Have your steak and eat it too: Du Jour's surf-and-turf eggs are perfectly poached (photo by michael persico).

Restaurant Review

Du Jour

by Adam Erace

Anyone who’s ever ordered soup knows that “du jour” means “of the day.” Du Jour is also the name of the sleek cafe and gourmet-to-go that took up residence in the ground floor of the Symphony House over the summer. It’s a place that, quite literally, is of the day.

In the morning punky UArts students sketch on napkins between bites of pad Thai pasta salad. At the counter, on-the-go office workers queue up for ham-and-cheese paninis and orange juice, both freshly pressed. The rustle of their pleated slacks and pencil skirts mimics the rustling of the trees lining the Broad Street sidewalk. At the sleek walnut tables, old ladies steal Splenda.

Du Jour is dynamite at day, but things tend to go bump in the night.

Like many of the owners ensconced in the condos upstairs, Du Jour comes from Haverford. The Center City location copies the successful suburban formula trademarked by owner-about-town Martin Grims of Moshulu fame: a spirited, affordably priced bazaar of small and medium plates washed down with a tidy beer and wine list. A collabo between Grims, executive corporate chef Ralph Fernandez and Du Jour’s executive chef Mike McGovern, the nighttime menu needs work.

The fine Bell & Evans roast chicken accompanied goat-cheese mashed potato empanadas that lacked flaky pastry shells and well-seasoned fillings. Scattered with scallions and cilantro, the moo shu pancakes’ Berkshire pork tenderloin stuffing bore the texture of the pink pork strips you’d find floating in wonton soup.

I wanted to love the foie gras PB&J, cute coins of brioche festooned with Sauternes-and-cognac-spiked liver mousse and ginger-roasted plums. It ain’t easy to overwhelm foie gras, but treacly huckleberry jam and star anise gastrique succeeded.

Check yourself before you wreck yourself, Du Jour. Stick to the simple stuff, like the sliders stuffed with lobster salad or tangy pulled pork. Anointed with nutty brown butter, mustard oil and gooseberry sauce, two plancha-seared skate wings sang with morels, fingerlings and fava beans.

Service was friendlier at dinner than lunch, but more absentminded. No one mentioned specials. A dish I didn’t order arrived at the table, which I was subsequently charged for. Terrible desserts too: pasty key lime pie topped with a deflated dollop of whipped cream and an undercooked bittersweet chocolate cake.

Despite the odd addition of fresh orange supremes, lunch’s strawberry shortcake and Capogiro gelato and sorbetto fared better, as did the food in general: a tasty (albeit overcooked) build-your-own Angus burger; mild curried chicken salad studded with pine nuts and raisins; creamy, calendar-correct butternut squash-and-sweet potato soup topped with creme fraiche and tart green apple matchsticks.

But the flatbread dabbed with sundried tomatoes, ricotta and wild mushrooms looked naked, and the horrible, from-frozen fries covered with scabby crackling should be banished ASAP.

Du Jour is truly at its best in the a.m., when the servers and the Illy coffee are fresh. Think fluffy, triple-stacked flapjacks griddled with lovely vanilla-roasted peaches right in the batter, and amazing coconut-custard brioche French toast, like eating macaroons for breakfast.

The berries scattered atop a bowl of creamy Irish oatmeal were too ripe, and the half-moons of avocado upon the surf-and-turf eggs Benedict had oxidized into bruised black boomerangs, but that Benedict itself? Best thing I’ve eaten before noon in a while.

Slide that avocado aside, my friends, because perfectly poached eggs, filet mignon medallions, chopped lobster tail and claw meat, charred beefsteak tomatoes and lobster hollandaise await, stacked open-face on a crisp English muffin. The richness of the steak, the sweetness of the lobster, the mingling hollandaise and egg yolk like velvet. It’s as luxurious as it sounds.

If Du Jour can harness this solar energy, it could be a reliable all-day destination. Fernandez reports a new fall dinner menu is premiering soon. But for now, set your alarm early.