The Montgomery County Newspapers
Ticket Entertainment Section
June 28, 2006
By Frank D. Quattrone, Ticket Editor
Photo by Eve Quattrone
It’s not often that you find a warm, inviting neighborhood restaurant that also happens to be 258 years old! Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, the well-preserved Cresheim Cottage Café, built of native stone in 1748, has been welcoming guests since Ken Weinstein opened it as a full-service restaurant in 1996.
But when he decided to turn his full attention to his other eateries just up Germantown Avenue from the café — namely, the Trolley Car Diner and the adjoining Trolley Car Ice Cream Shoppe — at the end of 2003, it was an opportunity that new proprietors Donna Fitzgerald Robb and Lizza Robb could not afford to pass up.
Here was a wonderful turnkey operation that, with very little renovation, could be ready for business in virtually no time at all. Weinstein knew that he was turning the business over to two pros, as Donna had already put in valuable kitchen time at Judy’s Café, the Blue Angel, the Ritz-Carlton and Penne before assuming the reins at the Cottage.
Lizza, who works full-time in marketing, publications and Web site design in the School of Social Policy & Practice at the University of Pennsylvania, could now apply her formidable marketing and organizational skills to their first restaurant.
In addition to Donna’s menu — which she describes as American comfort food with global influences” — the partners, both of whom are artists, have created a cozy ambiance — that has totally won over the neighborhood, and anyone who has dropped in to check out the historic building.
Lizza says, “At first our guests were skeptical because of the changes. They really liked Ken’s place, and they often came in for special occasions. But Donna wanted to make it a neighborhood restaurant. We wanted people to be able to come back two or three times a week, so we lowered the prices of the meals and wines, and we brought in a wine merchant to design wines around Donna’s menu.”
Gradually, since their opening in January of 2004, their plan has turned out exactly as they had hoped. The partners adore the neighborhood (Mt. Airy), guests drop in regularly, everyone knows everyone else by their first names, and nice letters and e-mails seem to come in every day from satisfied customers.
Because she would rather not offer the same dishes over and over, and because she loves a good challenge, Donna not only changes the menu seasonally as attractive new ingredients present themselves but she also loves doing several specials each day — “whatever is freshest and most exciting,” she says.
Some starters on the Summer Menu include Cresheim Cottage’s Jumbo Lump Crab & Shrimp Cakes ($11; $22 as an entrée), served atop a chilled salad of silver queen corn, vine ripe tomatoes, roasted sweet potatoes and mixed greens, served with a jalapeño aioli dipping sauce; Joan’s Spinach Salad ($7), baby spinach, bosc pears and warm prosciutto stuffed with gorgonzola, tossed in a mission fig dressing — Joan, by the way, is Chef de Cuisine Joan Gigliotti, who also makes all the restaurant’s great desserts; Greek Pizza ($9), made with hummus, peppers, purple onions, Greek olives, wilted spinach and feta baked on spicy Nan; and the ever-changing and very popular Dip Trio ($10), currently fresh Jersey blueberries and mascarpone, pistachio lavender, and watermelon jicama, served with pear slices and puff pastry points.
As enticing as the appetizers are, the dinner entrees also offer their fair share of standard American dishes with interesting twists and touches, such as Baked Chicken Meatloaf ($16), stuffed with sun-dried tomato pesto and spinach atop a truffle-gorgonzola mac and cheese in a wild mushroom sauce; Beer Battered Jumbo Soft Shell Crabs ($24) riding atop a wave of grilled romaine, asparagus and cherry tomatoes, topped with a roasted garlic beurre blanc and shaved Parmesan cheese; and Pan-Seared Chicken & Dumplings ($16), free-range organic half-chicken over sesame snow peas with shiitake mushroom dumplings and a balsamic soy dipping sauce.
Other interesting entrees include Vegetarian Trio ($12) of chilled sesame-peanut soba noodles, exotic mushroom salad and wakame salad; Hoisin Pork Tenderloin ($16) atop whipped taro root and chili pepper long beans, topped with a five-spice Asian pear slaw; and Southwestern Three Bean & Summer Corn Chili ($10), served in a crisp tortilla with rice, avocado salsa and lime crème fraiche.
The changing dessert menu includes the likes of Key Lime Pier, Root Beer Float, Warm Double Chocolate Brownie topped with dulce de leche and butter pecan ice cream, and Warm Coconut Risotto Rice Pudding (all from the recent spring menu).
For kids 10 and under, the Cottage offers items like the Roasted Beet Salad (a $3 appetizer of roasted bets, papaya and organic baby greens, tossed in a vanilla-plum wine dressing), Chicken Wings ($5) with a honey-mustard dipping sauce, and entrees like Red Bean & Cheese Tostada ($6) served with rice; Bowtie Pasta ($4) with tomato basil, butter or cheese sauce; and Cheese & Spinach Stuffed Meatloaf ($6).
The Summer Brunch Menu, offered Saturday and Sunday, features the likes of Buttermilk Pancakes ($8), plain or topped with blueberries, bananas, strawberries or chocolate chips; Farm Fresh Avocado & Cheddar Omelet ($10) served with roasted potatoes or cheddar grits; Eggs Benedict ($12); and items such as a Brunch Pizza ($10) of scrambled eggs, peppers, purple onions, wilted spinach and feta baked on Nan; and Crab Cake BLT ($12), made with smoked bacon, lettuce and tomato on a brioche bun brushed with horseradish dill sauce, served with roasted potatoes or cheddar grits.
Guests can enjoy their meal indoors in the main dining room, romantic in winter with its big fireplace and shelves filled with artifacts discovered during the original excavations, in the bright and airy patio room, painted with graceful reeds and bearing helmet-shaped sconces, or in the understandably popular garden, surrounded by beautiful gardens and protected by a full awning. There’s even a children’s playhouse in the garden.
Not bad for a couple of artists (Donna is from Philadelphia, Lizza from Atlanta) who have found a happy alternative in the restaurant business, and for a chef who started cooking when she was 11 years old (since both parents worked) but who didn’t begin cooking professionally until she was 30 (and that was at Judy’s Café).
Donna says her fantasy is this: “When I’m 45 [she’s now in her mid-30s], I’ll stop what I’m doing and cut loose as an artist again.” And Lizza says, “What’s good about ‘9 to 5’ is that it gives you a chance to pursue your passions on the side.”
However, at Cresheim Cottage Café, it seems that professionalism and passion meet head-on, to everyone’s delight.
Cresheim Cottage Café
7402 Germantown Ave., Mt. Airy
Phone: 215-248-4365
Fax: 215-248-1445
www.cresheimcottagecafe.com
HOURS:
Brunch: 10 a.m. – 2 p.m., Saturday & Sunday.
Lunch: Tues. – Fri., 11:30 – 2:30.
Dinner: Tues. – Thurs. & Sunday, 5 – 9 p.m.; Fri. & Sat., 5 – 10 p.m.
Reservations recommended week days, required on weekends.
All major credit cards.
Non-smoking.
Full-service bar.
Facilities for handicapped.
Parking free on Germantown Ave. & at Brewer’s Outlet parking lot across the street, only on Friday and Saturday after 6 p.m.
Available for private parties.
Dinner entrees: $10 - $24.