Somewhere along the way, during some far-flung dining experience, we lost the notion that food should make you feel good. Rather, eating should nourish the mind with interesting combinations. Eating good food should do something for the body, more than just expanding your waist and making you feel like a jiggly water balloon. It should make you happy. Of course, not every meal will be everything to everybody. A quick sandwich at lunch might be just enough to quiet those guttural bellows and not put you to sleep in front of the computer screen. Eating at The Hearth, thankfully, is an experience that restores humanity’s faith in the restorative power of a great meal.
Propped against Farley’s Bookshop in beyond-charming New Hope, The Hearth has the quaint feel of a rustic living room, if the living room were in, say, an 18th-century construct once used as a toll house. A smattering of tables in the cozy (very cozy!) first floor is sublime for creating the setting for a good meal. It is warm. It is welcoming. It is genuine. The fireplace wafts just enough smoke into the room to transport my olfactory system to a place of gentle memories. The teetering table of some primal cut of wood fits in perfectly; it is genuine rather than cutesy and trendy. The Hearth proclaims “rustic” food. Too often, that term gets thrown around as a badge of honor without clean lines of what is rustic and what is sloppy or unrehearsed or just plain wrong. The Hearth does rustic very well. The room is the consummate setting for the food that drips with good feelings, and the gentle belly hug that a great meal should provide.
The crab-stuffed avocado is a fun cocktail of white lumps of crab just simply tossed with jalapeño, a kick of onion, tomatoes and a splash of lime. It oozes genteel freshness. It isn’t weighty or over the top. Rather, the talent of the kitchen does well to showcase the ingredients rather than the technical prowess of the crew behind the line. That, in itself, is skilled craftsmanship. The featured appetizer for this evening was a raw construct of three types of carrots, fennel and leeks spread on lettuce “cups.” A bit more constructed than the crab dish, the vegetables marry well to consummate a bright and hearty dish that invigorates rather than mellows. The fennel could be off-putting, but the restraint of the kitchen allows only the most subtle of licorice aromatics to penetrate the combination. Artful and skilled.
Citrus-glazed scallops were aptly seared; the golden crust and tender interior flexed a little muscle of culinary strength. The glaze complemented the dish rather than robbed the integrity of a quality ingredient. Balance. The spinach made the entree a resounding chorus of harmonious interloping between ingredients meshed with the artful play of a serious kitchen. The vegetable tagine entree was the biggest flavor explosion. Think curry. Only, not really. There may have been cardamom, cumin, turmeric, ginger, coriander. The tagine was tagged with really tender kale made gentle with a massage of citrus vinaigrette. Again, balance. The one-two punch of a big bite of aromatic intoxication tamed by the citrus-sweet dressing is skillful and refined.
Dessert was a raw mousse. Big, but not disgustingly rich, chocolate flavor rounded out the meal with a cute nod to a sweet finish. But raw? The mousse was a blend of dates, avocado, cashews, agave and cacao. Again, the feeling of eating and not feeling awful; rather, pleasantly propped up by good food to feel content. Even the drink for the evening wasn’t a harrowing trek through the valley of overpriced, overexposed and/or over-the-top ridiculousness. Instead, rosemary steeped with pear nectar and a little seltzer. The Hearth is a classy BYO, so the pressure to succumb to dulling the senses was eased. And rightfully so; the food did well to tantalize where the alcohol would usually step in to homogenize the atypical dining experience. All senses still intact, the pear spritzer awakened rather than muted.
The Hearth is not quite a vegetarian restaurant. There is a pescetarian slant that will satiate the omnivore. And if I hadn’t told you, you would not have missed the absence of carnivorous selections. Seriously. So much flavor. Vegetable-based menus have come a long way from tofu, twigs and berries. Yes, it is intimate. Yes, a lot of what is served is local. So all the good feelings of a meal well-done carry through. The spring menu is in the fold, just in time for patio season.
The play of flavors, the care with which each dish is executed, the cute dining room, the friendly service, well, all make for a liberating experience. It is relaxed. There is good mojo all around and the food succumbs to the good vibes that makes eating fun again. It isn’t always about the most expensive ingredients. It isn’t always about being at the culinary forefront. It is about caring about what you truly do. It is about making the diner feel good. Somewhere, oh somewhere sad, we lost our way. We strayed from the path. There is something—a lot of somethings—to be said about a beacon that steers us back to the place where food born out of love makes us feel like we are home again.
Find The Hearth at 7 E. Ferry St. in New Hope; phone: (267) 714-7400.
- Photography: Jim Berman
- Restaurant Interior: The Hearth
