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Chef Salad
There was a time Barclay Prime (237 S. 18th St.) was the finest steakhouse in Philadelphia. And not only fine, but interesting, different, more than typical meat and potatoes. Sometime between now and our last steak dinner there (toward the end of James LoCascio's term), things fell off, at least according to Inquirer critic Craig LaBan, who demoted BP in February to two lukewarm bells. Chef Stephen Wambach left soon after, destined for Azure at the upcoming Revel in AC, and Jeff Froehler is now in charge. The 32-year-old was born in Jersey and grew up in Miami, came back north and attended the Restaurant School. Froehler was the original sous chef at Barclay Prime when the steakhouse first debuted. Here's hoping he brings back some of that opening mojo.
Photo: barclayprime.com
With the Roundeye Noodle imbroglio recently besieging Ben Puchowitz, it's easy to forget the guy also cooks at a pretty amazing BYOB you may have heard of named Matyson (37 S. 19th St.). One of the restaurant's hallmarks is its weekly-changing $45 tasting menu themed around a specific ingredient or group of ingredients. This week, Tuesday to Thursday, Puchowitz is putting offal on display for the third time in the tasting's history.
"[The offal tasting] is one of my favorite because I get to experiment with different parts of the animal that I've never worked with before," he says. "It's an experience for both me and the diners."
Cuts will include pig's head and liver, chicken gizzards, rabbit kidneys, duck tongues, even calf's brain, as the filling for ravioli furnished with black trumpet mushrooms and salsify. "I don't think anybody’s serving calf's brains in Philly right now," says Puchowitz. "This menu is about allowing Matyson's kitchen to unlock Philly's culinary chastity belt."
Freshly renovated Pumpkin (1713 South St.), which has been enjoying plenty of praise since chef Christopher Kearse came on board, earned got a Slow Food Snail of Approval, an honor reserved for restaurants and individuals who contribute heavily the food sustainability of the region. To celebrate the success, Kearse and owners Ian Moroney and Hillary Bor are teaming up with the crews at Stateside, Fond and Lacroix for a five-course dinner on Monday, March 26. Each chef will prepare one course, and all proceeds benefit our local Slow Food chapter. The dinner is $125 per person including tax, tip and wine. Stay tuned to Meal Ticket for the menu.
If you didn't know the end of Le Bec-Fin was near, you've not been paying attention to the signs. Despite the rebranding of its basement space as Tryst and the threats of closure from Georges Perrier that resulted in a temporary reprieve, those in the real estate business (let alone the food biz) will tell you: Georges wanted out. He told me as much last week — how he waited for someone as formidable as Nicolas Fanucci (the former LBF GM last of French Laundry) to want in, that he was tired of long days and short marriages. A recent negative critique from the Inquirer's Craig LaBan had nothing to do with the sale. Perrier simply had enough.
To paraphrase Noah Cross in Chinatown, Perrier built this town. OK, not all of it, but he was the architect of Philly's restaurant renaissance, the guy who put us on the map when New York Times scribe Craig Claiborne claimed LBF as the East Coast's best. That was Georges. About 15 years ago, I dined on his Grande Degustation menu and it was magnifique. No matter what you thought had become of LBF — its loss of Mobil stars when it went a la carte, its questioned culinary reputation — Perrier's castle surely wasn't going to shutter with a whimper. It would end with a bang, and I wanted to be there. So I gathered my wife, and, along with 130 other diners, we sold out the last night featuring Nicholas Elmi's cooking and Perrier's reign on Walnut. (Elmi has moved on quickly to Rittenhouse Tavern, opening in April in the nearby Art Alliance.)
The list of semifinalists for the James Beard Foundation's annual awards has been released and, once again, Philly is alllll up in it. Some of the city's most talked-about chefs and restaurants have earned nods this year. There are also a few repeats of last year's semifinalist noms.
Tashan (777 S. Broad St.), a name constantly on Team Meal Ticket's lips, is up for Best New Restaurant, along with Washington Square's The Farm and Fisherman (1120 Pine St.). Unsurprisingly, The Franklin Mortgage & Investment Co. (112 S. 18th St.) is included in the new Outstanding Bar Program category. As for a few of this year's repeat noms, we've got Vetri (1312 Spruce St.) on the docket for several categories, Lee Styer of Fond (1617 E. Passyunk Ave.) up for Rising Star Chef of the Year and Bibou's Pierre Calmels (1009 S. Eighth St.) earning a nod for Best Chef: Mid-Atlantic, a category in which Philadelphia is very well-represented.
Check out the full list of deserving semifinal nominees after the jump. Finalists will be announced March 19, and the awards ceremony is scheduled for May 7 in NYC.
- Peter Woolsey, chef/owner of Bistrot La Minette, gets a byline this week with his piece about what it takes to come up with a new menu at his restaurant. There are myriad considerations when developing his bill of fare, but it usually begins with him being kinda drunk.
- Adam Erace goes K-Town in C-Town at the new location of Sammy Chon's, who has two restaurants in Jersey and just broke into the Philly market.
- In Feeding Frenzy: Ramen Boy, Russet, Cup & Saucer, Archie's, Iron Tower and Fish.
- In What's Cooking: Bourbon biz at JG Domestic, moms and margs at Cantina, an inconceivable movie screening and more.
- In his Full Exposure photography column, John Vettese reviews Mary Parisi's "Food," a new show hanging at UArts.
Photo: Neal Santos
Anne Coll of Meritage (500 S. 20th St.) has taken two delicious, seemingly unrelated foods and combined them to make something beautiful — a Korean short rib corn dog. Coll braises the short rib, which has been marinated in Korean spices, rolls it into a cylinder, batters it, fries it, sets it on a potato bun and garnishes it with kimchi, Korean slaw and gochujang. Coll wanted to tap into the wiener buzz around Philadelphia while still putting her own touch on a classic. The dog, on special nightly, can be yours for $8.
Photo: twitter.com/meritagephl
New chef at Old City's Philadelphia Bar & Restaurant (120 Market St.), open since 2010: Ben McNamara, an early practitioner of elevated pub cooking at New Wave Café (check the CP review from 2000!), then later Dark Horse Pub and St. Stephens Green. The revamped menu's got dishes like crab risotto arancini, bangers and mash and five types of grilled cheese, plus daily specials. There's also room here for his signature Isabella Salad (warm goat cheese, toasted walnuts, roasted peppers, grilled portobellos, greens, balsamic vin) and the chronically underappreciated diner burger off chef Jordan "Red" Sauter's opening menu. (He's moved on to a gig with Whole Foods.) McNamara will do brunch, too, rocking pancakes, omelettes, fried chicken and other hangover zappers Saturday and Sunday
McNamara's arrival coincides with a step up in PBR's craft beer game — they just installed two beer engines and have a bunch of brewery nights scheduled. Tonight from 5 to 8, swing by for a Ballast Point event boasting barrel-aged versions of Three Sheets Barleywine and Sextant Oatmeal Stout.
The weiner accoutrement at Hot Diggity! (630 South St.) is so on point because partner Keith Garabedian, in addition to being a frank enthusiast, is a trained chef — before opening his tubesteak emporium over the summer, he cooked at South Jersey's Tortilla Press and Little Cafe, plus Tom Colicchio's craftbar in NYC. He'll flex his skills beyond the bun tomorrow night at Southwark (701 S. Fourth St.), when he teams up with Sheri Waide and Nick Macri for a four-course rabbit dinner inspired by HD!'s menu.
Fishtown's Interstate Draft House (1235 E. Palmer St.) has barely broken in the barstools and there’s already been a chef change. As of three weeks ago, Julio Rivera, who’s worked with Interstate owners Bob and Brandon Bitros since they owned Azure in NoLibs, is out, and Adam Scott is in. Scott, a 35-year-old Buxco native, comes most recently from Supper and has also cooked at Hawthornes and the Doylestown Country Club. He’s already making changes.
"It was very Spanish-oriented," Scott says of the menu he inherited, "but Brandon and Bob's vision from the get-go was a Southwestern/Southern/Creole kind of mix.” That concept will play out on more and more on upcoming rewrites; he’s already added jambalaya and po'boys, and “as we evolve, we're going to try to refine ourselves and bring in a lot more technique.” Which is not to say Interstate Draft House is going to shit-can the nachos and buy an immersion circulator. "We want to do upscale pub food without going full-on gastropub."
Translate that how you will, but know that Scott promises the prices will pretty much stay the same. See how he's doing so far in this week’s issue, when we review IDH.
Photo: Ptah Gabrie
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