Penn Dutch with pizzazz

Merely farm-to-city concepts having achieved the status of what-else-is-new?, perhaps the time is ripe for MidAtlantic, which at 37th and Market (on the ground floor of a sterile ice cube of a Science Center, no less) is taking a slightly different bite of that chestnut.

It's milking the soul foods of the Pennsylvania Dutch for inspiration for a menu that includes, as a side, a cocktail called Rumspringa, named for the freewheeling teenhood of Amish youth before the hammer comes down.

If chef Daniel Stern's latest endeavor were a movie treatment (or if Stern himself didn't have such cred in the kitchen; he was top chef at Le Bec-Fin for a time), MidAtlantic's theme might be the stuff of light comedy: a sort of anti-Witness, test-tube cocktail glasses performing the role of Lancaster County's brooding silos.

But with farm-to-table and regional and seasonal and fresh and local beginning to sound like one long, undifferentiated word, Stern is doing us the favor of a focal point, at first taste a not only homey, but honestly flavorful, and occasionally fanciful one.

Thus we have here not just local (and quite succulent) pork chops from Country Time Farm out in Berks County, but surprisingly tasty crab scrapple (yes, crab scrapple), informed by, but by no means beholden to, the old original. And chicken and dumplings with a French-accented, citified polish (richly roasted hunks of chicken, thyme-inflected gravy, cakey biscuits), not that gloppy country cousin found lounging at the smorgasbords that stretch obesely out Route 30 West.

Stern, who has a more spectatular dining venture ("cocktail cuisine") teed up for Two Liberty Place next month, visited the farm markets and byways of Dutch country to pick up the vibe. He dropped in at Roughwood, the rustic Devon estate of Pennsylvania German food historian William Woys Weaver, who has authored an exhaustive volume on local scrappleways.

The fruits of those field trips have paid off. That crab scrapple (which has a lot texturally in common with panfried, diner-style crab cakes) borrows ingredients from one of Weaver's kosher-chicken scrapples; fillers of cornmeal, kasha, and barley. But Stern adds cracker crumb, Old Bay, and a vinegary mushroom ketchup created from fermenting, well, lots of mushrooms.

So whimsy and creativity quickly supersede tourist-route Amish-ness. (In one application the lighthearted crab scrapple is paired with a local butterhead lettuce wedge and buckwheat and brandy dressing, a clever take on Crab Louis, once a staple of West Coast hotels.)

And while Pennsylvania Dutch may be MidAtlantic's organizing principle - pretzel chips and horseradish-cheddar dip, root beer sticky buns, and saffron noodles - it's hardly a straitjacket.

The tart sauerkraut is a leafy, tender wedge of fermented cabbage, served unshredded. The apple fritters are as creamy as oysters inside, but a little shy of inner apple-ness. The lima beans end up mashed in a crisp and fun-to-eat triangle of grilled lima bean polenta.

Beyond that the menu free-ranges even more liberally. Oysters (pricey at $3 apiece) with a great new invention, salsify fries - not as crisp as yucca, but way more succulent. There are golden half roast chickens (with savory saffron gravy) from the rotisserie spinning behind the counter, daily specials of corned beef and colcannon (an Irish farmhouse dish), a boring "broccoli steak" that appears to be slumming from its day job as a side at Del Frisco's, and burgers - and on Wednesday nights, lushly juicy, bratwurst-like, course-ground, house-made hot dogs on griddled buns that in one stroke have redefined what a true wiener can be in Phiadelphia.

There is, of course, the cocktail list - Schuylkill Fish House Punch, dating to 1848, and Root Tea Julep, informed by the historic flavor of root beer, and the aforementioned Rumspringa, a brings-a-smile autumnal potion of rye, unfiltered apple cider, bitters, and honey.

Stern has been on a free-ranging journey himself since leaving Le Bec a few years ago: He opened, then closed Gayle, a spare Queen Village homage to deconstructed classics.

He was last sighted in West Philadelphia seven blocks east of MidAtlantic at his short-lived Rae in the airy lobby of the Cira Centre.

That space is now said to be under serious consideration by chef Jose Garces for - what else? - a fresh-local, farm-to-table restaurant.

3711 Market St.

215-386-3711

www.midatlanticrestaurant.com

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