The experiment in cutting-edge dining that was Blackfish in Stone Harbor hit the reset button early this year when acclaimed Philly chef Chip Roman bailed out, and the 170-seat, Shore-chic restaurant (whitewashed walls, distressed-wood floors, pillar candles in oversized lanterns) was renamed White Heron.
“Chip Roman left Stone Harbor to concentrate on his restaurant [the original Blackfish] in Conshohocken and his growing young family,” says White Heron’s spokesperson, Joe Duffey. The owner, Dr. John Sprandio, a Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania, oncologist, remains the same. When Roman departed in January, chef Dave Yanisko took over but left in April to head up Diving Horse in Avalon. By May 1, the reins had been handed to a new executive chef, Cape May Courthouse native Carl Messick, 28, formerly executive chef of the Ebbitt Room in Cape May. Messick had been with Blackfish/White Heron since it opened in Stone Harbor in 2009.
Too many cooks in the kitchen? Perhaps, but two dinners suggest that Messick has made some smart changes in this grand restaurant’s second life. “I tried to make White Heron more approachable for everybody,” he says. “You can come in and get something you had last year but also get something you don’t have to break the bank on.” Yet with most entrées priced in the high twenties to low thirties, you may need to crack the bank, if not break it.
Now, oysters are spritzed with traditional red-wine mignonette instead of pickled watermelon and Meyer-lemon froth, and Jersey shellfish are served in a familiar fra diavolo sauce instead of a complex, Pernod-accented bouillabaisse. White Heron has traded fireworks for familiarity. That may sound bad, but for every scintillating peak at Roman’s Blackfish, there was a valley just as deep. Messick’s reign merits fewer exclamation points, but also fewer question marks.
I liked his lighthearted corn soup swirled with basil aioli and garnished with lobster meat and loved his simpler clam chowder bolstered with bacon, which, let’s face it, makes everything taste better. Fat blackberries and Asiago shavings kept the green salad from feeling like rabbit food. Aromatic fennel pollen gave the Cape May scallops a convincing Tuscan essence.
But here is a question mark: Why put an heirloom-tomato salad on the menu if it means you have to get the tomatoes from Holland? The salad, mounded with gobs of fresh chevre, had great flavor, but to serve it in New Jersey on the cusp of tomato season…I’ll take “Sacrilege” for a thousand, Alex. Some dishes would go from good to great if Messick cut out shortcuts like prepared yellow curry powder—it’s easy enough to make from scratch—in the coconut-curry mussels.
Generally, though, White Heron won’t disappoint if you stick with fish. (My hanger steak hadn’t rested long enough before being sliced into ungainly hunks—the juices had run out, leaving it dry—and the meat possessed a past-its-prime funk.) The crispy-skinned king salmon, pan roasted and served with slender haricots verts and sharp red-wine gastrique, really worked. Splashed with charred-tomato vinaigrette, a snow-white steak of halibut was perfectly moist and flaky over ethereal corn-and-crab risotto. Ditto for the grilled Carolina mahi mahi in a textbook béarnaise sauce, a surprising choice I didn’t think would work but did.
The aquatic proteins were so spot-on, I could almost forgive their occasionally erroneous accents. I’m thinking of distractingly bitter blood-orange dressing for those fennel-pollen scallops, and gluey mushroom risotto and dried-out Hudson Valley foie gras for slabs of sexy, dusky-pink ahi.
Desserts include hot fudge sundaes and goblets of berries and cream, but better is the toffee pudding. It’s a classic of Messick’s former home, the Ebbitt Room. The charming steamed date cake arrived warm and sticky with amber caramel. A sidecar of vanilla ice cream upheld tradition. As the landscape of Shore dining continues to change, it’s good to know at least some things stay the same.