Mansion House: The Creole restaurant you've never heard of
Life threw a curve to a South Jersey couple. They responded with jambalaya.
Creole cooking tucked in the shadow of the Walt Whitman Bridge?
That would be Mansion House (200 Jersey Ave., Gloucester City, 856-349-2225), in a historic building across from the marina.
Barbara Fine, a retired chemistry teacher (Shawnee High in Medford), and her husband, Robert Fine, a software engineer, had bought the corner bar four years ago for their daughter, Alissa, and a son-in-law, Chris Unger. They called it the Whiskey Barrel.
When the kids opted out to go back to school, "Mom and Dad got stuck with it," Barbara Fine said.
New manager and Gloucester resident Bill Roach sized up the town, now home to destination restaurants including Max's Seafood Cafe and Chubby's Steakhouse, and decided that something distinctive was in order.
He found chef Jeff Gilham, who owned Creole Cafe, which was open in Williamstown for five years, followed by five more in Washington Township. Gilham's kitchen work has taken him from the Grand Hyatt in New York to the Main Street Complex in Voorhees to country clubs in the Carolinas, and to the now-closed New Orleans Cafe in Delaware County, before he struck out on his own. (Side note: New Orleans Cafe's Dan Funk now cooks at The Social Lounge in West Chester.)
The change this summer to a Creole menu (with a few Cajun dishes) seems to have shifted the business.
"It used to be a bar with food," said Barbara Fine. "Now it's a restaurant that sells alcohol." There's seating in a dining room, away from the bar.
Scratch menu includes the traditional dishes - seafood jambalaya, country jambalaya, voodoo crawfish, po'boys. Gilham's wife, Brenda, makes the desserts.
Most entrees are in the teens; there's a $5.99 weekday lunch special.
It's open daily from lunchtime through late night.