Under a new chef, Rex 1516 gets a satisfying second act

LOW AND SLOW: Rex 1516's Creekstone brisket is smoked for eight hours over oak.
Maria Pouchnikova

Novelty, novelty, novelty is the location, location, location of restaurant reviews. It’s the most important factor in determining what we cover and when.

Ninety-eight percent of my reviews are of new restaurants. It’s not fair, but them’s the breaks when you live in a town where you can’t swing an heirloom-garlic farmer without hitting a fresh-baked rotisserie, pho joint, gluten-free bakery or tasting-menu atelier. The unfortunate reality is that unless you are a seminal restaurant with a critical chef change (Fork), an elder statesman of the scene ripe for re-eval (Vetri) or somewhere that suddenly up and starts serving interesting food (Boot & Saddle), if you’re more than a year old, you ain’t getting reviewed.

That sucks for chefs like Justin Swain, who’s been lobbying for new reviews of the three-year-old Southern spot Rex 1516 he took over two years ago. But not anymore. Today he gets his wish.

The sluggish schedule of summer openings created a vacancy in the editorial calendar, and before I knew it, I was nibbling Swain’s buttermilk drop biscuits in Rex’s brick-walled, crypt-dark dining room. Tender, almost creamy and paved in sesame seeds, the pair of biscuits joined a fire-orange smear of spicy pimento cheese on the slate-board Farmer’s Platter. I ran my knife through the cheese spread — a traditional mix of grated cheddar, mayo, peppers and spices — and frosted the biscuits heavy and thick as birthday cakes.

The rest of the platter was less compelling: mixed house pickles, jam — “Strawberry, raspberry, nothing really special,” a server estimated — and a trio of cheeses curated more by Di Bruno’s than Swain: the Irish Gouda-style Coolea, Spanish Cana de Cabra (misidentified as cow’s milk — it’s goat) and Point Reyes blue. All fine cheeses, sure, but none are relevant to Rex’s portrait of the American South. Therein lies the danger of doing a “themed” restaurant; the smallest whiff of non-due-diligence can make the whole thing stink.

Before Swain, Alabama-born chef Regis Jansen was Rex’s physical link to the South; his attachment gave the restaurant an air of authority, of street cred. That link was severed when Jansen left the restaurant for health reasons. Swain was Jansen’s second-in-command while still in classes at the Restaurant School. (Jansen and Swain also cooked together at 1601 way back.) He approached owners Jill Weber and Evan Malone to fill the open spot. They agreed, and Swain spent the last months of school running his own kitchen. He graduated as valedictorian.

When asked how his Rex is different from Jansen’s, Swain doesn’t waver: “It’s better.” Despite the lazy cheese choices and some other hiccups, he’s right — it is. Along with his Northeast Philly swagger, Swain brings a level of consistency not seen before. He’s also “borderline obsessed” with barbecue, and smokes the best Texas-style brisket this side of Percy Street. 

Smoked eight hours over oak, that beef arrived in meaty slabs that flaked like fish. I’d have liked a sprinkle of finishing salt over the 10 ounces of Creekstone cow — the portion was alarmingly generous — but the natural flavor of the beef shone through the smoke, while quarter-sized bread-and-butter pickles kept the palate refreshed. The brisket needed nothing else except an editor to strip away the rubbery corn cakes, a sidecar of barbecue sauce and the Latin intrusion of chile-lime mayo. 

Over-embellishments mucked up other plates, too, like the clumsy ravioli with tomato-rouged pasta sheets (by Severino, not Swain), a mushroom-ricotta filling, Vidalia béchamel, asparagus and cornbread crumbs. The fruit soup wasn’t a soup at all, but a mint tea-and-Champagne syrup poured tableside around dots of lemon curd, vanilla ice cream and a giant strawberry-rhubarb sarcoma of jam with a texture somewhere between Chuckles and bubble tea pearls. It was as boozy, cloying and hostile as an alcoholic grandmother who mistook her Jean Nate for Listerine. 

Honest, straightforward stuff fared much better. A golden mound of cake-like cornbread baked in a skillet. Crispy wings rubbed Nashville-style with cayenne, their husky heat balanced with dill seed. The bewitching rum-and-horchata milk shake that chaperoned a basket of chocolate-dipped, deep-fried, cookie-dough truffles. 

Besides the brisket, Swain’s money dish was the crawfish pan roast, which grew out of the restaurant’s annual April mud bug boil. Soft potatoes, snappy andouille, sweet clams, a hunk of blistered corn and an army of crawfish in a buttery, Cajun-spiced, white-wine broth. It was a deal at $14, and big enough to be an entrée.

These neighborhood-friendly prices and service keep butts in the seats, especially on weeknights, and general manager Heather Rodkey’s skillfully made, inexpensive cocktails follow suit. Inspired by Pine Barrens bogs, the bittersweet, woodsy Webb’s Mill had a Campari-and-sparkling-wine base, Pine Barrens honey, pine liqueur and the red hue that represents the area’s carnivorous plants. 

I don’t think I’ve had a cocktail so thought through. And I never would have had I not made room in the new-new-new noise to re-examine Rex, a restaurant maturing on a young block of South Street. 

REX 1516 | 1516 South St., 267-319-1366, rex1516.com. Dinner: Sun.-Mon., 5-10 p.m.; Tue.-Sat., 5-11 p.m. Brunch: Sat.-Sun., 11 a.m.-4 p.m. Appetizers, $7-$14; entrees, $13-$26; desserts, $8-$9.