Sniffing out local bounty

Only a comma separates local from seasonal, at least in most applications, which tend to involve this time of year the signage on soggy farm stands and above sparse market bins and the fine print on the back of menus, suffixed with the legalistic disclaimer "when possible."

But early April - especially a rainy, raw one like we endured last week - can make the distance seem less a pause than a stand-off: Seasonal is one thing. Local is another matter.

So you find yourself at Cafe Estelle, devouring a plate of grilled scallions with a roasted red-pepper and ground-almond romesco sauce in the venerable rite-of-spring Spanish tradition. Except the local crop of scallions is still a good couple of weeks off.

At Fork, chef Terence Feury was offering an exceedingly succulent (Colorado) lamb belly confit with grilled baby artichokes, in addition to fluffy (local) scrambled goose eggs tented with slices of his own delicate merguez sausage.

But there was no rushing the clock on that iconic harbinger of spring, the fava bean: In Fork's astonishingly tasty whole-wheat pasta with sauteed shrimp and fresh oregano, the slivered baby favas were West Coast imports; same for the tender ones at Osteria, served next to a pecorino flan, a classic Italian spring combination with mint and artichoke.

It will be a while before the South Jersey favas make the scene, or the small-batch shell beans from Tom Colton, the Lancaster County produce farmer. Or for that matter, the foraged morels or garlic scapes or the juicy local strawberries that mark the start of the run to July's tomatoes and, finally, to Mirai, the incomparable sweet corn they grow at Pete's Produce Farm in Westtown, Chester County.

On the streets of the city, the season was marching to a different drummer, in quicker step, the local less bound to the natural order.

A week or so ago, you could spot tall Pierre Calmels, the former chef de cuisine at Le Bec-Fin, and his wife, Charlotte, in jeans on the sidewalk outside what was once Pif, the storefront cafe at Eighth Street, a block off the Italian Market.

They were scrubbing down the old chairs for their new French cafe in the space, Bibou, due next month. Or so.

Sample menu: snail ragu with fava beans and mushrooms, braised pig feet stuffed with foie gras, warm potato and goat cheese tatin, seared scallop with corn and asparagus fricassee, duck magret with artichokes and olives.

Behind a stern plywood collar, the old Sansom Street Oyster House is retaking shape. Back on Ninth Street, in the empty tooth between two cheeseries - Di Bruno's and Claudio's - a gutted storefront is being fitted out as a kitchen and shop dedicated to satisfying the apparently insatiable appetite for the meatballs from Villa di Roma, a couple of doors south.

In West Philadelphia, where "local, seasonal" has been the mantra at the White Dog Cafe for years, a new season of sorts started in January. That's when the keys to the kitchen changed hands in a management takeover: Founder Judy Wicks has retained an interest, but the operation is now run by restaurateur Marty Grims and his corporate chef, Ralph Fernandez, with chef de cuisine Eric Yost overseeing a kitchen that, to be frank, had lost any real claim on consistency before the change.

Last week, not every wrinkle had been ironed out, but there was, indeed, seasonality on the menu and fresh promise on the plate: The provenance of the garlicky ramps that were jutting from the "Spring Ramp Pasta With Shrimp, Crab and Lobster" was rather fuzzy.

But the coiled fiddlehead ferns - the very signature of the season - were trucked down from Upstate New York. At least this batch.

Yost has a bead on some in Jersey. And you can almost taste the local rhubarb; it's that close. And there's chatter that the first sweet spears of Amish asparagus, weather permitting, could start showing up next week.

Soon enough, local will catch up with seasonal, and the sidewalk cafes will be in bloom, and the courtyard outside Le Virtu, too, and the rooftop at Standard Tap, and for the first time in 75 years all four of the striking balconies perched 19 floors up in the Park Hyatt at the (old) Bellevue where, of course, they'll be serving "a seasonally conscious New American menu."