Provenance is Philly’s most ambitious French fine-dining project in years

The steelhead trout “en croûte” on the black soapstone tasting counter before us at Provenance is an Instagram dream: a deep orange rectangle of cured trout sandwiched between crisp brioche toasts over a buttery puddle of Champagne cream jeweled with diced root vegetables and roe.

It’s a tribute to a pair of dishes from two celebrated cooks that Provenance‘s chef-owner Nicholas Bazik admires: Markus Glocker of Kolomon in New York (the mousse-bound fish sandwich) and Matthew Kirkley of San Francisco’s now-closed Coi (the beurre cancalaise). It requires technical skill. It rises on artistic beauty. It indulges the sauce nerd energy that underlines much of Bazik’s view of what defines modern French cuisine.

It’s also fatally flawed. The delicate snap of that brioche — an essential feature of anything “en croûte" — was erased by the resonant crunch of chunky radishes in the sauce, their under-cooked texture and lingering bitterness overwhelming the toast and luscious fish.

Of course, this was just plate No. 14 out of the 23 served at my last visit to Provenance, so no big deal, right?

When you’re paying $225 to sit down for a 2½ hour dinner (figure between $700 or $800 for two all-in with tip and tax, depending on what you drink), there isn’t much room for error. And there are still too many menu missteps at Provenance, where only about half of the 47 compositions I tasted over two meals were a complete success.

The focal point of Provenance is an 11-seat counter wrapped around a gleaming steel kitchen that is also a stage — where chefs and servers are the protagonists. And the drama is high at Provenance, the most ambitious French fine-dining project to open in Philly since Jean-Georges in 2019.

Such a grand tasting should, ideally, paint a picture with a compelling narrative and a distinct point of view. For Bazik, who has spent 15 years in local kitchens, including Fork, Bistrot La Minette, Good King Tavern, and Lacroix at the Rittenhouse, that portrait is clearly of his passion for updating French classics with influences from the Korean pantry, introduced to him by his wife, Eunbin Whang.

Details, however, too frequently marred the bigger picture. With such intricate compositions, where there are bull’s-eyes of sauces within sauces within sauces, the slip of a knife, the rapid cooling of a protein meant to be served hot, or the miscalculated intensity of any one element, can tip the balance.

That trout was hardly the only stumble. Duck served alongside Anchoïade, the classic anchovy-based sauce, was also draped with a whole anchovy, delivering a late-course salt bomb. A pasty taramosalata puree anchoring a salad of shaved vegetables had the opposite problem, lacking the briny punch expected from the Greek roe spread. A luxe stack of foie gras, bluefin tuna, and truffles atop brioche was drowned by the treacly sweetness of a Madeira-sherry gastrique. Even the house-cultured butter served with a fresh-baked baguette was inexplicably bland despite being blended with nine different peppercorns.

There were several highlights that show this kitchen is capable, especially when it leans into its Korean pantry. A poached mussel reveals the surprise of a braised almond spiced with gochugaru and aged soy stuffed inside. A spot prawn sparkles inside the spicy-sweet chile glaze of jellied chogochujang dusted with gold leaf. These made for fun bites in the seafood chapter that opens the meal.

Tight bundles of raw fluke with young ginger rolled over green pools of fig leaf oil were even better at my second meal thanks to the addition of some needed acidity. The raw kanpachi (a fatty yellowtail) was a standout in different preparations at both visits, paired with a lemony sauce vierge, a lightly cooked sauce of fermented tomatoes, sesame seeds, and black olive oil at meal one; then a tangy froth of pureed mussel vinaigrette and Jimmy Nardello jam at my return. But that dish was followed by an ill-advised mackerel duo that was like spooning into a pile of fishy bread crumbs.

A .500 batting average isn’t great. That’s especially true for a chef who raised eyebrows with a preopening interview that implied Philly’s celebrated restaurant scene lacked a special occasion destination worthy of its potential. “I’ve never felt that Philly was a second-rate city,” Bazik, 38, told The Inquirer’s Michael Klein, “so the idea that a restaurant like mine doesn’t really exist here is strange to me.”

If I can be Bazik’s most generous translator, he is trying to express a very specific form of fine dining that Philadelphia does not currently have. Yes, we have several restaurants where a diner can easily drop $300-plus for a Japanese omakase or Italian tasting menu. We also have several French-centric destinations where one form or another of a tasting is an option (Lacroix, My Loup, Laurel, Forsythia, Townsend, Jean-Georges, June). We certainly have chef counters.

But Bazik has crafted an intimate oasis inside the former Xochitl on historic Headhouse Square that is specifically crafted for this marathon of precious plates, where the kitchen action is front and center (except for a side room and basement wine cellar). Michelin-starred venues like Chef’s Table at Brooklyn Fare, Jônt in D.C., or Atomix in Manhattan come to mind. In fact, Bazik ordered the same comfy Hays 123 wing chairs (starting at $765) you‘ll find at Atomix, a leader in New York’s surging modern Korean restaurant wave that, not surprisingly, has made a strong impression on Bazik.

Paired with his custom-made Molteni in the kitchen, which Bazik refers to as the “Porsche” of the stove world, no expense was spared for this gastronomic atelier, his first restaurant as chef-owner.

It was clearly a labor of love and intention, down to the details of spacing between diners and the chef’s pass (10 feet for optimal theatrical effect), the delicate crystal glassware, overhead spotlighting from the plant-fringed awning above the counter (for photos), and the unmarked entrance off Headhouse Square (entrance code required) to foster an aura of clubby seclusion.

I have no doubt that a city that supported Le Bec-Fin’s polished silver cloches for 40 years, plus the Fountain, Lacroix, and Bibou, could get behind a new chapter in contemporary French cooking. But in a local food landscape that has long moved on from France to embrace other international influences, it will take a visionary chef to make Albuféra sauce — an intricate ivory sauce variation invented in the early 19th century by the legendary Marie-Antoine Carême for one of Napoleon’s marshals — cool again.

And I’m not convinced that Bazik’s menu is quite up to that speed yet — that Porsche of a stove doesn’t drive itself, and the culinary ride at Provenance hasn’t been consistently thrilling enough to be a sure thing.

What Provenance does have is a dedicated support team of sharp young talents lured from other top restaurants. Warm service from longtime pros like Rodney Murray (most recently at Fork) keeps the mood relaxed while vintage R&B from the Sound of Philadelphia pulses in the background. French wine pairings from sommelier Alexandra Nord were also spot-on, from a floral Jura savagnin to a 2022 Pommard from Domaine Billard that, despite its youth, was balanced for both the postage stamp-sized agnolotti filled with farmer’s cheese and a butter-poached swordfish set beside concentric rings of three different sauces.

Those were two of the more successful dishes. The homey cheese-filled pasta seemed perhaps out of place between the Asian-inflected raw seafood at the beginning and the cooked French dishes to follow, but it was also a fittingly personal nod to Bazik’s Slovakian pierogi roots. The swordfish’s tricolored sauces (chlorophyll green-tinted burrata, tan Albuféra, meaty brown poivrade) were meant to be swiped into one, an irreverent, messy sauce mash-up intended to evoke a steak house plate.

Two other dishes also sparked delight: One was a tender scroll of squid over a “risotto” of grain-sized potatoes glossed with a spiced black squid ink gravy. The other was a cardamom-cured baton of steelhead trout topped with shaved beans in fermented lime juice, set beside a frothy white gazpacho of almonds and confit garlic, a riff on trout amandine rearranged into a lively new tune.

Both meals hit their savory finale with a frothy cup of sabayon filled with grains — polenta with duck confit and trout roe one night, a blend of Korean rice another. Comforting? Perhaps. But with the tooth-coating thickness of butter-flavored mousse (one was even minted), these cups were too big and rich to enjoy at dish No. 17. The cleansing reply of “lettuces,” a tightly bundled bite of herbs and bitter greens, could not arrive soon enough.

Provenance’s secret weapon was about to appear, though: the dessert course from Abigail Dahan.

Pastry chefs are the ultimate luxury in Philadelphia. And Dahan, who rose to prominence at Parc, is one of the best. The success rate picks up considerably when she’s involved. That includes one of the most memorable cheese courses I’ve tasted this year: a choux pastry sandwich filled with savory-sweet ice cream made from Perrystead’s washed rind Moonrise.

The seasonal granita variations are draped with boozy gelée lids: smoky mezcal for late summer watermelon; Calvados for fall’s Trou Normand. There are caramelized fruit compositions and decadent chocolate confections, including a 100 Grand Bar-style nugget I’d hoard by the bucket for Halloween. And then there was the fresh-baked soufflé, a canela-scented column of honeynut squash that hovered like a warm autumn cloud, a cool scoop of long pepper ice cream by its side ready to combine forces.

That generous bounty of sweets was pitch perfect for this contemporary reimagination of a French tasting menu experience. Some of this meal’s earlier chapters may have felt like a chef’s rough draft still refining his narrative thread, consistency, and rhythm. But Provenance, at least, has already nailed the ending.

408 S. Second St., Philadelphia, Pa. 19147, 445-223-8333, provenancephl.com

Dinner Wednesday through Saturday, kitchen view counter seatings at 5:30 and 8:30 p.m.; in the Sunkoo Yuh side room, at 6; in the downstairs wine cellar, at 7 p.m.

Menu costs $225 for 22-plus dishes.

A validated discount is offered for parking in the Abbott’s Square garage at Second and Lombard.

Some allergies can be accommodated with seven days’ notice, however the restaurant cannot omit alliums, nightshades, mushroom sauces, shellfish, pork, dairy, or poultry products.

Wheelchair accessible.