Circle Hopes to Run Rings Around the Competition

by LEN LEAR

Meeting some of the fascinating staff members at the three-year-old restaurant in the Radisson Plaza Warwick Hotel at 17th and Locust Streets, you quickly learn there is nothing square about Circles off the Square. Although this 110-seat restaurant has been open much longer than some of the more splashy headline-grabbing eateries in center city, many area foodies do not even know it exists. About 60 percent of their customers are Warwick Hotel guests.

You won’t meet a more interesting group of servers anywhere, however. For example, Zoraya Velez, a resident of Logan who weighed 303 pounds last fall, is now under 170 (at 5-foot-8). She accomplished this 135-pound loss by means of a gastric bypass operation. “It has truly given me a new life,” she said. “I have much more energy now and can be a better mother because I am no longer tired all the time.”

Another server, Mt. Airy resident William Hatcher, has written two screenplays, which he is currently shopping around, and is now working on a third.

Up until recently Circles off the Square served only breakfast and late-night bar food and sandwiches, which helped contribute to its relative anonymity. In February of this year, however, the restaurant began serving casual food all day, and on March 21 a new full-service menu was introduced.

“We always strive to make sure our guests have a good night’s sleep, but it was time to wake the restaurant up also,” explained Brian Conyers, the hotel’s general manager, as he described the new menu created by executive chef Ben Young and the renovations undertaken by a team of decorators. (Chef Young previously worked for 10 years at Caesar’s Hotel and Casino in Atlantic City but left because “I wasn’t getting any culinary growth.”)

The new American bistro menu has lots of Asian Fusion touches, and there is a wine bar with 10 wines by the glass in a newly decorated space featuring warm red walls, hard wood accents and colorful Picasso-like abstract paintings on the walls.

Chef Young has also brought back the hotel’s famous Warwick lamaze sauce with grilled shrimp cocktail. Shrimp Lamaze, which was created in the Warwick Hotel in the 1930s, was eventually copied by many restaurants all over the country.

Many other items on the menu pay homage to the hotel’s history and its prime location in the Rittenhouse Square area, including the Warwick salad (tossed field greens with cucumber, tomato, red onion and gorgonzola cheese); the Rittenhouse burger (one-half pound of Angus beef grilled and topped with truffle cheese); and the Plaza club sandwich, a tribute to the hotel’s posh “Club Level” (smoked turkey, honey-glazed ham and applewood smoked bacon matched with tomatoes, red leaf lettuce, alfalfa sprouts and pesto aiolo on sourdough bread). One awesome dish is the Asian five-spice barbecued baby back ribs (four of them) with caramelized sweet corn polenta cake ($11). -Meals are reasonably priced for center city, with lunch entrees starting at $9 and dinner entrees starting at $13.

We thoroughly enjoyed an appetizer of black bean-marinated chicken wings ($8), although the citrus honey dipping sauce promised on the menu did not materialize. As it turns out, the sauce had been baked into the wings. A crab-crusted halibut with papaya salad and roasted fingerling potatoes ($28) and pan-seared sea bass in an Asian black bean broth ($19) were fin-tastic entrees that were aesthetically presented, although there seemed to be a very heavy hand on the salt in the dishes.

A low-carb cheesecake with warm berry compote ($7) was one of the most delectable desserts we’ve tasted in ages. Circles has a small wine list but with some good choices by the glass, including a sprightly Charles Krug Sauvignon Blanc ($10) redolent of citrus flavors.

Built in 1926, the Radisson Plaza-Warwick Hotel, with its spectacular English Renaissance architecture, is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The 545-room property is known for its elegant lobby with sweeping staircase and matching fireplaces. Radisson took over the hotel four years ago and initiated a $20 million renovation of all public areas. For more information, call 215-790-7755 or visit www.radisson.com/philadelphiapa

The Queen rocks; her head rolls

Marie Antoinette, the one-time Queen of France and the Paris Hilton of her day, did not survive the French Revolution, but her spirit survives in Philadelphia, thanks to Terry NcNally, co-owner of London Grill, whose annual Bastille Day portrayal of King Louis XVI’s main squeeze has become a local food-and-entertainment tradition.

The fun will begin on Saturday, July 16, at 5:30 p.m., when McNally, bedecked in late-18th century finery fit for a Queen, says bonjour to guests at the annual Eastern State Penitentiary block party, just two blocks from London Grill. After the crowd “storms the Bastille” and the Queen loses her head (actually, it’s a head of lettuce that will roll out of the guillotine), the not-so-angry mob will retire to London Grill for a dinner of French food (of course) and Marie Antoinette cocktails.

London Grill is located at 2301 Fairmount Ave. In the Art Museum area. For more information or reservations, call 215-978-4545.