Upscale cocktails and innovative plates, all vegan, at Charlie was a sinner

MELON GAZPACHO: Canary and lemon drop melons are buzzed into a purée with cucumber, sherry vinegar and garlic scape. The beaker of soup is poured tableside over a bowl of compressed melon beads, avocado and fried bread crumbs.
Neal Santos

“I don’t talk about Charlie,” Nicole Marquis demurs — somewhat theatrically. Figures. She was an actor and Shakespeare scholar before opening Hip City Veg, the vegan fast-casual precursor to her new venture, a sultry full-service restaurant and cocktail den with an enigmatic name: Charlie was a sinner. 

“It just popped into my head. I thought, that is so incredibly random, yet for some reason I totally had a story in my mind for who this was,” she says. Someone with poor capitalization and punctuation skills? You’d think, but when prodded, Marquis alludes to an ex who broke her heart. “It’s complicated,” she says.

What’s not complicated is why Charlie is worth your time even if you’re not vegan. With a menu by Mike Santoro — his role has evolved from collaborator to legit exec chef since saying R.I.P. to the Mildred — and drinks in vintage-cut crystal by Pete Venuto, a veteran of Starr’s Ranstead Room and Dandelion, Charlie joins Vedge as the city’s second serious plant-food place. What this restaurant has that Vedge does not is Marquis, a smooth-as-butter hostess floating between guests and staff, shaking hands and running food. She’s Charlie’s angel.

What Vedge does have is a staff that knows what they’re doing. I felt like an intruder when I drifted in one morning — Charlie was open at 8 a.m. until new hours took effect last week — for a mug of Stumptown’s Holler Mountain blend (with almond milk) and a gooey vegan cinnamon bun (the only option) at the empty bar.

At dinner another day, a runner set down a bowl of polenta and called it gazpacho, while my server told me Mezcal Buck contained tequila. Does the gin martini also contain rum? The sunchokes in papillote made a dramatic entrance in a steam-filled balloon of food-grade cellophane. But the way the runner cut it open with a pair of kitchen shears … let’s just say you would not want him doing surgery on you.

Our hostess was sweet and as peachy as a Georgia bake sale, but it took a long time to be greeted by our server. It took forever to get drinks. It also took forever to get our bucatini with meatballs South Philly marinara — this South Philly kid approves — and wheat-gluten meatballs, the final course that came 20 minutes after everything else. We waited a long time for the check. There appeared to be an event going on, but that’s no excuse. Train your staff, restaurateurs. Train your staff.

When the cocktails did arrive, they helped. Barring a few requisite brown-liquor elixirs — farro-infused old fashioned, anyone? — Venuto’s menu of classic and signature drinks has a refreshing feminine vibe. Citrus kombucha added pep to white port, raspberry and pineapple in Les Fleurs du Mal, a crisp take on sangria. They offer a proper piña colada (“the way it used to be,” Venuto says) with Don Q añejo rum, coconut milk and pineapple juice that I could drink all damn day, and a tropical Bodhisattva, essentially a cardamom-dusted mango lassi corrupted by Sailor Jerry. All the juices are pressed in house, down to the pomegranate for the grenadine blushing my Mezcal Buck, which, in fact, did not contain tequila but smoky Del Maguey, ginger syrup and lime.

Pine paneling, estate-sale armoires, floor-to-ceiling bookcases and flashes of topaz and gold make Charlie’s long, narrow digs feel like dining in a giant boudoir, if not a bordello. Up front, round tables the size of cosmetics compacts line a cuddly tufted banquette opposite an 18th-century hotel reception desk. At the hammered copper bar, the lane cinches like an hourglass. To get to the dining room, where kissing scenes from Casablanca and Gone with the Wind flash in passionate projections on the wall, you need to press through a colony of lithe young creatures like you’re in an Enrique Iglesias video.

A plant-based diet can help you look like one of them.  I don’t know if Santoro’s raft of crispy, creamy chickpea fries or delicious tofu ricotta drizzled with balsamic-ish coconut nectar and smeared on charred sourdough will help you drop your winter weight, but, boy, did they taste good.

Balance them with the giant artichoke heart braised in saffron barigoule, grilled and planted in a garden of bibb lettuce, striking watermelon radish and sugary snap peas. The stunning gazpacho of canary and lemon drop melons also struck a healthful chord. Buzzed into a cool, vivid, green purée with cucumber, sherry vinegar and garlic scape, a beaker of soup was poured tableside over a bowl of compressed melon beads, avocado and fried bread crumbs. It was second only to the crispy bars of tofu, marinated in rice wine, breaded in rice flour, twice-fried like Korean fried chicken and slathered in crimson gochujang. Sheer slices of pickled cucumber and cauliflower florets added crunch, sweetness and acidity.

Toasted, pearl-like gnocchi meandered down a path of herb jus, blanched favas and charred onions. I loved their texture, but the plate needed salt, one of a few gripes with the food. The spring garlic aioli served with the chickpea frites was pasty, and the papillote of sunchokes, mushrooms and onions felt a little warm for the weather. Jalapeño was a thuggish occupier in the bucatini’s meatballs. Regular crushed red pepper would bring the same heat with less distraction.

Fortunately, some sinners can be forgiven.

CHARLIE WAS A SINNER |131 S. 13th St., 267-758-5372, charliewasasinner.com. Daily, 4 p.m.- 2 a.m. Plates, $7-$12.