When chef Christopher Kearse was planning Forsythia, the French restaurant he opened in Old City in 2019, he had two ideas that could not fit into the same room.
One was Forsythia. The other opens in Washington Square West on Friday, seven years later.
It’s a 40-seat cocktail bar called Known Associates, taking over the corner space at 10th and Spruce Streets that previously housed Varga Bar. The concept is built around cocktails and a compact food menu rather than full dinner service, though the fare is substantial.
For Kearse, the opening is another chapter in a career that began far from cocktail bars and French dining rooms. He grew up in Levittown, one of eight children, and learned to cook while recovering from a serious car crash at 16 that left him with severe facial injuries. During that long recovery, he cooked for his parents and siblings. He later worked in some of the country’s most exacting kitchens — Charlie Trotter’s and Alinea in Chicago, and the French Laundry in California — before returning to the Philadelphia area to become sous chef at Lacroix and Blackfish, followed by 2½ years as chef de cuisine at Pumpkin. In 2012, at 28, he opened Will BYOB on East Passyunk Avenue, closing it to move uptown to open the French restaurant Forsythia in the former Capofitto space in Old City. Forsythia earned a Michelin recommendation last year.
Known Associates is not intended to be an extension of Forsythia. Kearse and his wife, Lauren, who is also an owner, said the concept came into focus during their honeymoon trip through Europe, traveling by train from Zurich to Florence and spending time in smaller bars and cafés in places like Lake Como and Milan.
Lauren Kearse said one nearly empty bar in Como became the image they kept returning to: quiet, low-key, hospitable, and free of the sort of self-conscious “experience” building that now attaches itself to so many cocktail bars.
That idea is reflected in the room itself, which was rebuilt almost entirely. Phoebe Schuh of PS & Daughters, who also designed Forsythia, said the black-and-white tile floors were among the few elements retained from Varga, an unassuming gastropub with serious beer chops that closed after the unexpected death of owner Rich Colli in February 2025.
The Varga Bar murals painted on the ceiling — the “Varga girls” that were part of the bar’s identity for years — were salvaged and may be auctioned, with proceeds going to a fund in Colli’s memory, Schuh said.
The finished room is emphatically café lounge, not neighborhood drinking den. Floral wallpaper wraps the walls. Patterned banquettes line marble-topped tables. Mustard velvet chairs sit beneath wall sconces, with checkerboard flooring underfoot and a red-and-white striped canopy treatment stretched overhead. The overall effect is layered and slightly theatrical.
Schuh said her working relationship with Kearse is built on familiarity. “Chris and I just kind of speak the same language because we’re both artists,” she said. “We’re not that great at talking about our work, but we’re great at producing our work.”
The location — within blocks of Jefferson, Wills Eye, and Pennsylvania Hospitals — also helped shape the project. Lauren Kearse said they envisioned a room that could work for after-work drinks and dinner-adjacent snacking as much as destination cocktail traffic.
That balance shows up on the food menu, which is limited to 10 savory dishes and two desserts. Kearse said the kitchen’s role is to support the bar rather than turn it into another restaurant. Still, the menu is more ambitious than standard bar snacks and has some of Forsythia’s cheffy feel.
The burger that is a signature at Forsythia appears at Known Associates as burger au poivre, topped with Comté, cut in half, and served cut-side down in a pool of peppercorn reduction ($20). Char siu duck legs ($22) come on a pretzel milk bun with fish sauce and pickles. There’s also a chicken club ($23) with green goddess dressing and Benton’s bacon.
Lighter dishes include black-eye pea falafel with muhammara and green-scallion hummus ($15); hamachi toast with hard-boiled egg and piri piri ($22); pomme frites with Comté cheese foam ($10); and freeze-dried cool ranch peas meant for snacking with drinks. Seasonal crudité ($12) comes with potato puffs and a caramelized sour cream and onion dip. Desserts ($12) are limited to two: toasted rice milk ice cream with sesame and peanut brittle, and triple chocolate mousse with dulce de leche and toasted hazelnut.
The kitchen is led by chef Brandon Brokenbough, formerly of Enswell and Scarpetta.
Beverage director Chris Harrop’s cocktails are built around prep work and technique. The TNT ($18) — tomato and tonic — uses clarified tomato water made from tomato, red bell pepper, shallot, fennel, and cucumber. The solids left behind after clarification are dehydrated and served as chips alongside the drink. Harrop said the same clarified base can also be used as a zero-proof savory soda.
The Bittered in Bond ($20), a Boulevardier variation, is made with a house mezcal amaro, Bonal Gentiane, Cappelletti Aperitivo, Licor 43, and salt. It is bottled in a small flask with a batch number and bottling date and poured tableside, a nod to bottled-in-bond whiskey labeling.
Between Harvest ($19), meanwhile, is a Martinez variation with Hayman’s Old Tom gin, Luxardo Maraschino liqueur, Nardini Rabarbaro, and muddled cucumber. Harrop said the name came from a Forsythia customer’s observation that rhubarb and cucumber almost never overlap in season — one fading as the other begins. For summer, he said, the bar has a frozen zombie ($19) assembled to order, with the rum blend kept separate from the slush machine so each drink can still be measured and built fresh.
The name Known Associates carries a passing wink to spy movies — the Kearses are fans of Bond films — but Lauren Kearse said the bar is not built as a themed concept.
“We have no interest in doing that,” she said. “We wanted something punchy that had a little bit of mystery to it.”
Known Associates, 941 Spruce St., opens June 26 and will be open daily from 3 p.m. to midnight.
