If you want to see the white person in the wild, in its true native environment, you can do no better than to roll in to The Newtown Grill on a Saturday night. We popped in to an utterly packed house on a recent weekend, and within moments, we felt like the editors of Stuff White People Like, who’d somehow unearthed The Ark Of The Convenant Of Ancient Whiteness: We saw a genuine case of Polo Rage, the men looked like Ted Kennedy, the women wore a lot of fur — seriously, fur! in 2008! no sense of irony! — and the staff all pool their tips.
(At least, this was the best we could surmise when our waiter seemed to grow bored of us and was thankfully replaced by a waitress who, in the 11th hour, cared.)
But The Newtown Grill is worth noting for a few reasons, some culinary but many more sociological: Formerly Alberto’s Authentic Italian Cuisine & Steakhouse, the Newtown became the Newtown only back in November, after the existing management performed a makeover that’s still going on. When we visited, the once prim and proper historic Mendenhall Farm House (built in 1796) was busy being surrounded by still more additions around the circumference of the Mendenhall’s original stone skeleton. And the Newtown’s sprawl reminded us of nothing so much as the ongoing sprawl of the Main Line itself; where once the Main Line was simply the towns along the R5, the concept now seems to be more of a social construct than it ever was. Now that we’ve effectively run out of Main Line for new money’d folks, the Main Line itself is playing with the notion of transcending geography and becoming something more like what it always was to those peering in from the outside: A brand.
None of this tells you anything about the food, though: It’s good. Very good. While a lot of the Alberto’s Italian staples seem to still be available, the Newtown re-christening naturally directs diners to the steak. We had the Blackened Sliced New York Strip, and we have to say: It was great. But to be perfectly frank, the bar menu seemed a lot more exciting to us. The “Vintage Slicer” offers some of the nicest cured and imported meats and artisanal cheeses this side of 9th Street, and there’s a nice, adventurous selection of bruschettes — Prosciutto, Pear, Pecorino and Rosemary Honey, for instance. Whereas the bulk of the Newtown menu seemed weighed down Serious Fare, the bar seemed more fun — and definitely where the most Kennedy-on-mink action was. Will we be back? Of course: Our ongoing anthropological studies demand it.
ItalianSteakhouse.com: The Newtown Grill
0 Responses to “In The Burbs: Wildlife At The Newtown Grill”