The Inquirer journeyed out to Chester County to take a look at Brandywine Prime. BP’s chef Keith Rudolf recently got to cook at New York’s James Beard House, but Inky food critic Craig LaBan ended up having some serious issues with both the service and the food:
From the service to the food, our meals were a disappointment. The waitstaff, dressed in silly uniforms of white chef coats and baggy jeans, is friendly enough. But our young servers were so inexperienced, they looked terrified and uncertain as they brought food to our table, tongues pinched between their lips in concentration as the china rattled in their hands. I saw more fumbled wine glasses shatter in a single night at Brandywine Prime than in six months of prior meals combined.[…]So many other ingredients, though, seemed to be wasted on the pretense of fussy fixings. If a chophouse goes to the trouble to serve an excellent cut of beef - and Brandywine’s dry-aged cuts were good, but shy of exquisite - why drown its flavors with heavy-handed sauces and garnish? Brandywine Prime lays all of its steaks over a pool of fruited demiglace as thick as motor oil, then tops them off with a slice of oozing herbed butter the size of a credit card. And they’re all so strong, you could hardly taste the meat. It didn’t help that the rich gravy had already acquired a skin and gone tepid, as had the cookie-cutter vegetable garnishes.
Brandywine Prime [Inquirer]
Brandywine Prime [Official Site]
[Photo via Gerald S. Williams / Inquirer]
