Philadelphia Weekly

“The one thing more valuable than money that a customer can spend in your restaurant is time.”

Coming from a restaurateur as young and carefully coiffed as 29-year-old Jonathan Makar, insight like that could easily come across the wrong way. Kiehl’s-slicked lip service. Hollow 
as a jack-o-lantern. But the native Virginian—his grandparents owned a restaurant in Charlottesville for 35 years—is following the example set by his grandfather, a restaurateur to whom hospitality was paramount. 


I wouldn’t bother with the backstory 
if Makar, who owns the crimson, 
capitalization-eschewing snackbar, didn’t 
embrace his pop’s ethos so completely. I wouldn’t mention it if the cocktail napkins weren’t linen, or if the server’s mustache wasn’t so carefully waxed into a Monopoly Man handlebar. I wouldn’t mention it if the unisex bathroom didn’t bear the intoxicating perfume of a 
dozen promiscuous lilies.


Yeah, okay, such trappings can come off pretentious—who needs fresh flowers when the glaciers are melting? goes the argument—and doubly so on this Rittenhouse stage, as nattily attired as Makar himself. But seen in the context of a grandfather’s wisdom, the details are deft little surprises, ones I thought about long after dinner was over.


The Rittenhouse regulars picked up the scent when Makar opened snackbar three years ago. Through three chefs and three concepts, they’ve continued to patronize, unwavering in their loyalty. Many regulars visit three to five times a week, Makar estimates. I hope their cats are okay.


On what was likely the last night warm enough to dine outside, I watched the well-heeled clientele attempt to rub elbows on the sidewalk. (Arthritis.) They pulled up chairs. They drank martinis with fat green olives. I might’ve thought one pair was Phyllis and Edward if snackbar’s smashing Breakfast Burger wasn’t served on Metropolitan brioche. 


But, oh, what a burger it is. Chef John Taus, who came to snackbar in January, slayed me with this sandwich of morning staples: bacon smoked in-house over cherrywood, white cheddar, a butter-fried dippy egg that popped like a water balloon on the juicy patty. My plate looked like abstract art, swirls of yolky gold, blood pink and Heinz 57 red as I drug the square-edged skinless French fries through the various “paints.” It wasn’t nearly as pretty as it was delicious.


As a former sous chef at Zahav, 27-year-old Taus brings a clear culinary focus that has eluded snackbar. The menu feels very American, very loose and likeable, with a collection of plates that are neither small nor large. Taus’ food is suited to grazing, but fortunately the servers don’t get all mathematical about your order. Start slow and order more when you get hungry again, seems to be the practice here, echoed by Makar, who says he actually encourages staff not to turn tables.


Indeed, no one will rush you through dinner at snackbar, and cocktails and dinner arrive at their own leisurely pace. Fortunately, the food was all worth the wait, from the bowl of stove-popped popcorn cleverly tossed in nutty brown butter to the house-cured lomo that only recently appeared on the menu. Curing tenderloins in smoked paprika, garlic and red chili and hanging them to age for five months was one of Taus’ first orders of business when he arrived at snackbar. The planning paid off with thin, pliable slices arranged like petals on the plate. Some bread or chutney might have been nice, but if Taus’ goal was to showcase the meat unadulterated, then I get it.


There was real personality in the scallop crudo bejeweled with tart, crunchy pomegranate seeds, finished with mint and cool Champagne grape granita, and I loved Taus’ pork trotter roulade stuffed with delicate sautéed chanterelles, breaded in baguette crumbs and fried. Even better was what hid underneath: dreamy grits mined with house-pickled jalapeños and enriched with white cheddar.


I was similarly stuck, though not in a good way, on the mini chicken pot pie, whose flaky pastry crust—the secret is chicken fat—couldn’t rescue the pasty interior. The cocktails I wasn’t crazy about either, particularly the Shiso Thirsty, whose star ingredients, shiso and lemongrass, were bullied into submission by boozy Cachaca. I’ll forget about it after a while, but I’ll remember the linen napkin upon which the cocktail was set, one in a series of lovely little details that together form a trail of breadcrumbs that leads directly back to snackbar. ■