Philadelphia Weekly

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The scone is a humble foodstuff. It lacks the pedigree of a croissant, the panache of a danish. The scone is rather severe, barely sweet and too often dry and crumbly as old cement.

The good news is when done right, scones can be freaking delicious. The bad news is you'll need to drive out to Ocean City to get the best from Who's on First, the cutely named relocation of owners Michael and Jennifer Bailey's funky 4th Street Caf�.

After their lease at 4th Street wasn't renewed last year, the Baileys took the wagons west to Fiddelstown, Calif., to fulfill a lifelong dream of owning their own vineyard. But they managed to lock down a location for a new scone emporium while tending their Roussan and Syrah grapes in Amador County. This summer they're playing bicoastal ping-pong. Michael is going back to Cali while Jennifer runs Who's on First.

Piles of scones sit behind the coffee counter on pastel plates. Espresso chocolate chip. Pear. Honey and walnut. Jennifer, who started baking scones when she received a scone cookbook for a birthday present, changes it up each day with three freshly baked renditions from her 20-deep repertoire. They're fluffy and cakelike in the middle, crunchy and browned around their triangular borders.

The Baileys have built a rep upon flour and butter, but they also do dinner. When the sun goes down, white cloths drape over the mismatched tables (and one school desk) and the lights dim. The yellow folding chairs and drink menu of chais and caps painted on one wall remind you that you're having dinner in a coffee shop, but the effect is charming. A chalkboard displays nightly specials and desserts like gooey sticky-bun bread pudding and heavenly banana cake infused with lavender and topped with chocolate icing thick as boardwalk fudge.

The Baileys and their cooks aren't trained chefs. The results can be both deliciously homey--like the smoky grilled Caesar, a sneeze-inducing ode to black pepper and anchovy--or wildly flawed. Take the corn chowder, a blend of stewed tomatoes, Yukon golds and a handful of kernels floating around in a thin, bland broth. It's watery. It's cold.

Thankfully, there's home-baked bread piled into charming metal pails (but no bread plates) and a pleasant if basic tangle of arugula, ripe black mission figs and goat cheese. The thin, flat golden crab pancake pops with cilantro-flecked mango-and-jalape�o relish. Bound with Saltine cracker breadcrumbs, the recipe comes from a San Francisco cookbook.

An Abington native, Michael met Jennifer in the Bay Area, the cradle of the eat-local movement. Their locavore exposure makes itself known on the menu with dishes like summery Jersey peach cobbler capped with airy fresh whipped cream and a gorgeous New York strip locally raised on a diet of fine Garden State grass. My knife slices through the grilled steak with no resistance; vibrant ginger-horseradish-cranberry-apricot chutney makes each bite sing.

Juicy bone-in chicken breast gets a Thai treatment with sweet chili sauce, crunchy cucumber salad tossed with peanuts and coconut rice. Bright ginger-and-lemon dressing gives plump pan-seared scallops from Barnegat Bay a Far East address. The meaty grilled wahoo steak, a nightly special on the restaurant's chalkboard, arrives with soft tortillas, guacamole and fiery roasted tomato salsa for a bit of impromptu taco making.

Waitresses breeze about the tables wearing billowy sundresses and tans. They're young and sweet, with varying levels of aptitude. When I order the scallop appetizer and crabcake entree, my server gets it backward--after double-checking the order. Drinks don't arrive until after apps. The excuse: They've run out of glasses and are waiting for some to be washed.

So it goes at the shore where for better or worse, even the fanciest restaurant is a casual affair. In Ocean City there's no booze to distract from the glaring omissions at Who's on First--but the upside is there's nothing to distract from the bistro's best dishes. Do not forget a scone.