A Touch of Italian Regionalism for Horsham

Last year, I reviewed the lunch at Blackfish, and while I was impressed, I wouldn’t consider my experience life altering. So it was with excitement and not a little bit of curiosity that I decided to return. Would the restaurant live up to its recent hype? And would the newfound weight of its new lofty ranking in the Philadelphia region have any sort of negative impact on its ability to deliver the kind of experience that had facilitated its meteoric rise in the first place?

The answers, in order, are as follows: Yes, and gloriously no.

Much has been made about Chef Chip Roman’s singular take on the manipulation of ingredients, his molecular-gastronomical approach that, no matter how avant-garde it may seem, still finds its center in coaxing rich, true flavors out of his ingredients. The sense of excitement in his cooking, in fact, comes from his judicious use of the unexpected, and his ability to render preparations you’ve had before both comfortingly familiar and exhilarating in ways you may never have imagined before.

A recent amuse-bouche of parmesan “pop rocks” was just that: tiny ladles of sweet grated parmesan that hopped, skipped and jumped on the palate. What was, at first, perhaps mildly disconcerting, rather quickly evolved into the kind of joyously unexpected experience that Chef Roman does so well. Call this an amusing amusé.

Champagne and oysters exhibited new life in a dish of raw blue points with carbonated Meyer lemon and snappy cubes of cucumber ($12). The flavors here unfolded like the petals of some sort of unexpected flower: first a sweet citric tang, then a vaguely green note, then the long-lasting and briny finish of the oyster. Magnificent.

Parmesan again played a role in a delicate, feather-light panna cotta ($9) spruced up with a tuna-tartare-looking mound of gleaming, diced, salt-roasted beets and a smear of red-beet puree. Like so much of Roman’s cooking, a stunning presentation was anchored by just a few well-considered flavors, each one perfectly calibrated against the other.

Filet mignon prepared sous-vide ($30)—a technique that involves slowly cooking an ingredient in an airtight plastic pouch (literally ‘under vacuum’) in warm water—possessed all the heady, beefy richness that this cut usually lacks. The hours-long vacuum bath it had received had rendered it dizzyingly tender and almost shockingly flavorful. Accompanied by a particularly tangy béarnaise, it was nothing short of stunning.

Roasted skate wing ($26), which seems to have fallen from its darling-of-the-foodie-world perch in recent years, was a crisp-edged, silk-centered tour de force. Asian-celery emulsion, despite its rather innocuous appearance, possessed a roundness of flavor every bit as dynamic as its appearance belied. Its sweetness played off the nuttier nuances of the skate perfectly, which in turn was echoed in the earthy notes of sautéed black trumpet mushrooms.

Desserts brought things home on a quieter note, though certainly not a boring one. Fist-sized vanilla beignets ($9) the texture of particularly delicate dinner rolls, needed no help from their accompanying spiced crème anglaise and tangy apple cider-caramel dipping sauces. And the warm chocolate cake ($8) was every bit as comforting as its name implied, though the Earl Grey ice cream kept it all lively and unexpected.

That, really, is what Blackfish is all about: comfort and familiarity couched in new clothes. But what clothes they are. The sense of adventure they lend a meal here is nothing short of paradigm shifting, and the style and judiciousness with which they are donned is remarkable.

Blackfish is undoubtedly one of the most exciting restaurants in the region right now. And though it may not have the same name recognition of other top restaurants in the area, it certainly deserves to keep that kind of company. Get a reservation while you can; book months in advance if you must. Its reputation will surely, and deservedly, explode any day now.

Blackfish is located at 119 Fayette St. in Conshohocken, and can be reached by phone at (610) 397-0888, and visited online at www.blackfishrestaurant.com