Restaurants in Mountain Top

Simpson House Tea Room sets the tone for its Victorian delicacies from the moment guests first glimpse the stately structure. The shrub-flanked walkway, the white wooden farmhouse with the sprawling wraparound porch, emerald shutters, and red roof appear untouched since being built in the 1890s. Inside, high-backed wooden chairs, bow-adorned teapots, and tiered platters surround steaming pots of 100 varieties of loose-leaf tea, a large variety of sandwiches including cream-cheese-and-olive, and scones with homemade lemon curd. With a variety of delightfully fussy services, the teahouse embraces teatime's lineage as the perfect treat for ladies who lunch—welcoming bridal and baby showers—and as the only way to tame a wild teddy bear.

In 1989, Dan Gallagher and Dan Smith joined their respective names and began pursuing one common goal: to bring a contemporary alternative to Berks County's dining scene. The 40-seat eatery was successful in the Dans' hands until 2005, when Bill Woolworth and MD. Monir stopped in for dinner, fell in love with the place, and decided to buy it.

Though much of the space's original charm remains intact, the new owners gussied up the decor with white tablecloths and floral arrangements, and they solicited the help of executive chef Jason Hook to lighten the rotating menu. Jason draws on his experience studying in France and working at The Four Seasons in New York to craft healthful, contemporary French- and Californian-inspired dishes. In every preparation, he highlights the ingredients' natural tastes, often pairing local cuts of meat and poultry with fresh, seasonal ingredients and luxurious flourishes such as truffles or Lamborghini-scented foam.

Hook, Woolworth, and Monir also frequently evaluate their wine selections to ensure that they pair well with the evolving menu, which changes every week. While sipping glasses of red or white, diners can question servers about the building's rich history in the Penn's Common Historic District. Before the restaurant settled into the space, it was inhabited by an old-style soda dive, a prison doctor's home, and a grassland populated with roaming dinosaurs.

Marhaba Blue Bell occupies an unassuming location just past the entrance of a Super Fresh market, but those who enter find Middle-Eastern dishes featuring flavors bigger than the restaurant's physical footprint. Using local ingredients, chefs whip up lemon-infused hummus and baba ghanouj and bake pitas fresh for each order. Lamb, beef, and chicken kebabs make savory meals or edible drumsticks for touring musicians, and the Marhaba meat extravaganza, with chicken, Middle-Eastern meatloaf, lamb, and gyro meat provides a multitude of proteins to pair with a BYOB beer or wine. A hookah's snake-like coils loop beside a cash register and multicolored lamps cast light across the ceiling's wooden rafters.

Though the county creek bubbling behind Zacharia’s Creek Side Café inspired the eatery’s name, it is the creativity of owners Andrew and Nancy Gallo and a team of trained chefs who keep diners enthused about each seasonal menu of Mediterranean- and New American-inspired fare. The casual BYOB restaurant—which has garnered praise from Zagat and LifeStyle Magazine—is outfitted with a 50-seat outdoor patio and on-location bakery and serves up lunch, dinner, and prix fixe menus amid Mediterranean-inspired interior decor. Housemade pastas are decorated with wild-boar ragu, goat cheese, and pork-belly confit, while the jumbo lump crab cakes come with an entourage of roasted potatoes and asparagus. An in-house pastry chef helps patrons cap off meals with fine cookies, seasonal cappuccinos, and over-the-top specialty cakes that are exact replicas of the Parthenon in Nashville, Tennessee.

From the outside, Springfield Inn is an anachronism. Its colonial-inspired structure—flaunting three tiered stories crowned with a swirling filigree—stands against its contemporary storefront neighbors as a symbol of an opulent past decade. Though its interior space regularly bustles with modern, DJ-fueled merrymaking, a menu of classic gourmet dishes still exudes the restaurant's timeless tenor. In the morning, chefs sizzle up a breakfast spread of waffles, omelets, and golden hot cakes to rouse incisors from their slumber, and evening selections range from honey-dipped fried chicken to filet mignon slathered in peppercorn demi-glace. Later hours bring strobe-light-splashed entertainment on select nights, rumbling the historic rafters with everything from live bands and DJs to rousing games of Red Rover.

Ingredient sculptors at Lee Gribben's on Main sear up succulent seafood and steak while an in-house pastry chef dotes over decadent epilogues. Meat and seafood dishes share equal billing on the dinner menu, where they share a bunk in the surf 'n' turf plate. At lunch, chefs stuff chicken, roast beef, and veggies inside slices of bread or nearby UPS packages for quick delivery to the mouth. The deft pastry chefs at Lee Gribben's on Main handcraft an array of sinful desserts, including boston cream cake, cheesecake, and crème brûlée torched. Guests can dine inside, where vibrant, modern artwork pops against marbled green walls, or outside on the patio. Trivia and karaoke nights encourage guests to stick around and head to the full bar for after-dinner drinks.