There's the chandelier salvaged from Hess's, as soon as you walk in. There's the location that occupies the same space as the once-beloved Sal's Spaghetti House. History is alive and well—and is being served Cosmopolitan-style in Downtown Allentown.
Since opening its substantial glass doors to much fanfare in October 2010, the restaurant seems to be hitting its stride now after some personnel changes both in and out of the kitchen and minor menu tweaks—all of which is customary for a young establishment.
Cosmopolitan now boasts not one but two managers, Greer Dalpe and Amber Hadisoenarto, and a pair of young co-executive chefs Tyler Baxter, 26, and Justin Cogan, 28, who took the helm together in July 2012 (more on their yin-yang pairing in a moment). All of the aforementioned employees have been there since the beginning, in one role or another. Baxter and Cogan couldn't get more homegrown: they're Valley natives and Northampton Community College culinary grads. Co-owner William Grube offers this quick summation: “Everything's coming together.”
History is alive and well—and is being served Cosmopolitan-style in Downtown Allentown.
Getting it to come together is not without its challenges, of course. Moving diners out of their comfort zones, whether it's the couch or their usual haunts, is no small feat, especially in our increasingly robust dining scene. Getting people to come to a city's downtown can also be daunting for business owners of any stripe. Cities often earn reputations for being unsafe, and Allentown isn't immune to such talk. Yes, cities have their problems (so do the suburbs) but the owners of Cosmopolitan are gambling on the future while banking on your memories of the past.
Case in point, nostalgia has been invoked in the form of a Tuesday spaghetti night. And perhaps most memorably and deliciously, there's the totally legitimate, real-deal Hess's strawberry pie, which the restaurant confected in miniature form in September 2012 as part of Allentown's 250th Birthday Celebration. Three months and thousands of strawberries later, enormous slices of the iconic pie, with its sweet creamy topping and piled-high strawberries, are flying out of the kitchen. These days, the story of Cosmopolitan can be told in one-pound, 10-ounce slices of strawberry pie, and Sal's teeming bowls of spaghetti with meatballs or sausage. These acknowledgments of Allentown's past are definitely bringing more people to dine at its tables.
Much has already been written about the $6 million owners William and Phyllis Grube and developer Myron Haydt have pumped into the opulently classic restaurant.
“We were the first significant investment into the downtown in many years,” Phyllis Grube says. “By naming the restaurant Cosmopolitan, we [hoped to] spark the rebirth and be the beginning of the movement to assure Allentown would again become the cosmopolitan city she once was.” It was Phyllis' idea to give the restaurant its Cosmopolitan moniker.
To that end, Cosmopolitan strives to make the experience more than worth your while, so please kindly cast aside your preconceived notions. Parking is no problem—the valet service is complimentary. The restaurant is priced for any night of the week, not just special occasions. The special occasion spaces for weddings are available upstairs in their equally opulent banquet areas.
You will quickly realize once you walk through those doors past the shiny marble, the sparkling chandelier, the ambient lighting and the water feature, that you are not, in fact, in a hotel lobby. You're in a restaurant that for all the upscale connotations of its name and the interior splendor, is not as fancy as you might think it is. Hang on. We mean that as a compliment.
The kitchen is on board with its mission with a menu best described as approachable contemporary American cuisine, appealing to a broad range of palates. You're just as likely to en-counter straightforward classics such as salmon with Yukon Gold potatoes and three different steaks (filet, Wagyu strip, and hanger) as you are mash-ups such as the black grouper with harissa, coconut sauce and tomato jam, and the pan-Asian barramundi with soy glaze, red pepper polenta cake and carrot-ginger puree. There are Italian comfort food staples—truffled risotto, ricotta gnocchi and a boar ragout with black pepper fettuccine. You'll also spot trendy dishes: pork belly (this time with Asian slaw and sweet soy glaze), and the de rigueur artisanal meat and cheese plate (expect in-house curing in the spring). The menu and its veg-heavy sides are tweaked seasonally, and the chefs say they'd like to work with more locally sourced ingredients in the coming year.
Baxter and Cogan have been at the restaurant since its inception, working their way through the kitchen; Baxter went from the floor as a server to behind the line and Cogan started as a line cook. They are simpatico; “Like brothers,” Haydt says, who calls the pairing, “perfect. They fix each other.”
On the day of the interview, Cogan had laryngitis, but it didn't take more than five minutes of Baxter's effusive chatting and gesticulations to realize that Cogan's naturally the more reserved and shy half, throat issues notwithstanding. Still, when asked why they work so well together, Cogan seems genuinely at a loss for words. “It's pretty ridiculous,” he says, shaking his head. “Sometimes we don't even need to talk to each other.”
A rhythm and flow takes over when people collaborate creatively under pressure; these two, however, anticipate each other's next move. For example, if you were to send them into two identically stocked pantries, they're likely to come out with the same ingredients and execute them in a similar fashion. That's what happened with the popular and creatively seared tuna appetizer, which starts with number one, sushi-grade tuna.
“We wanted to change what went with it. The next day, we each came in with a game plan and didn't talk to each other about it,” Cogan says. They emerged with nearly identical dishes, with slightly different accompaniments.
The resulting dish is a delicious meld of the two, with the real surprise coming from a lime panna cotta and Sriracha pickles, laid out in an eye-catching checkerboard pattern. The dish includes a roasted poblano and avocado puree, and a plate dusted with sesame “soil”—dehydrated peanuts, sesame oil, some spices and chili. It's a standout item whose flavors are slowly revealed.
Cogan worked in the Lehigh Valley and Philadelphia before ending up at Mangos in Allentown just before his arrival at Cosmopolitan. As a child in Schnecksville, he grew up with his hands in the flour, helping out whenever his mom or grandmother would bake. He initially thought he was headed for the sweet side, but quickly realized it wasn't for him. “I had no patience for pastry,” he admits. Instead, Cogan describes his preferences as a “sweet and heat,” and notes his lack of interest in Italian food.
Baxter, who grew up in Coopersburg and spent time in the kitchen at Gio Italian Grill in Macungie, describes himself as “a savory guy, all the way.” His experience at Gio solidified his future.
“Food is why I was put on this earth,” he says. Ironically, he was a terribly picky eater as a kid. “I would decide I didn't like something before I even tried it,” he admits. In fact, until very recently, Baxter had never eaten a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. We can forgive him this blip on the food radar, because Baxter was one of three winners in a Chopped-style culinary contest sponsored by Emeril Lagasse at the Sands Food and Wine Festival last summer. He and two other Northampton Community College students were awarded a week-long, all expenses paid trip to New Orleans to intern in Lagasse's three restaurants.
With such a deep, abiding respect for the city's past and a staunch belief in its future (new office spaces, a hotel and hockey arena are coming), Cosmopolitan embraces the old and the new.
When they bought the building, Haydt had an idea that they'd somehow pay homage to Sal's. So they contacted the late Salvatore G. Poidomani's son, George, to see if he would be able to assist them with the idea of doing a spaghetti night. George, who started selling his dad's jarred sauce a few years ago, spent time in the kitchen, showing Baxter and Cogan exactly how his father put together the meatballs and sweet sausage, and explaining the two-day sauce making process. And with that, Sal's Spaghetti House Tuesdays were born. You can enjoy the authentic taste of Sal's pasta, garlic bread and salad at lunch and dinner, with a contemporary twist—think Italian beer and wine pairing options.
Deviations from any menu must be done smartly: one might not initially understand why spaghetti and meatballs belong in the same establishment as a dish that uses a fairly progressive culinary technique. Cogan, for one, says that he likes to “test boundaries and push people to try things they normally wouldn't,” which is how the tuna dish emerged.
However, the owners and the chefs at Cosmopolitan bring a ton of heart to these culinary trips down memory lane, which guarantees good taste. About this resurrection of old favorites, both chefs agree that it feels good to bring back memories for people, but Baxter takes it a step further. “It poses a challenge to recreate something I never tried.”
Cosmopolitan's balancing act—revering the past and planning for the future—promises to be a compelling one to watch. (Look for a new roof deck nightclub, too, in the spring—glass walled and weather-proofed for year-round enjoyment.)
This love of Allentown runs so deep for Haydt that he bought genuine Hess's plates during the restaurant's construction process. The strawberry pie couldn't be served any other way. Expect Sal's Spaghetti House Tuesdays to stick around—and the strawberry pie, too. These are fixtures now.
“We want to get back to the old Allentown feel,” Haydt says.
