undermined by key details. The gorgeously decorated chocolate mousse would have been perfect if the mousse itself not been seized and grainy. The gluten-free carrot cake had potential, too, but that chef’s trick of adding a pinch of salt to heighten sweetness backfired when a heavy hand turned the garnishes into a salt lick.

Add this dessert disappointment to the service mistakes that disrupted the flow of this expensive and imperfect meal, which approached $100 per person with drinks and tips, and you’d think someone might have paused to consider an opportunity to offer a simple gesture of apology. But not a peep. No one at Aleksandar was really paying attention.

126 S. 19th St., 215-279-7738; restaurantaleksandar.com

Dinner Monday to Thursday, 4-10 p.m., Friday to Sunday, until 11 p.m.; Brunch Friday to Sunday, 9 a.m.-2 p.m.

Dinner entrees, $26-$40. Five-course tasting menu, $95.

Not wheelchair accessible.