Sunny lemonade is too often dismissed as a kid's drink, overlooked on local menus in favor of more grown-up, bitter-edged iced tea, or relegated to a Hi-C button on the fountain-soda machine. Sure, it's basically just lemon juice, sugar and water, but these three spots take the ultimate summer-day drink refreshingly seriously.
Old-Fashioned Frog at the Yard markets its simple lemonade as a healthy alternative to oversize bottles of tricked-out fruit juices. It may be leaner in calories, but it's powerful in tangy fresh-squeezed flavor, thanks to a recipe with a high lemon-to-sugar ratio and a quiet kick of lime juice.
French It's DIY lemonade with the classic French
citron presse at
Brasserie Perrier at Boyds. A tall glass filled with crisp ice cubes, the juice of two freshly squeezed lemons and still Voss water is served with a miniature pitcher of sweet simple syrup, made in the restaurant's pastry kitchen, for a customized quaff.
Fruit-Flavored When the lemonade's pink at
Matyson, it's not a Country Time gimmick. It's the stain of an exuberant crop of strawberries, raspberries and blackberries. The kitchen mixes up the sweet 'ade in five-gallon jugs — simple syrup, fresh lemon juice and pureed berries — and the staff downs it as quickly as the lunch crowd. Look for the orange-tinted version in peach season.
Originally published in Philadelphia magazine,
June 2007
