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Oct 23 2009

73 Reasons To Fall For Philadelphia's Dining Scene This Autumn And Beyond

New Openings, BYOBs, Delis, Mobile Foods, Hidden Spots, Local Ingredients

New On The Scene
Philadelphia’s dining scene continues to expand and diversify by the day. Here’s a look at some of the latest openings:

  • What happens when a food writer falls in love with a chef? The result is a charming Bala Cynwyd bistro called Avril, serving French fare like wild mushrooms and sea scallops over savory pastry crust and braised rabbit with lavender and artichokes over polenta.
  • With the success of his Queen Village gem-of-a-seafooder Little Fish, chef/owner Mike Stollenwerk has branched out into the much larger Fish in Center City. The menu carries on the culinary traditions of its diminutive sibling—fresh seafood prepared with vivid flavors, such as octopus carpaccio with tangerine and radish, escolar served with parsnip puree, autumn vegetables in roasted chicken juice and striped bass with orzo and preserved lemon.
  • Bistro 7 owner Michael O’Halloran moves north but takes his cooking eastward with Kong, his 2nd Street paean to Chinese comfort food. Eats include Mongolian lamb dumplings with pickled eggplant, crab-fried rice with sausage and salt-and-pepper soft-shell crab.
  • koozeedoo is the city’s first contemporary Portuguese eatery where the centerpiece will be the Iberian stew of rich meats, greens and potatoes (cozido), for which it’s phonetically named.
  • A third location of the ever-popular Greek seafood Dmitri’s opened recently in Northern Liberties, featuring grilled octopus, bluefish pasta and to-die-for orange almond cake.
  • Serving sweet and savory pies for breakfast, lunch and dinner, Sweetie’s Pie Diner relies on organic local ingredients for its tempting creations (chocolate pistachio, pine nut and lavender honey in cornmeal crust and corn and shitake mushroom).
  • A Vetri vet with experience in European kitchens is taking the Italian tradition of hospitality to new heights with a convivial wine bar and pizza kitchen called Zavino, opening this fall. Seasonal fare will include items like roasted beets with pistachios and goat cheese, house-made beef ravioli and pizza studded with mini veal meatballs.
  • M Restaurant at the Morris House Hotel in Society Hill returns under new leadership with an enticing mix of Italian and Argentine small and larger plates, including poached figs wrapped in prosciutto, chicken liver bruschetta and trofie pasta in pesto sauce.
  • Latin food is hot as ever, with Mount Airy’s Avenida moving into the Cresheim Cottage space in November and serving up whole roast fish with adobo and citrus, mole-glazed spare ribs with corn fritters and a children’s menu.
  • Bryn Mawr’s Verdad, open for lunch and dinner, offers Pan-Latin fare, including crab ceviche with green apple and poblano seed oil, lobster tamales and duck breast with grilled pineapple and cherry tequila sauce.
  • A luxe steakhouse distinguished by its Asian sensibility, Parker’s Prime brings kobe carpaccio, New York strip and ginger-sesame asparagus to Newtown Square, adding to the growing Win Signature Restaurants dynasty that includes Azie, Azie on Main, Teikoku and others.
  • Traditional West African cuisine—jollof rice, black-eyed pea cakes, stewed goat and puff-puff doughnuts—is the specialty at Tastee D’s, a cheery just-off-South Street eatery serving lunch and dinner.
  • Jamaican Jerk Hut, South Street’s long-running favorite, has branched out with a Delaware County sibling, Soul of Jamaica, where the delectable chicken, roti and fresh ginger beer is served up at the same affordable prices.
  • With two successful gastropubs under their belt (Memphis Taproom and Local 44), Brendan Hartranft and his partners are going for a third with Graduate Hospital’s Resurrection Ale House, beckoning neighborhood crowds with dozens of Belgian and craft beers by the bottle, a rotating array of drafts and ingredient-conscious eats like corn and scallion griddle cakes with queso fresco and romesco sauce and twice-fried chicken with watermelon and salted honey.

BYOB, Take Two
The local bring-your-own-bottle (BYOB) restaurant scene has been vibrant in Philly for a decade now, but recent activity in the field has brought a new wave of eateries to which toting your own beverage is the norm. On Liberties Walk, Sonata fits the mold with a 40-seat dining room, spare décor and seasonal menu items such as house-made duck prosciutto with candied pistachio and cantaloupe, and olive oil-poached salmon with watercress puree. Housed in an 18th-century Phoenixville farmhouse, Becca’s Restaurant serves a menu of classics with a contemporary twist: Australian filet mignon with wild mushroom demi-glace, sautéed cage-free organic duck breast and vanilla-roasted pineapple. Fond is Passyunk Avenue’s newest dining destination, a French BYO with refined fare like crispy veal sweetbreads with pickled red onion and pan-roasted monkfish with pancetta-braised lentils, king oyster mushrooms and a red wine jus. Fishtown’s 50-seat white tablecloth eatery The Pickled Heron boasts salvaged fixtures, house-baked bread and charcuterie and locally sourced ingredients across the menu (think tomato tart tatin and pan-seared skate wing). Narberth’s newcomer Gemelli has a decidedly affordable, Italian slant, with a five-course tasting menu for $40.

Deli-ciousness
With a host of Jewish delis new and old, there’s no reason to let a corned beef craving go un-sated in Philly. Queen Village’s rightfully named Famous 4th Street adds a new sibling, bringing its doting servers, kreplach and fresh hot cookies to Center City. Nearby on Locust Street, the Kibitz Room has set up a city outpost of its popular Cherry Hill bagel spot: Dr. Brown’s soda, a pickle bar and a signature burger with pastrami and swiss are just some of its delicacies. Meanwhile, across town, the similarly named but differently owned Kibitz in the City serves up achingly large sandwiches and black-and-white cookies in a gleaming white-tiled lunchroom. Montgomeryville’s Pumpernick’s is packed to the exits on weekends with patrons eager to dig into the reuben omelet, whitefish salad and Jewish apple cake. Even the menu at Ben & Irv’s Deli groans with the weight of its selections, where Eastern European fare (smoked sable, chicken in the pot with matzo balls, kreplach and noodles) is sprinkled with a touch of international eclecticism (Greek salad, Mandarin chicken breast and chipotle wraps). A West Philly classic, takeout shop Koch’s Deli features its own unique menu of double-decker sandwiches (The Bob Koch features boiled ham, turkey, Swiss cheese and Russian dressing on rye), plus hoagies and a serious New York cheesecake.

Meals On Wheels
As its college students and lunch-eating workers know, Philadelphia has always been a great city for street food. The newest addition (and innovation) to the fold is the Cupcake Truck, a van loaded with fresh-baked treats that roves the city and alerts patrons of its location via Twitter.
In Fishtown, Dieter Neumann’s Pizza Truck is the stuff of urban legend, sporadically cruising the streets for eaters—though in this case, luck is the only way to find it.

Truck lunchers will have an easier go finding some of the city’s stalwarts that tend to stay parked, like University City’s Magic Carpet, a vegetarian’s paradise, with meatless entrées ranging from meatballs to samosa wraps to falafel and baba ganouj sandwiches. Nearby, The Crepewalk truck offers a selection of sweet (Nutella, fruit) and savory (vegetable, chicken) crepes in true Parisian style. Lauded by The Philadelphia Inquirer as one of the city’s best trucks, Koja is another University City fave, serving Japanese and Korean plates such as spicy pork bulgogi, tofu stir-fries and chicken yakisoba. Parked across town on 17th and Spring Garden Streets, Jamaican D’s dishes out superior platters of rice and beans, curried beef patties and oxtail stew.

Local Harvest
Some restaurants do more than just use local ingredients—they build their entire menus around them. Opening this fall in University City, Daniel Stern’s MidAtlantic Restaurant and Tap Room will celebrate Pennsylvania Dutch cooking, local produce and regional seafood with offerings like crab scrapple and multiple Philly beers on tap. The cuisine is eclectic at Noble American Cookery, but many of the Center City bistro’s dishes, including grilled cinnamon lamb skewers and herb-marinated beef skirt, are sourced from nearby fisheries, farms, breweries and cheesemakers. Having built its reputation as a mecca for local and sustainable eating, Old City’s Farmicia serves up choice products like Lancaster chicken, Metropolitan Bakery bread and cookies and Amish cheddar. Nearby, Fork and its next-door takeout operation Fork:etc. draw from Bucks County veggies, Lancaster maple syrup and plenty of local beers. White Dog Café was the first area restaurant to promote regional growers. Pennsylvania products still dominate the menu, which includes the restaurant’s own private-label, locally grown wines; the White Dog Foundation continues the field-to-table work by facilitating relationships between farms and chefs. The menu at Bucks County’s American eatery Copper Leaf Grill showcases Griggstown chicken, Blue Moon greens and other ingredients when seasonal.

Hidden Dining
The only thing more exciting than discovering a new restaurant is finding one with hidden nooks and crannies. With its Isaiah Zagar-muraled courtyard and tile-top tables, Da Vinci Ristorante offers a funky getaway for classic Italian entrées like veal scaloppini and fettuccini with gorgonzola sauce. Bistrot La Minette now serves its fine French eats (frog’s legs with white beans, bouillabaisse) on a newly bricked-in patio.

West Chester’s Dilworthtown Inn is an 18th-century landmark and a destination for fine dining (wild burgundy escargot, Australian rack of lamb with Madeira mushroom risotto); dining on the stable terrace adds to the bucolic atmosphere. A tranquil respite from Center City, the Cassatt Tea Room and Garden serves English tea, sandwiches and sweets in its private garden in The Rittenhouse Hotel. Amid Valley Forge National Historical Park, the Washington Memorial Chapel’s Cabin Shop serves light snacks, lunches, desserts and candies made by volunteers in a homey log cabin atmosphere.

Featured Chef: Jose Garces
Few chefs can boast the exquisite culinary and high-precision management skills of Jose Garces, who currently helms a mini-empire of excellent restaurants in Philadelphia and has been nationally lauded by the James Beard Foundation (Best Mid-Atlantic Chef, 2009) and national media outlets in his quick rise to fame. Garces began his training in his Ecuadorian grandmother’s kitchen before attending Kendall College’s Culinary School. An apprenticeship in Marbella, Spain and turns at New York City restaurants like the Rainbow Room, Pipa and Chima followed. Garces came to Philadelphia to work with frequent collaborator Douglas Rodriguez at Stephen Starr’s Alma de Cuba and later helmed the kitchen at El Vez. From there he applied his extensive training to his own ventures, creating a series of unforgettable culinary hotspots: Amada, a traditional Andalusian tapas bar in Old City; Tinto, a Basque pintxo eatery in Center City; and Distrito, a lively modern Mexican restaurant in University City. In the past year, he has added two more to the collection—Chifa, a sleek Peruvian-Cantonese hybrid and Village Whiskey, a whiskey-centric gastropub with American snack food.

Featured Neighborhood: Northern Liberties
Just north of Center City, Northern Liberties has been attracting attention for its revitalized retail, nightlife and housing for more than a decade. A new crop of restaurants proves that this neighborhood’s dining scene continues to stay vibrant, while its older establishments have major staying power. The most recent newcomers, as mentioned above, include Sonata, Dmitri’s, Kong, koozeedoo and Sweetie’s Pie Diner.

Among the most historic of area dining options is Ortlieb’s Jazzhaus, a cozy music venue featuring great live performances and excellent Southern/Cajun cuisine. Along the Girard Avenue strip is a host of wonderful international eateries: Las Cazuelas, a sunny Mexican BYOB serving authentic fare such as ceviche and carne asada; Tiffin, trading in fresh, quick-service Indian curries; and its newer sibling Tiffin Etc., which turns out Indian-style pizza and street food. Modo Mio does refined contemporary Italian fare (porcini mushrooms with chicken livers and figs; ravioli with mascarpone, artichoke and almond), while its owners’ nearby takeaway sandwich shop Paesano’s Philly Style sells tasty Italian-style sandwiches like suckling pig with sharp provolone, broccoli rabe and hot peppers.

Northern Liberties has always led the pack in gastropub cuisine, starting with Standard Tap, which demonstrated the crowd-drawing power of a smart selection of local drafts and a chalkboard menu of superior burgers, fried smelts and roasted beet salads. Both of Mark Bee’s establishments, N. 3rd and Silk City bar and lounge, attract late-night diners looking for lots of atmosphere and interesting food (pulled pork sandwiches and Asian salmon with bok choy at the former; garlic bread-crusted mac and cheese and steak frites at the latter).

On Liberties Walk, Bar Ferdinand is a stylish tapas bar with sangria and Spanish favorites, including fried bacalao with saffron aioli. Across the way is El Camino Real, a “Mexican border” bar that serves Berkshire pork burritos, barbecue seitan and s’mores bread pudding. In a similarly contemporary Tex-Mex vein, Cantina dos Segundos pairs creative margaritas with cactus paddle salads, vegan fajitas and an indie-rock soundtrack.

For brunch/lunch, Honey’s Sit ‘N Eat is a hipster hangout with Jewish and Southern accents; its potato latkes are as memorable as its biscuits and sausage gravy. Café Estelle is another popular option, with homemade baked goods, fair-trade coffee and intriguing fare such as honeyed pear pancakes and a breakfast salad with lardons.

ADDRESS BOOK

New On The Scene:

BYOB, Take Two:

Deli-ciousness:

  • Famous 4th Street, 700 S. 4th Street, (215) 922-3274; 38 S. 19th Street, (215) 568-3271, famous4thstreetdelicatessen.com
  • Kibitz Room, 1521 Locust Street, (215) 735-7305, kibitzroomphilly.com
  • Kibitz in the City, 703 Chestnut Street, (215) 928-1447
  • Pumpernick’s, 917 Bethlehem Pike, North Wales, (215) 393-5800, pumpernicksdeli.com
  • Ben & Irv Deli Restaurant, 1962 County Line Road, Huntingdon Valley, (215) 355-2000, benandirvs.com
  • Koch’s Deli, 4309 Locust Street, (215) 222-8662

Meals On Wheels:

  • Cupcake Truck, twitter.com/buttercreamphl
  • Dieter Neumann’s Pizza Truck, Fishtown
  • Magic Carpet, 36th & Spruce Streets
  • The Crepewalk, Spruce Street, between 26th & 35th Streets
  • Koja, 38th & Sansom Streets
  • Jamaican D’s, 1700 Spring Garden Street, (215) 668-5909

Local Harvest:

Hidden Dining:

Featured Chef: Jose Garces:

Featured Neighborhood: Northern Liberties:

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Tagged: BYOBs, Dining & Restaurants