Oprah Winfrey says Delilah Winder, the owner of Old City's Bluezette, makes the best macaroni and cheese in the country, but Winder's restaurant also serves $10 cocktails and a $385 bottle of 1993 Cristal. A contradiction, to be sure, but it works somehow.
Winder started out serving soul food from a stand in Reading Terminal Market -- Delilah's, which is still open -- but decided to take it more upscale in 2000, opening Bluezette in the trendy area around Second and Market streets. The contrast between the still-down-home food and the atmosphere is stark. Inside, Bluezette is a trendy art deco scene, more Stephen Starr than ham hock.
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A meal here is reasonably priced for the area. Appetizers range from the $6 black-eyed pea soup to $13 for grilled Blue Point oysters with mojo. A beef and smoked mozzarella empanada ($8.50) -- a nod to executive chef Yusef Kone's African heritage -- was wrapped in a not-too-thick golden pastry crust. It was authentic-tasting and nicely seasoned, but there was no discernible mozzarella. Pan-seared shrimp and bay scallops over a cheddar cheese grit cake ($12) turned out to be a spicy tomato-based stew that matched well with the grits. There were only two shrimp, but they were large and fresh, and there were plenty of good scallops.
Entrees range from the simple and traditional -- like a smothered turkey chop with white rice and cabbage ($15), and fried chicken and waffles with onion gravy and greens ($16.50) -- to the more upscale and experimental: a Pocono Mountain trout stuffed with cornbread and shrimp and served with an oven-dried tomato brown butter sauce and spinach for $19, and a porterhouse with wild mushroom wine sauce, garlic mashed potatoes and spinach ($28).
A seafood jambalaya with clams, mussels, shrimp and andouille sausage ($21) was simple but delicious, the seafood fresh and cooked well. Smoked Kansas City-style pork ribs ($20) were meaty and fall-off-the-bone tender. Potato salad and collard greens came on the side: the potato salad was fine if uninspired; collard greens are an acquired taste, but they were good.
Sides -- greens, pigeon peas and rice, grits, plantains, black-eyed peas and rice, fries and that famous macaroni and cheese -- are all $3.50. The macaroni and cheese wasn't bad, but it didn't seem deserving of its acclaim. It arrived cold and watery, and was under-seasoned.
Dessert more than made up for any missteps in the rest of the meal. A slice of pecan pie ($6) was exactly as it should be -- light, flaky crust beneath pecans practically melting into caramelized sugar. Sweet potato cheesecake ($6.50) was decadently rich but never cloyingly sweet.
Bluezette may not be able to decide whether it's simple and soulful or Old City trendy, but that is really part of its charm: it's a good restaurant for the night when you can't decide where to go.
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