Dining Remains an Event at Marsha Brown: 5 Yums

This marks the return of my popular restaurant reviews that ran for several years on my original blog.

Reviews are based on a 5 Yum scale, 5 being must-go, 2 being save your money, 1 being call an ambulance.

Where: Marsha Brown, New Hope, PA
Price: $$$$
Fun new word: Housemade (my use, not theirs)

My husband Frank decided to surprise me with dinner the night before our 5th wedding anniversary (I usually say marriage, since we didn’t have a wedding). I thought we were going to a Cuban restaurant in New Hope, but he stopped in front of the large sign outside Marsha Brown and said, “Here we are.”

Intended as an experience of “sophisticated Southern dining,” Marsha Brown the person opened Marsha Brown the restaurant in 2003 and it’s been going strong ever since. Ms. Brown, owner of several Ruth Chris Steak House locations, decided to venture out on her own with a namesake restaurant that serves favorite family recipes, “Creole kitchen” offerings, and enough charming atmosphere for second helpings.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Located in a 125-year-old stone church in the center of New Hope, just a half block from the bridge connecting to Lambertville, New Jersey, the restaurant’s main dining room features 40-foot ceilings. It also boasts a 30-foot mural, antique furnishings and stained glass windows with a decidedly secular appeal.

Frank informed the restaurant in advance that it was our anniversary, so we were seated at a table with rose petals on white linen, and a sort of curved settee that had us sitting side by side. (Our waiter told us the rose petals were code for an anniversary couple, while the blue ribbon two settees down was for a birthday.)

Speaking of servers, Adrian was as professional as you’ll ever encounter. Older (I like them that way), this was not a man who had to ask the kitchen what the specials were (it happens more often than you think). He was prompt, pleasant, nonintrusive, and worth every percentage of his gratuity. 

What we ate:

We started with their Blue Crab Beignets with remoulade and Marsha’s signature sauce. Four on a plate, delicate and mouth-watering. If not the best part of this terrific meal, then certainly at the top.

This was followed by a chopped salad for Frank, consisting of a trio of chopped lettuce tossed with asparagus, broccoli, egg, artichokes, bacon bits, crumbled bleu cheese, crisp onions, croutons and Kalamata olives in housemade ranch dressing. I ordered their prosciutto salad composed of baby spinach, fig and bleu cheese tossed in a fig vinaigrette atop prosciutto di Parma. The salads were very good but not mind-blowing, meeting expectations but not exceeding them.

The entrees, however, were superb: Crawfish Etouffee for Frank, offering crawfish smothered in a blanket of chopped vegetables and served with rice; and Eggplant Ophelia for me (listed on the menu as Marsha’s mother’s favorite), providing a delicate blend of shrimp and crabmeat casserole, topped with grilled eggplant and garnished with housemade Creole butter sauce.

We took pieces of pecan pie and carrot cake home for dessert, one of which was kindly donated by the restaurant for our anniversary (said donation having no influence on this review).

We’ve been here before, but not for a few years. This thriving restaurant in this popular tourist town deserves accolades for being outstanding and for surviving in a very difficult business. Marsh Brown continues to earn a solid 5 Yums. Get there when you can.

Mark McNease is the author of eight novels, two short story collections and miscellaneous fiction. He co-edited and published the anthology Outer Voices Inner Lives (Lambda Literary Award finalist), and was the co-creator of the Emmy and Telly winning children’s program Into the Outdoors. He currently co-hosts The Twist Podcast with his longtime friend and collaborator Rick Rose.