St. Stephen's Green

It first appeared that Ben McNamara was simply taking a hiatus from his gourmet ambitions when he closed his upscale bistro in the Northeast, Isabella's, to cook at a bar owned by childhood friends.

Seven years later, those fine-dining dreams are still on a shelf. But McNamara's considerable culinary talent hasn't been wasted. Now the new chef at St. Stephen's Green, he is clearly one of the pioneering veterans of Philly's thriving gastropub scene, already having transformed bars like the New Wave Cafe and Dark Horse into destinations for great, unpretentious food at neighborhood prices.

McNamara's pub fare has always bridged a vast divide, from roasted duck and short ribs with truffled risotto to grilled pizzas and chicken wings. With quality ingredients and a serious approach, he's been one of most consistent cooks I've covered over the last decade.

And, yet, those previous pubs haven't always suited his haute instincts. The Dark Horse's rabid soccer crowd, for example, was usually so blotto by the 10 a.m. Saturday match, there just wasn't much interest in puff pastry snails with Pernod cream.

At the New Wave, where McNamara worked twice, constant treks to the downstairs walk-in were "starting to kill" his rapidly aging back. It's no wonder McNamara, 44, was spotted this fall scouting locations for a prepared-foods market before deciding to return, once again, to a gastropub kitchen.

Could this stint at St. Stephen's Green in Fairmount be any different?

McNamara says it is, with a brand new back-friendly kitchen to work in, and a mellower, more receptive neighborhood crowd to feed. At the very least, his October arrival has been a gift for this handsome new pub.

The opening kitchen staff was a big disappointment when this promising spot debuted in June, prompting owners James Stephens (also owner of the Dark Horse) and Jeff Keel (who also owns the Bishop's Collar), to search for an alternative.

They'd already invested big in a stellar revamp of the long-vacant shell of Cuvee Notredame. With the help of a Dublin-based design firm, they installed woodwork throughout the multilevel restaurant, with four-legged pub tables, cozy fireplaces, and buttresslike wooden arches laced across the main bar room to add intimacy to the tall-ceilinged sunny space.

Stephens had previous experience with McNamara at the Dark Horse, and the menu's improvement since his arrival has been as expected: instant and decisive.

Still in need of much help are the dining room staff (friendly but unpolished) and the beer list (good craft selections, but with all the wrong glasses and lame advice from the servers).

But such rough edges can be overlooked when the food is this good. Longtime McNamara-lytes will recognize all of the chef's old favorites, reflecting a blend of his classic European style with some of his bar-food updates.

There are his delicate risotto crabcakes, with sweet lumps of crustacean molded into pillows of rice, set over basil butter sauce. Toothsome homemade gnocchi come in porcini cream. And then, there is the chicken cheesesteak, an open-faced baguette toasted with brie, then piled high with tenderly braised poultry, oyster mushrooms and shallots.

McNamara's English training shines through in the perfectly beer-battered fish and chips, and a hearty cottage pie casserole with ground beef and veggies snuggled beneath a well-browned blanket of piped mashed potatoes.

The rich lobster bisque is classic, though I found the addition of steamed clams and shrimp (and a heavy brandy finish) to be distracting. That fusty old diner standby - chicken croquettes - gets a much more successful upgrade, with sublimely creamy béchamel-and-chicken fillings ribboned with salty Serrrano ham tucked inside a panko crust.

In the pure bar-food genre, McNamara makes what may be the best chicken wings in town, big meaty drumettes glazed in a dynamic barbecue sauce woven with tang and the smoky heat of chipotle spice. The cornmeal-fried calamari were inconsistent, though McNamara has already replaced the chewy squid I ate from one supplier (food giant Sysco) with a more reliable source.

Far more interesting were the homemade empanadas, half-moons of cumin-scented pastry filled with chorizo-spiked potatoes that tasted like pierogies with a Mexi-kick. Deep-fried saffron risotto balls called arancini, with a core of bright tomato sauce, were also irresistible.

Most of this menu's entrees hover around $15 a plate, but McNamara's slightly more expensive specials are still excellent bistro values. The mallet-size lamb shanks, expertly braised in burgundy wine, are well worth $21, as are the thick cuts of spice-blackened rib eye napped with gorgonzola cream. I also highly recommend the roasted duck - if only because the rendered fat is used to fry up side dishes of dangerously addictive Brussels sprouts and bacon.

Restrained indulgence has never been this chef's forte. And a penchant for old-school richness is on full display in the repertoire of classic desserts McNamara has brought with him to every kitchen.

They're not unusual, per se. But the former baker's apprentice renders them with a precision any pastry shop would envy. The tart key lime pie comes topped with gorgeously browned peaks of cloudlike meringue. The chocolate-bottomed pecan pie is filled with tender nuts and a delicate crust. The death by chocolate, meanwhile, is so silky rich and intensely fudgy that its impossible to resist, even if it is a '90s cliche.

So what if we've had it before? This death by chocolate has the sweet taste of resurrection to me.