French fares well at La Peg

Standing 22 feet tall and crowned with art deco arches, the three north-facing windows at La Peg would be stunning if they looked out on a dollar store. Instead, they allow a view of the massive stone support of the Ben Franklin Bridge, which fills the glass triplets like the hoof of a prehistoric leviathan.

Sitting at a table in an oddly cozy corner of this cavernous turn-of-the-century pumping station-turned-urban brasserie, I was overwhelmed by the visual drama. Inside, all the building’s beautiful guts were on display: stripped brick, rusty trusses, open rafters outfitted with constellations of hanging lamps. Outside: an empty patio strung in glowing lights, fall slowly swallowing summer against the backdrop of the bridge, everything charcoal and midnight and newspaper-gray. Gotham. And when the PATCO train flashed like a comet across the rails, I half expected a bat-eared silhouette behind it, arcing past the panes into the night. 

La Peg has two superheroes, neither of whom can rappel down a bridge. The first is FringeArts, the arts org that had the foresight to convert this relic into a performance theater and built-in restaurant. The other is Bistrot La Minette’s Peter Woolsey, who’s made a big, ballsy statement about Delaware Avenue by opening La Peg here.

“A lot of people told me this was a bad location,” he says. “But I think the waterfront is kind of hitting its stride; it feels like the tide has turned.”

While Spruce Street Harbor Park was packing away its arboreal glow-sticks and hammocks until next season, La Peg bustled. It was late on a weeknight, and the restaurant was full, alive. The open kitchen, where Woolsey works with his chef de cuisine, Nich Bazik, sits just off the entrance, stealing very little square footage from the overall space. The thought of turning out an unwieldy menu of more than 50 items in the cramped quarters made my head hurt.

They managed. Food came at an easy, comfortable clip, twists on French-inspired plates born on the hands of a polished staff in dashing aprons. La Peg is Woolsey’s take on a brasserie, and the menu is butchered into a hundred sections, some of which include, like, two items. This is how they do it in the motherland, Woolsey contends. It’s also visually schizophrenic and makes ordering laborious. I went through all the excellent bread and butter while deciding on my order.

You can begin with the run of classic little vegetable salads. “At any given point at my French in-laws’ you can reach in the fridge and find four or five of them,” says Woolsey. They’re like the Gallic analog to Zahav’s salatim and varied in success: pebbly Le Puy lentils cooked to perfection, for example, versus squeaky mushrooms a la greque; sliced red tomatoes marinated in sherry vinaigrette and basil, the sincerest goodbye to summer, versus salt-baked beets whose yogurt and orange accouterments made them taste like Creamsicles. And too much walnut oil gave the greasy carrot slaw the uncanny aerosol flavor of Pam.

At three bucks a pop, you can budget for some misses in the vegetable section. True to brasserie style, La Peg is an affordable place to dine, and the joy of eating Woolsey's best dishes way outpace their prices. His interpretation of choucroute garni, an Alsatian staple, featured falling-apart confit of pork shoulder, a crisped slice of blood sausage terrine that was like black scrapple, seared slab bacon and a chubby brat arranged over ribbons of kraut deeply perfumed with onions and caraway.

He’s a matchmaker of foie and raisins — the former molded into creamy torchon cylinders; the latter pickled, spiked with Cognac and pureed into a brooding, burgundy fruit butter. Vinegary dressed frisée and blocks of brioche toast came on the side — very traditional.

But not everything is Frenchy French at La Peg. “I had a lot of very strict rules at Bistrot. At La Peg, it’s fun playing with things I wasn’t allowed to,” Woolsey says.

Which explains the glimmering tuna tartare, firm clean cubes of ahi furnished with pickled ginger and cilantro, but also walnut oil and tiny salt-and-pepper tuilles. And the pho consommé, my favorite thing on the whole damn menu. It was like a reduction of pho, the oxtail broth concentrated into clear brown liquor as rich as beef bourguignonne, but scented with star anise, ginger and fish sauce. Woolsey floated a slice of New York strip on top; beneath hid a tangle of vermicelli and a diaphanous raviolo stuffed with the soft, sticky meat pricked off the braised oxtail bones. Woolsey laughs, “It’s French colonial.” 

At La Peg, there’s a freewheeling spirit you don’t get at the beautiful and severe Minette, but a little of the latter’s discipline could help sharpen the experience here. Sriracha turned up a lot, which felt like a trick of a lesser restaurant. It was there with hoisin alongside the pho, and again hidden in red splotches under the tartare. It murdered the natural essence of a raw oyster in a trio of bivalves; just order them naked.

Tea-cured trout was perfectly cooked, but beached on inelegant crushed potatoes surrounded by an oily pond of brewed tea, Chartreuse and olive oil. The picnic-friendly Parisian sandwich could use ham with more character (and smoke) than the timid French import filling its buttered baguette. And why didn’t the Tropical Sundae have a crunchy element? Without that textural contrast, it was less of a sundae than a bowl of exotic smoothie ingredients awaiting a visit to the blender. 

All was forgiven when the apple tart arrived, a textbook pastry with carefully fanned fruit slices, a swipe of thick caramel and flaky crust. I savored the last bite and view. Perfect, both of them.

LA PEG | 140 N. Columbus Blvd., 215-375-7744, www.lapegbrasserie.com. Dinner: Mon.-Thu., 5-10:30 p.m.; Fri.-Sat., 5-11:30 p.m.; Sun., 5-10 p.m. Brunch: Sat.-Sun., 11 a.m.-2:30 p.m. Small plates, $3-$14; large plates, $22-$27; desserts, $6-$9.