Skip to content
Link copied to clipboard

West Ave: Dinnertime in Dresher

By day, it's a breakfast/lunch spot. Three nights a week, the tablecloths come out and the lights go down.

Chef Jared Cohen took over the Dreshertown Plaza location of West Ave Grille last year, calling it simply West Ave (1650 Limekiln Pike, Dresher, 215-367-5428); it's the former Carambola.

Newly added to West Ave's breakfast-lunch theme is dinner Thursday to Saturday.

White tablecloths and dimmed lights join the BYOB's easy-on-the-wallet menu mixing small plates (lamb meatballs, ceviche, scallops, mussels) and entrees (salmon, striped bass, hanger steak).

Cohen, a Cheltenham High grad, got into the cooking game while waiting tables at a restaurant in the U.S. Virgin Islands. He arrived on St. Thomas on Sept. 2, 2001, and saw the tourism business drop off. During the downturn, he asked to learn kitchen tasks. A day after he took over the restaurant's salad and fry stations, he said, the chef called out with dengue fever, thrusting him into the main role. "He was literally telling me how to make buerre blanc over the phone," Cohen said.

His next stop was waiting tables at a P.F. Chang's in Florida, which he used as a stopover before enrolling at the California School of Culinary Arts. His externship led him to Colorado and then back to Philly.

A term at Alison's at Blue Bell in 2008 sent him and his wife fleeing the States on a backpacking trip through Asia.

Back home, he worked at Tangerine, Max & David's, and the Wine Thief before he spent two years-plus as a private chef.

Dinner menu is here.