Laying it on the Line

Alicia Grega-Pikul

Located on Route 11 in a sort of no man's land just past the imaginary line separating Luzerne and Lackawanna Counties, local celebrity chef Rick Thompson's new restaurant Linea has been operating quietly for the past three months, working out the kinks that inevitably come with any new endeavor.



Wondering if this concept of straddling "the line" was purely geographic or perhaps more deeply ingrained into the menu, we retreated to Linea's laid-back, candle-lit dining room after an afternoon spent beating the streets in Scranton's St. Patrick's Parade. We were famished and quickly ordered a statuesque shrimp and creamy crab horseradish cocktail appetizer to enjoy with the restaurant's complimentary baskets of warm bread.



Linea's somewhat bland interior décor is saved by original works of art by George Schelling, Jenn Bell, and Bob Schmitz, whose brightly colored, acrylic paintings seemed to bring to life the bebop jazz fusion music that tickled our ear drums.



Offering a nourishing serving of red beets along side a bed of dark field greens splashed with a balsamic dressing, the menu's beet salad is topped with a couple of goat cheese croutons so delectable you'll be tempted to order a side dish of them. Our braised beef short ribs and salmon entrees were notably straightforward and cooked to perfection -the ribs falling apart at the fork and the salmon cooked to a light crisp outside while remaining mouthwateringly moist within.



Both were coated with a tangy reduction glaze (port wine/vanilla and soy/ginger respectively) and served with potato and a side of steamed spinach. The trio of triumphant gourmet desserts we enjoyed defied description. If we weren't already so satiated by our dinners, we might have crossed forks over the last few morsels.



Raised in the Newton-Ransom area, Thompson perfected his craft in high-profile upscale restaurants in Florida and Phoenix, Ariz., under the tutelage of "crazy French chefs" before Patsel's in Glenburn beckoned him home to Northeastern Pennsylvania. He most recently made a name for himself as a partner at State Street Grill in Clarks Summit and downtown Scranton's Vida Tapas Bar & Grill. Hungry to operate his own establishment independent of the stress of business-partner negotiations, Thompson purchased the Linea location "ready-to-cook" for a price too good to turn down and trusted people would travel to Duryea to dine based on reputation alone.



The concept of the restaurant is to provide fine cuisine in an artistic yet causal bistro environment where jeans and untucked shirts are welcome to sit along side suits and enjoy a good meal made from scratch. Regardless of the season, the chef takes care to ensure there is "one of everything" on his menu from meat to fish to poultry to pasta, though he tends to stay away from pastas because of the region's abundance of Italian restaurants.



"The way I like to cook is very simple," said Thompson. "Everything is fresh. There are only a few layers of ingredients, maybe four or five ingredients per item. No more, because you don't want to have a circus going on in your mouth."



Linea is still serving what Thompson referred to as a "winter menu" that will likely evolve in a couple of weeks. While at State Street, Thompson was known to change the menu completely every two to three months. It was a catch-22, he said - as some customers welcomed the changes, others continued to ask for that one item they had enjoyed in the past.



"If you're coming to the same place - and most people are coming back once a week, once every two weeks - they've had the food, they've eaten through the menu, let them have something different," Thompson proposed. "I feel that will keep you coming back for more than just one dish. If you want one dish, that's what mama's meatloaf or mama's rigatoni is for."