Tragically named cocktails aren't the only missteps at The Gaslight

STALKER: At The Gaslight, broccoli salad is studded with dates, almonds and crisp shallots.
Mark Stehle

Third Eye Blind slid through the speakers, and at the white subway-tiled bar, Cran-Apple cosmos flowed like Acqua di Gio on Prom Night ’97. Out of morbid curiosity, I considered ordering the drink, which at The Gaslight is called a Sex Panther and is served, in Clinton-era fashion, in a stem-less martini glass. But even in the obscuring, low glow of the overhead globe lights, I couldn’t embarrass myself like that.

Instead I tried the Red Hot Mama, a margarita blushed with black currant. Or red currant. Or black cherry. Or Eagle-Eye Cherry, the ’90s band next up on the sound system. No one was quite sure at The Gaslight, the new bar/restaurant from Jason Cichonski, a chef whose reputation is built — fairly or unfairly — on equal parts scallop noodles and sex appeal. When he and Nick Elmi first encountered each other on the last season of Top Chef, Elmi looked at Cichonski’s pastel pink shorts and quipped, “You look like you just got off a yacht.”

I felt like I was on one at The Gaslight, that’s about how rocky the food was, but the cocktails were even weirder. This list appears to have been curated by a Cherry Hill bachelorette party, with confections bearing names like Pirate Hooker (a red currant Bellini, because who doesn’t want that at 9:30 p.m.?) and Hello Kitty, a martini whose fruity flavors (green tea, lychee, strawberry) make more sense together at Old City Frozen Yogurt down the street.

There are some less froofy options, but they’re equally dumb in other ways. The Big Brown is a Bulleit Boulevardier — don’t know why it’s not called that. What makes me so angry about this list is that it counts on customers being stupid, distilling Old City diners to a bunch of imbeciles who would get a kick out of sipping The Beiber, The Lindsay or The Miley at brunch. Why did anybody put a stop to this?

The long, low-lit bar at The Gaslight, which opened in the former Philadelphia Bar & Restaurant space in mid-February, deserves better. It’s a handsome construction, stocked with row upon row of quality liquor and friendly bartenders who seem more than capable of making you something that doesn’t sound like the title of an episode of To Catch a Predator. Stick to the small, but well-rounded, wine list or the 16-draught, 30-plus-bottle beer lists.

But enough harping on liquid failures. At The Gaslight, there’s plenty of criticism to go around. Cichonski and chef de cuisine James Fujioka, a veteran of Stateside, Morgan’s Pier and Cichonski’s fine dining Ela, have put together a menu that, conceptually, fits nicely with the big, boxy space. The food and the room, with its mix of high and low wood-top tables and exposed brick-accent walls, are chameleons. You could have a nice three-course dinner here, or a basket of fries and a couple Sex Panthers. The Gaslight is whatever you want it to be. 

You start with the section of “Chips & Dips,” an array of $8 purees in oval metal pans that are smaller than the bowls used for feeding my 10-pound dogs. I liked the hummus, though, studded with cloves of sweet caramelized garlic, trails of chile oil snaking down the chickpea mash like lava down a volcano. And the trio of chips was great: rice crackers, tortilla chips from San Roman and pita chips made from Fujioka’s own pita loaves. The thin, charred eggplant salsa, meanwhile, wasn’t charred enough to develop a depth of flavor to anchor the delicate spice notes of cinnamon and za’atar.

Execution whiffs like this peppered what could have been a very good meal. You won’t find a better soup than Fujioka’s sophisticated tomato bisque, which was fortified with caramelized miso, kombu and smoked balsamic. But the garnish of white cheddar popcorn was superfluous. Topped with Cabot cheddar, smoked bread-and-butter pickles and red curry aioli, the burger was a beefy bomb of umami on a brioche bun — but the meat was so undercooked that the golden, well-seasoned fries had bloodstains. Shaved sous-vide pork belly and foie-and-chicken liver mousse gave chef-y tweaks to a banh mi — but the filings were skimpy relative to the Ba Le bread, and the pickled carrot, daikon and jalapeño lacked punch.

These are easy fixes, which makes them even more annoying. Along with a great staff, Gaslight has a ton of potential, such as what I saw in dishes like crispy fried chicken, which gets a Thai accent from red curry in its buttermilk batter and comes with a square duck-fat biscuit lathered in miso honey butter. Or the broccoli salad, which could have been crispier but was nonetheless delicious with chopped dates, toasted almonds and tangy-sweet fried shallot dressing. The same foie-and-chicken liver terrine spread on the banh mi was better in a glass, beneath a cap of smoked duck fat, as a spread for crostini.

The all-pudding dessert menu charmed. Try the silky banana with peanut butter caramel or the white chocolate with blood orange jam that made me rethink my membership in the white-chocolate-haters society. I love how they come cradled in killer sugar-cookie cups cleverly baked on upside-down muffin tins. Hurry, go and eat some. At The Gaslight, it will only be a matter of time before someone turns them into cocktails.

THE GASLIGHT | 120 Market St., 215-925-7691, thegaslightphilly.com. Mon.-Fri., 5 p.m.-2 a.m., Sat.-Sun. 11 a.m.-2 a.m. Appetizers, $7-$13; sandwiches, $12-$13; entrees, $12-$18; desserts, $7.