Jansen, the upscale “Center City” restaurant at 7402 Germantown Ave. in Mt. Airy that has been a magnet for fine-dining aficionados for the last decade, will close its doors for good in late September. Chef-owner David Jansen, executive sous chef Jason Burke and general manager Zach Bourne will take their skills to “Jansen at Whitemarsh,” opening Nov. 1 at the Whitemarsh Valley Country Club in Lafayette Hill.

Jansen established itself as one of the most acclaimed restaurants in the Delaware Valley. Its rating on RESY, the restaurant reservation app, is 4.9 out of 5, from more than 7,000 reviews. In the just-published “Philly Favorites” advertising supplement to the Sunday Philadelphia Inquirer, readers picked Jansen as the number one “Fine Dining Restaurant” in the Greater Philadelphia area for the second year in a row. 

Fans of Jansen’s drool-worthy dishes who assume they can simply switch their allegiance to Jansen at Whitemarsh will be out of luck, at least for the foreseeable future. “I will be the executive chef at the country club,” Jansen told us last week. “They have an interim chef now. We will do banquets and book big parties. Members of the country club will be able to eat there, but there will be no a la carte dining for nonmembers as of now. After we are there for a while, we will have discussions about that.”

Room to grow

Jansen, which also has a large patio for outdoor dining, can comfortably accommodate about 85 diners while the Whitemarsh Valley Country Club has a massive dining room for 275 people and a second dining room for about 125.

Jansen's 10-year lease on Germantown Ave. will end in October and holds significant memories for the chef. On June 9, 2019, Jansen was married in the back of the restaurant to Debra Gress, owner of booked, 8511 Germantown Ave. The historic 275-year-old building previously housed Cantina Avenida for five years, and before that, Cresheim Cottage Cafe, which was owned and operated for two decades by Ken Weinstein, a Mt. Airy real estate developer and entrepreneur.

“This was the most difficult decision of my life,” Jansen said. “But this place is just too small. It is strictly a business decision. I want to be able to pay for healthcare and 401k’s for my staff. There is not enough walk-in space here. We do good numbers, but you have to grow in business and face new challenges.  

“People have been so loyal to me. Zach [Bourne] is the best general manager I ever had in 45 years in this business. And Jason [Burke], who started as my chef de cuisine at the beginning, is so talented. I love them. And we have had incredible support from the community through COVID and everything else. I am so grateful to our diners. When I started, certain people said to me, 'What are you doing? You'll never make it there. Center City is the only place you can do this.' But we certainly proved them wrong.”

Steady rise

Jansen, originally from Downingtown, has hospitality in his DNA. His paternal grandmother was a pastry chef, paternal grandfather a butcher. His maternal grandparents immigrated to the United States from Germany, and while his grandmother was the first woman named head of housekeeping for the Bellevue Hotel, his paternal grandfather worked at the front desk. 

Jansen started cooking at Downingtown’s Tabas Hotel at age 14, cutting smoked salmon. Astonishingly, by age 20 he was an executive chef at the West Chester Golf & Country Club. “I was making good money,” he recalled. “But I told my dad I did not want to keep doing prime rib, stuffed flounder, etc., so I went to the Philadelphia Restaurant School.” He graduated with honors in 1990.

Next, Jansen took an unpaid apprenticeship at the Four Seasons Hotel, whose Fountain Room was then one of the city's top two palaces of gastronomy (along with Le Bec Fin). “I consider Jean Marie Lacroix [then-executive chef at the Four Seasons] like a father,” he said. 

In 1999 Jansen became executive chef of the Fountain Room, replacing Martin Hamann (now at the Union League), who had replaced Lacroix. Jansen held that exalted position until 2010, four years before the hotel on Logan Square closed. (A “new” Four Seasons Hotel opened in August, 2019, at the Comcast Center.)

For the next five years Jansen did consulting work and stayed home to help raise his three children — James, now 30, and daughters Hannah and Addison, now 29 and 23, respectively — until he opened his namesake restaurant in 2016. Jansen lived in Wyndmoor for 21 years and before that in Mt. Airy for 10 years. 

For more information: 267-335-5041 or jansenmtairy.com. Len Lear can be reached at lenlear@chestnuthilllocal.com.