If you feel like chicken tonight: The $13 Hot Legs at Lucky 13 are served with couscous, peppers and olives. (photo by michael persico)

Clark's Bar

At Lucky 13, superstition is served cold.

by Adam Erace

Like taking jabs at Sarah Palin, starting a review of Lucky 13 with an anecdote about the ominous prime number is almost too easy. But I’ll shoot that fish in that barrel, because those digits that are sometimes missing from hotel floors or airplane rows have personal significance: I was born on Friday the 13th. So was my cousin. So was my great-grandmother. Spooky, right?

The number has never been unlucky for me, and I’d wager the same for bartender-about-town Clark Newman, whose new pocket-sized pub looks superstition dead in the eye. Ballsy, especially on East Passyunk, where the likelihood of a sweet old nonna putting the evil eye on you is pretty high.

Newman, whom you might know from Grape Street and Drinker’s, bought old-man bar Vincenzo’s back in September and freshened up the place with a coppery pressed-tin ceiling and a sweet jukebox stocked with the Ramones, the Police, the Death Proof soundtrack and other CDs from his personal collection. Dark, scrappy and slim as the cigarette dangling from the pouty red lips of its tattooed poster girl, Lucky 13 puts the punk in Passyunk.

With grinning gargoyles, skulls sporting sunglasses and a wall-mounted glassy-eyed deer’s head making up the majority of the decor, Lucky 13 doesn’t seem to want to ward off evil spirits. Rather, the occult kitsch invites them in for a pint of Kenzinger. Beyond the raised dining room’s pub tables, teal laminate booths and a two-top fashioned from a vintage Ms. Pac-Man, you’d almost expect to find a secret sanctuary for wayward Goretti girls trying to invoke the spirit.

You’ll likely find Newman behind the long original bar sporting a knit hat and Nike zip-up, as if he just finished a jog. He bartends most nights, working the all-local taps— Victory Prima Pils and Golden Monkey, Sly Fox Route 113 IPA and O’Reilly Stout, Yards ESA and Kenzinger—with the steady, experienced hand of guy who’s been doing it 23 years.

In the kitchen, chef Benjamin Johnson, formerly of the Plough and the Stars, is doing pub grub for pennies. Think roasted acorn squash with apple-and-sesame-studded brown rice for the local vegans, as well as deconstructed meatball subs that nod to Passyunk’s Italian guard, as deep-seeded as a backyard basil plant.

The numerical jinx proved powerless against the satisfying full-flavored fare that took forever to emerge from the kitchen. Johnson’s chunky black bean chili resonated with a rich beefiness and smoky jalapeño spice. Showered with fresh cilantro and white cheddar, the stew arrived over crisp tortilla chips instead of in a cup, and was all the better for it. For the pulled pork sandwich served alongside cool, nutty quinoa, Johnson starts with shoulders he sears, roasts and shreds by hand. Tossed in tangy, tomato-y barbecue sauce and piled into a Nino’s roll, the pork was so wet and juicy that the sharpness of provolone and prickly heat of jalapeño sliced through like a well-honed blade.

The mac and cheese brought penne “all hooked up” with white cheddar and Locatelli. Topped with house-ground bread crumbs and baked, the surface of the mac resembled the floor of an underground cave, points of petrified penne like herb-encrusted stalagmites. A few dabs of butter would have helped the cap get crispier, but beneath was all al dente pasta and glorious cheese. Not too much. Not too little. Just right.

For the Hot Legs—fittingly, $13—Johnson says adios to bland, boring chicken breasts, favoring instead more flavorful drums and thighs. Pan-seared then braised, the chicken’s skin could’ve been crunchier, but the dark meat underneath was perfectly cooked, its intensely chicken-y taste mingling with a boombastic marinara flavored with garlic, onions, lemon, peppers, fat, fruity Kalamata olives and cinnamon sticks. Bleeding into a dune of refreshing mint-flecked couscous, the Alta Cucina tomatoes were so sweet and kissed with acidity, you’d swear it was August outside.

A bit of magic, or maybe voodoo? I don’t care. This 13th Street saloon serves it up right, nothing unlucky about it.