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NOW OPEN: Chick's Social
Last night marked the official relaunch of Chick's Café & Wine Bar (614 S. Seventh St.) as Chick's Social.
NOW OPEN: Chick's Social
Last night marked the official relaunch of Chick's Café & Wine Bar (614 S. Seventh St.) as Chick's Social. Chef/owner Jim Piano wanted to get away from the joint's reputation as a glass-of-wine-and-go stop, so he's upped his kitchen's game considerably to coincide with a light-and-bright makeover of the bar and dining room. "I really wanted to focus on the food," says Piano, who's now overseeing a taut selection of cicchetti (marrow bone topped with celery/fennelradish salad), antipasti (Brussels flatread with bacon, mustard seed and fontina), panini (the wild boar burger remains), housemade pasta (shortrib rigatoni) and large plates (salmon with horseradish, beets and farro). Piano's wife, Kristen, who's the pastry chef at Capital Grille, is looking over Social's desserts, favorites like lemon-curd bombolini and mascarpone cheesecake scrawled on a roll of butcher's paper studded to the wall.
In lieu of a chef's tasting option, Piano's offering timpano, an over-the-top specialty familiar to anyone who's seen the Stanley Tucci flick Big Night. It's basically an enormous baked dough mold with multiple layers — ziti and bechamel, sausage and red sauce, broccoli rabe, sharp provolone — that's sliced like a deep-dish pizza to feed big groups. For $32 a head, Chick's Social will bake one up for a table of six to eight, bookended by antipasti and dessert. (Piano used to work for chef Gianni Scappin, who actually served as the culinary consultant for Big Night.)
Chick's gorgeous original bar, which has outlasted multiple owners since the era when the reputedly mobbed-up Cicalese clan ran the place (liquor license No. 376!), remains intact, save for some new Edison bulbs. The by-the-glass vino options, which once sat at around 40, are down to a more digestible 16, but the bottle list has been bumped up. Full food/drink menus after the jump (click to enlarge).
- barstool scientist
- Booze
- Brew Revue
- Chef Salad
- Closings
- Coffee
- Contests
- Dealage
- Dirty Dishes
- Don't Front
- Eat This Immediately
- Field Trip
- Food and Art
- Food and Holidays
- Food and Movies
- Food and Music
- Food and Politics
- Food and Sports
- Food and Web
- Food Blogs
- Food Books
- Food Events
- Food News
- Food TV
- Gifted
- Happy Hour Hopper
- How-To
- In Print
- Interview
- Meal Ticket
- Menu Time
- Not So Quickfire
- Notes from the Weekend
- On Wheels
- Openings
- Patio Drinking
- Philly Beer Week 2010
- Photos
- Private Chef POV
- Product Placement
- Recipes
- Snack Time
- Stiff Drank
- SUPPER
- Tea
- Testing
- Ticket Stubs
- Top Chef
- Vegan
- Vegetarian
- Video
- Weekly Candy
- Weird Regional Foods
- We're Here to Help
- Where'd We Eat?
- Drew Lazor's Ill-Advised Rant Factory
- Pregame
- Ill-Advised Ranting
- The Week Without Meat
- Philly Beer Week 2009
- Real Big
- Where'd I Eat Last Night?
- Top Chef Masters
- The Good Word
- Next Iron Chef
- Arterial Terrorism
- Food and Radio
