By Frank D. Quattrone
Ticket Editor

It’s not just the recent renovations or the award-winning service that inspire people to return to the Grille at Chesterbrook. And it’s not just the overnight guests that keep the Grille jumping. If a restaurant serves between 150 and 400 on a Saturday or Sunday, when business travelers play a much smaller role in the equation, it must be doing something pretty special.

Executive Chef and Director of Food & Beverages Peter Grello, on board for the past four years, says the recipe is quite simple. “If you start with good food, you end with it too. Our menu, which I call ‘American cuisine,’ is creative but not too fancy. It’s not Manayunk or downtown, but we try to accommodate varied tastes.

“Basically, we offer good, consistent food at a reasonable price. At the Grille, like all Embassy Suites restaurants, we start with a minimum standard of excellence, but the chef is always encouraged to go beyond, to create regional favorites and seasonal additions.”

Chef Grello said that the current economic downturn persuaded the staff to do away with the luncheon buffet. In its place, they’re offering “Fall Specials” such as Tuscan White Bean Salad ($8.95) with spinach, mozzarella, sun-dried tomatoes and kalamata olives and Shrimp and Nopal Salad ($11.95), brimming over with grilled shrimp, feta cheese, tomatoes and julienne radishes over sliced nopal (a popular, slightly tart Mexican leaf), with a lime cilantro vinaigrette.

He said that the Grille’s signature dishes are Sautéed Maryland Crab Cakes ($25.95), served with a pommery mustard remoulade, and Grilled Filet Mignon ($$27.95), served with a portobello mushroom in a Cabernet Sauvignon demi glace.

Some notable starters on the dinner menu are tender Calamari ($8.95) lightly dusted and quick fried and served with a tangy tomato sauce; Jumbo Tuscan Shrimp ($11.95), sautéed with tomatoes, onions and mixed bell peppers and served on crustini bread; and Grilled Portobello Bruschetta ($7.95), served over crustinis; and creamy Seafood Bisque ($5.95), a homemade lobster-based soup with baby shrimp and fresh lump crab meat in every bite.

The night of our visit, with Sous Chef Jeffrey T. Heller manning the kitchen, we also enjoyed one of the sous chef’s special creations — an appetizer called Inside-Out Lobster Ravioli ($12.95), featuring sautéed peppers and mushrooms tucked between thin pasta sheets and topped with very tender lobster.

Besides the crab cakes and filet, the dinner entrees include Pepper Crusted Striped Bass ($23.95), drizzled with Pernod cream and garnished with crispy fried leeks; Linguine Lejon ($20.95), jumbo shrimp, pan-seared with tomatoes and bacon and served over linguine with a horseradish cream sauce; Grilled Vegetable Napoleon ($17,95), a medley of garden vegetables finished with a balsamic glaze; Black Skillet Pork Chop ($22.95), nested in a golden apple chutney; and the divine Seafood Pasilipo ($25.95), jumbo shrimp, clams, mussels and crab meat, sautéed in a tomato broth and served over tender gnocchi.

Lunch also includes such items as 9th Street Market Salad ($11.95), made with chopped iceberg lettuce, egg, cherry tomatoes, red onion and green pepper, topped with turkey, ham and swiss cheese pinwheels; Valley Forge Crab Melt ($12.95), an open-faced English muffin with fresh lump crab meat, topped with tomatoes, bacon and provolone cheese; and Blackened Chicken Wrap ($9.95), blackened chicken strips, mesclun greens, diced tomatoes and blue cheese, finished with ranch dressing in a honey wheat wrap.

And Chef Grello is really proud of the Grille’s breakfasts, featuring a cereal bar, waffles or French toast, home fries, sausage and bacon, made-to-order omelets with any of nine different toppings, plus a variety of pastries, coffee, tea and juice, complimentary for guests of the hotel and $12.95 for non-guests.

The chef said that his wife, Charlene, and their two children, Charles, 12, and Lauren, 6, love eating breakfast at the Grille. “I enjoy good food,” he said, “and, for obvious reasons, so do my kids.”

He said he started cooking when he was 13 years old. “When my mother went back to work, she left the cooking to me. She left me all the family recipes. It just seemed so natural to me. My family’s been into it for years. My grandfather was a chef. One uncle was an executive chef at the Bellevue Stratford in the ’60s.

“My background is Italian and Hungarian. I used to love Hungarian chicken with sour cream gravy. But with Hungarian cooking, with so many meals a day, it was one and done — basically, one dish at a time, unlike the Italians, where a meal is an event.”

But at the Grille at Chesterbrook, that’s what many tend to say — that it’s a dining event they won’t soon forget.

The Grille at Chesterbrook,

888 Chesterbrook Blvd.

Wayne, PA 19087

610-647-6700

www.vfhotels.com

HOURS:

Breakfast:

Monday – Friday, 6:30 – 9:30 a.m.

Lunch:

11:30 a.m. – 2 p.m. daily.

Dinner:

5 – 10 p.m. daily.

E Bar: daily,

4 p.m. – midnight.

Reservations appreciated.

All major credit cards.

Facilities for handicapped.

Available for banquets,

private parties.

Dinner entrees: $17.95 - $27.95.