Little sister for Jake's

Cooper's offers pizzas and wine, for a Manayunk that's trying to grow up.

By Rick Nichols

Inquirer Food Columnist

In the saga that is the rise and fall and sort of reconsideration of main-street Manayunk, there has always been - steady as she goes - Jake's, turning 21, drinking age, next month.

Getting carded, of course, has rarely been an issue at Jake's, a genteel bastion of arguably the best grilled calf's liver (with apple hash and port-marinated onions) in town, and crab cakes that, for years, have kept regulars loyally trooping back.

No, Jake's has been for grown-ups: In a sea of increasingly down-market beer joints and "drink specials," on a strip that toward midnight gets fratty-er and boozier, it has catered to an older, more refined clientele, denizens of Chestnut Hill and the moneyed Main Line.

In its first cautious expansion in two decades, its conjoined new sister, Cooper's Brick Oven Wine Bar, has maintained the original's civility, but slightly upped the amps and energy.

Here for $13 - half the average entree price of Jake's - you can get a lush flatbread pizza oozy with a shred of short rib, caramelized onion, Parmesan and horseradish cream. And very decent wines by the glass go for under $10, though you can go crazy with a glass of velvety Bouchaine pinot noir for $14, which is two dollars more than a half carafe of Cooper's "Cheap Red," a Beringer Vineyards table wine.

Cooper's is the inspiration of Jake's chef-owner Bruce Cooper, who got in on a Manayunk land rush early, itching to move on from his chef's post at Lower Merion's Lankenau Hospital. To complement Jake's - but not compete with it - he'd envisioned a wine bar, but had a devil of a time finding the right space.

Then in the churn that is Main Street, the Chico's clothing shop next door moved out, freeing up the long, narrow room he has since redone in warm Tuscan golds, handsome booths, and a row of oversized hanging lamps leading to the pizza oven glowing in the back.

The pizzas that emerge are tasty affairs, enough for two. They have bready, fairly crisp crusts, though without the sublime crackery crispness of, say, Osteria's on North Broad Street, or even of a surprising newcomer's - Cafe Estelle - on Fourth Street, south of Spring Garden (see Craig LaBan's review above).

But the toppings make for a small meal. And they exhibit Cooper's affection for the local foodscape. The mozzarella is from Ninth Street's Claudio's. The Italian fennel sausage from venerable Fiorella's. The ricotta from Phil Mancuso's on Passyunk. The goat cheese from Chester County's Shellbark Hollow Farm.

There are local suppliers for the daily plates, too - hanger steak and tender pork shoulder from Four Story Hill Farm in Honesdale, Pa., among them.

That said, the place has work to do: The BLT's roll is too bulky. The spicy meatball pizza lacks spice. Salads that look appealing one day look thrown-together the next.

If Cooper is true to his track record, those start-up glitches ought to be history soon. Whether Manayunk's "degentrified" main drag can regain its lost luster is a harder question: Sonoma and Kansas City Prime are gone, and Roscoe's Kodiak Cafe, and bold Vega Grill, and pioneering Jamey's.

Perhaps demographics will be destiny: Cooper posits that the $100,000 rowhouses that were converted into apartments for college kids five years ago are climbing in value and becoming owner-occupied; and that, regardless, the 21-year-olds of that era are now 24, 25 and 26, more grown up themselves - with better jobs, broader tastes, and a bit more income.

In other words, they're ripe to join the adults at Cooper's Brick Oven Wine Bar. He spotted four of them the other day, sharing a $35 bottle of malbec and a cheese plate at one of his sidewalk tables.

They were still watching the girls go by. But in a watershed moment, Cooper noticed what they weren't doing; they weren't drinking beer.