Closed for Good...

Café Estelle

444 North 4th Street

Philadelphia, PA 19123

http://www.cafeestelle.com/ 

I found a list of awesome brunch places in Philly recently, so my girlfriend and I recently started trying to knock places of the list one by one. I heard that one of them was closing, and based on the great reviews it got, I decided to take my girlfriend there one weekend instead of the place I originally had planned to take her to, so we could try it before it closed. We went over to Northern Liberties to Café Estelle for some brunch on a beautiful Saturday morning.

We were really looking forward to it, but once we got there the disappointment couldn’t help but come to the surface. The high point of the meal for us was the coffee bar. It is self serve, and it has a nice variety of roasts to choose from. Each of the coffee varieties is  served piping hot, which is always a nice addition. My girlfriend and I decided for one of us to order a sweet dish and the other to order a savory dish so we could get a good feel for different things. I ordered the apple crisp stuffed French toast, and she ordered the eggs moishe with a side of house-smoked bacon.

I was really excited about the prospect of an apple stuffed French toast, but was severely disappointed when it came out. The bread was really dense and really hard in an unappetizing way. The filling was sparse throughout, and it didn’t really have an apple crisp type of flavor to it. The bread was really dry as well, so it really made me angry that I hadn’t chosen something else.

My girlfriends egg moishe was a hit and a miss at the same time. The eggs and the dill hollandaise were fantastic. I think it was really the hollandaise that was the star of the show, but the eggs and hollandaise paired nicely together. The breakfast potatoes served with them were cold. They had nice paprika flavor, but they weren’t hot and they didn’t have any form of crust on them, so they were a bitter disappointment as well. 

The final disappointment of our brunch was the bacon. It was sliced so thin that it almost dissolved in my mouth. I couldn’t taste any smoke flavor, and there wasn’t even enough to substantiate one mouthful between the three measly slices they provided us with.

Half a pint for Cafe Estelle. We were both really disappointed with Café Estelle. We had high expectations, especially after reading the good press that it had gotten and the good reviews. However, this place really missed the mark, and I can't say I am sorry to see it go. You won't have a chance to try it since it is now closed, but I wouldn't have recommended it to you anyway. Cheers!