Manna

By Author: John Tang
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The handiwork of chef John Merlino and the hospitality of his wife, Victoria, give southern Shore diners much to be thankful for.

Manna, the heaven-sent food that sustained the Israelites in the desert, was not exactly a gourmet treat. In fact, the people complained bitterly to Moses about the monotony of eating it and told him they thought they were better off in Egypt. (Nobody says he had an easy job.) Now we have a Manna that's an easy sell, offering a lot more than mere sustenance—organic Lancaster County chicken, paella, blood-orange sorbet. Though it's not in the desert, it's close to the sand.

We're a Christian-owned business, so the name does have a dual meaning, says Victoria Merlino, 25, who owns Manna with her husband, John, 31, but it's more about serving really great food.
Married four years, the Merlinos met in 2001 while cooking side by side at Mojo, a Margate emporium of chic cuisine and designer martinis that's since been razed for condos. After turns at Renault Winery in Egg Harbor City and Sails in Somers Point, John decided to go solo in 2007 after Sails shut down with barely two ...
... weeks notice.

Manna debuted last summer in a closet of a space in Ventnor. In December, the Merlinos relocated to larger digs in Margate. With Blessed Sacrament Catholic church and Beth El synagogue right across the street, you might say divine providence is watching over it.

Fresh orchids and candles adorn the cherrywood tables in the dual dining rooms. The early birds tend to be retirees sipping iced tea. The Philadelphia Expressway jockeys, spangled with jewels and armed with bottles of Santa Margherita, turn up as the sun sinks below the ocean and Margate switches to night mode.

Victoria runs the front of the house (when she's not at home with the couple's three kids), while John runs the kitchen. His food is refreshingly uncomplicated. Each dish tastes like its respective ingredients, a rarity these days. Chipotle peppers thrum smoky heat into roasted butternut squash soup. Anchovies impart a salty nuttiness to Caesar dressing made from scratch. In the rustic rigatoni with spicy sausage and smoked mozzarella, roasted fennel releases a fragrant undertone of anise. Before adding tomato and cream for the sauce, Merlino deglazes the onions and garlic with a shot of Sambuca that caps each forkful with a licorice crescendo.

Shearing off kernels of fresh white and yellow corn, the chef simmers the naked cobs in a stock that becomes the base for the lightly creamy corn-and-potato chowder. Corn kernels also find their way into a lemony fava bean succotash paired with a beautifully roasted organic chicken breast. More favas and bright emerald peas add a pop of summer to the Parmesan-strewn mountain of mascarpone-enriched risotto with lump crabmeat.

In the restaurant's snug backyard, Merlino smokes tomatoes for the Cobb salad's vinaigrette as well as racks of baby backs massaged with a nine-spice dry rub, which he serves with slender salted frites piled in a paper cone. The spices lend the ribs a dusky, sweet heat. Everyone loves the rub so much, we bottled it and gave it out for Christmas presents, says Victoria.

Salads are well conceived (particularly the peppery arugula salad, with Marcona almonds, golden raisins, Mandarin orange segments, and fried goat cheese), but they drown in dressing. (Ask for it on the side.) You'll need to take a knife and fork to the romaine in the Caesar and to the avocado-topped Cobb to work the pieces down to bite-size. Chopped romaine, bacon, and tomato salad goes limp under too much chunky Cabrales blue cheese dressing and is further subverted by a heavy dose of black olives.

A grilled wild Scottish salmon entrée flakes nicely, but its spare salt-and-pepper seasoning hits one elementary note over and over. A few spindles of charred asparagus and some vegetable fried rice don't

add much.
Merlino serves the paella himself, removing the lid like a magician—ta-da!—as intoxicating saffron aromas billow forth. The tender arborio rice is studded with shrimp, clams, cod, crabmeat, chicken, and chorizo, but it lacks the crusty bottom-of-the-pan layer that signals a great paella. Perhaps a few more minutes in the oven and a switch to Spanish Calasparra or Bomba rice are in order.

Victoria bakes the desserts at home, assembling and saucing them on premises. Her banana cake, topped with bananas sautéed in butter and a scoop of vanilla Breyers, gets its nuttiness from hazelnut flour, its moist center from puréed bananas. The chocolate degustation showcases semisweet mousse, dense cocoa cake with muddled raspberry and white chocolate sauce, and an effervescent New York egg cream, a nostalgic nod to the seaside ice cream parlors of summers past.

Best, though, might be the individual pecan pies—gooey, sticky, nutty tarts baked by John's mother. They're a mainstay of the Merlino Thanksgiving table, and now, of Manna's 25 tables. Rejoice.
Click here to read the rest of Manna. If you enjoyed this article, you also might like our other stories that talk about NJ Restaurant.