Philadelphia Weekly

Personality awe: Despite starting as a deli, Teri’s is attempting a classier menu.

Photo by Michael Persico

Nobody knows better than a restaurant critic not to judge a book by its cover, but Teri’s in the Italian Market practically double-dog dared me. Hospital-green walls. Back-of-the-house terra cotta tile with dingy black grout. Teal laminate booths. Opposite my seat, the ancient Dietz & Watson deli case looked so old it probably remembers mortadella and sopresatta from before they got trendy.

Teri’s looks like a deli playing restaurant dress-up, which is exactly what it is. All the flickering votive candles and square plates in the world can’t compensate for the server grabbing a preshift smoke by the front door or the cheap tablecloths haphazardly draped to turn a stainless steel worktable into a sideboard for glassware. The bathrooms—paging Mr. Clean—are opened by a key dangling from a lanyard hooked on the door handle. Just like in my neighborhood Dunkin’ Donuts.

The story behind this casual Ninth Street bruncherie is actually heartwarming—owners Fred Eller and Lucille Marinaro opened it in July in memory of Eller’s wife and Marinaro’s sister, Teri—so it’s unfortunate the atmosphere is rather dreary. After six months spinning bacon-egg-and-cheese bagels and Italian hoagies, the siblings-in-law added dinner service in January under Executive Chef Davis Denick. A Culinary Insitute of America grad and Coquette vet, his succinct, surprising new American menu—Shad roe! Persimmon! Chestnuts!—really deserves a prettier stage.

Every Wednesday through Sunday at 5 p.m., Denick takes over, stocking that Dietz & Watson caboose not with Oscar Meyer and sharp provolone but with legs of duck confit and peeled pears for poaching aligned in orderly rows. The dishes I ate were uncomplicated, but never to a fault, and the prices—$7 to $10 appetizers, $15-$20 entrees, plus a three-course $30 prix fixe open to the whole menu and a $5 wine refund with a state store receipt—were on the money, so to speak.

Briny as any caviar but rich as foie gras, the heart-shaped Delaware River shad roe played the role of the poor man’s Osetra in one appetizer. Denick poached and pan-seared the twin sacks—inside contains the shad’s countless eggs—and posed them alongside two seared scallops over roasted and mashed sweet potatoes. The flavor of the roe was a bit much by itself, but the scallops and sweets chilled it out nicely.

Encased in house-made pastry, the savory square tart of caramelized yellow onions and DiBruno’s Gorgonzola could have used a recalibration of its fillings (too much of the latter, not enough of the former), but the flavors complemented each other as well as you’d expect from this rather classic northern Italian pairing. Port “redux”—call it reduction, please—drizzled liberally over the tart and the tuft of baby greens made this almost like wine-and-cheese course reimagined as a starter.

Butternut squash ravioli, that old chestnut, got new life with the addition of meaty roasted chestnuts and a surprisingly light beurre blanc flecked with chives. Not particularly springy, but tasty—even if the overplumped ravs (from nearby Superior) looked like they’d gotten collagen injections. My other entree, striped bass over nutty barley risotto, was admirable for its expertly crisped skin, not the fishiness that pervaded half the fillet. Had I not been incognito, I’d have probably sent it back.

Denick recovered with dessert, the brightest part of my meal, with treats like ooey, gooey Taleggio matched with house-preserved permission and clover honey; supple pears stuffed with crunchy walnut brittle and poached in white wine, vanilla and star anise; and a mug of bittersweet Ghirardelli hot chocolate with house-baked orange madeleines for dunking. The cocoa was so thick and glossy, it spooled off the cookies’ scalloped edges like ribbons of black silk. And those cookies? Fluffy and delicate, they are most definitely the ones Proust has been pining for all these centuries.

If only Teri’s appearance could muster some of the elegance and elan of these desserts. Denick’s cooking is not perfect, but you get the sense he’s trying hard. So was my server, a little awkward but polite, particularly when requesting credit card tips in cash. Even when we were charged for each item individually instead of for the $30 prix fixe, dinner still cost only $75. At Teri’s, the price is right, but I’d gladly contribute more if it meant a makeover.