Hip To Be Pear

Chateaubriand, beef filet for two drizzled with béarnaise, hasn’t been au courant since Jackie O frequented Le Pavillon. Yet the Dilworthtown Inn still lists the $71 entrée on its menu. And it’s ordered as often as a dozen times a night at this candlelit throwback, where men still tend to wear jackets for dinner.

The restaurant has been serving a similar roster of clichéd dishes — rack of lamb with mint, Caesar salad tossed tableside — to a gray-templed clientele since the ’70s. A recent special of squash ravioli sprinkled with pine nuts was a tacit acknowledgement of the intervening decades. But much like the profusion of candles and the country wall stenciling, the dish is both too sweet and a little stale. It’s the taste of nostalgia. Some things, like Dilworthtown, will never change.

Recently, though, Dilworthtown owner James Barnes realized that the retro aesthetic could use an update, one that would capture the attention of younger diners whose ideas about restaurants are more rooted in trends and TV than tradition. In September, he opened Blue Pear Bistro in the renovated historic building next door, hoping to draw young professionals who won’t plunk down $150 for their parents’ idea of a romantic night out.

Dilworthtown’s marketing brain trust dubbed the new restaurant a “hip-storic” bistro. It’s a cringer of a moniker, but one that underscores Blue Pear’s mission to distinguish itself from its forebear. Votives are nestled in design-conscious holders; black-and-white photos of global food markets line the walls. These are welcome hints that Blue Pear is in touch with 2008, but other aspects of the place grasp at hipness beyond its reach.

The bar area of the restaurant hosts an energetic young crowd, but the room’s wood-grain wallpaper, a trio of TVs and Ikea-esque lighting fixtures are more hotel-lobby than homey neighborhood bistro. Snazzy bar snacks are commonplace at happy hour, but some look better than they taste. The grilled cheese sandwich, served with cumin-scented tomato bisque, is made from bread with the texture of Wonder. The accompanying soup has only an evanescent whiff of cumin. But the sandwich’s crustless triangles are carefully composed on a thoroughly modern skinny rectangle of a plate, just like you’d see on an episode of Iron Chef America.