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  • Your first look at Ellen Yin’s Italian hangout | Let’s Eat

    Your first look at Ellen Yin’s Italian hangout | Let’s Eat

    Ellen Yin is about to open a chichi all-day bar in Rittenhouse, and we take you inside.

    Also in this edition:

    — Mike Klein

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    Your first look at Ellen Yin’s Italian hangout

    High Street Hospitality founder and James Beard Award winner Ellen Yin is just about ready to hit Rittenhouse with Bar Cicci, an all-day drop-in for espresso and pastries by morning, sandwiches by day, and spritzes, cicchetti, and small plates by night. Join Beatrice Forman on Sansom Street for your first look.

    The crop of Shore farmers markets

    Shore season isn’t done yet, and neither are farmers markets, which have seen an uptick in business locally in the midst of a cyclospora outbreak. Hira Qureshi maps out where you can buy local produce, baked goods, and more at markets down the Shore.

    New restaurants for August

    Besides Bar Cicci, a half-dozen new restaurants are on tap this month, including Recipe Philly in Center City, Cecilia in Bridgeport, and Mixteca in East Kensington, where the red, white, and green of la bandera figures into the signature cocktail.

    One town has cornered the market on ‘little treats’

    Lancaster Avenue in Ardmore, one of the Main Line’s busiest commercial strips, is now home to two new dessert shops. Denali Sagner explains that one specializes in tea, cakes, and buns, while the other celebrates the mango.

    A teeny-tiny bar is coming to Fishtown

    Canned-cocktail brand Top Dog is setting up listening rooms in Kennett Square and Fishtown, embracing the Japanese jazz kissa model — a music cafe or bar that’s focused on listening to vinyl records. Brooke Schultz chatted up Top Dog’s Ken Smukler, who aims to deliver an “analog feel in a digital world.” The Fishtown location is tiny. It used to be an ATM.

    The best thing Kiki Aranita ate last week

    The handmade tarts from Market Day Canelé layer summer tomatoes over a corn custard with cremini and button mushrooms, herb-roasted cotto ham, eggs, and Gruyère in a flaky crust. Kiki Aranita says you have to act fast to snap one up.

    Scoops

    Two chefs have made big professional strides from their roots in Roxborough, and now they’re coming home to Manayunk to take over the Winnie’s space with a “punk French” eatery.

    Aldar Bistro in Bala Cynwyd is giving way after 34 years to a white-tablecloth Southern Italian restaurant called Bruzi.

    Does a spate of restaurant-closing announcements — such as Hiroki, Federal Donuts & Chicken, and the Lodge by Two Robbers — portend industry doom? No, and I’ll explain why not.

    Restaurant report

    Gabriella’s Vietnam in South Philadelphia is counting down to closing in mid-December as the new owner of her building is planning a restaurant of their own. Chef-owner Thanh Nguyen told Kiki Aranita that she is looking for a new spot.

    Side Eye, the Queen Village bistro, gets a bit of side eye from critic Craig LaBan, who likes the vibe and pricing but thinks the execution could be sharper.

    New drive-thru coffee option: The syndicated 7 Brew has opened at 4000 Woodhaven Rd. in Northeast Philadelphia’s Knights Road Shopping Center.

    More bagels are coming round: Central Florida-based Jeff’s Bagel Run — schmeared with private-equity investment — has cinched a franchisee for 10 stores from the Harrisburg area east through Reading and the Lehigh Valley to suburban Philadelphia. No leases have been signed, the company announced in a press release.

    Briefly noted

    Cantina la Martina’s fourth annual Cemita Festival returns from 11 a.m.-4 p.m. Sunday at the Garden Center across from Mural City Cellars (1825 Frankford Ave). Six restaurants will each serve interpretations of Puebla’s iconic cemita sandwich for $16: Cantina la Martina, Gilda, Bolo, Vientiane Bistro, Cinteotl Tamalli, and Los Cuatro Soles Restaurant. Also: beverages from Mural City Cellars, DJ Cali Rumba, dance performances by Danza Tonantzin Cultura, face painting, and artisan vendors. It’s pay-as-you-go. Some cemita vendors are cash only.

    Post Haste in East Kensington will become Philadelphia’s only participant in the inaugural Global Pay What You Can Day on Aug. 26, joining restaurants from Mexico City to Mumbai in a one-day effort to make dining more accessible. Guests can order whatever they’d like and pay what they can (excluding alcohol), building on chef Ari Miller’s weekly pay-what-you-can program launched earlier this year. (Miller is married to Inquirer staff writer Kiki Aranita.)

    The Fishtown Pickle Project is taking its annual pickle-themed dinner outside of Fishtown for the first time. The Aug. 27 edition will have founders Niki Toscani and Mike Sicinski in Rittenhouse to collaborate with Uchi on a nine-course, pickle-centric tasting menu (e.g. oysters with giardiniera, yellowtail with pickled peach, salmon with pickled enoki, and a dessert featuring pickle jam). Seatings: 6 and 8:30 p.m. Tickets: $125 per person, plus tax and gratuity.

    Chef Chaz Brown, in partnership with Forman Arts Initiative, will present the third annual Oxtail Collective from 1-5 p.m. Aug. 30 at the Substation in Kensington. Titled “The Hercules Posey Celebration” — after George Washington’s enslaved chef — the event will bring together Black chefs, historians, artists, and entrepreneurs to explore the intersections of food, culture, business, and history while serving as an early public introduction to Forman’s future 100,000-square-foot arts campus. Participating chefs include Chad Williams of Friday Saturday Sunday, Omar Tate and Cybille St. Aude-Tate of Honeysuckle, and Shola Olunloyo of Studiokitchen. PBS NewsHour’s Geoff Bennett will moderate panels, and the program also includes tastings from 15 chefs, cooking demos, and a marketplace featuring Black-owned businesses. Tickets ($92.55, including fees) are on sale.

    Delicious City Philly Podcast’s second annual Hoagie Throwdown has a date: Sept. 27, from noon-4 p.m., at Other Half Brewing in Fishtown, drawing 20 chefs, restaurants, delis, and sandwich makers to compete. There will be unlimited hoagie samples, beer/soft drinks, and pro wrestlers grappling. (Last year’s outing was a scene: The Inquirer’s Craig LaBan, in a Zorro mask and big hat, went through hoagie-making boot camp.) The podcast has made 500 tickets available and early pricing starts at $55.

    ❓Pop quiz

    Which Pennsylvania farm crop is in the crosshairs of the U.S. Department of Commerce?

    A) mushrooms

    B) hay/alfalfa

    C) corn

    D) apples

    Find out if you know the answer.

    Ask Mike anything

    What is going on at 117 Chestnut St.? The restaurant 117 is closed already and it just opened. — Chris D.

    Old City restaurant 117, which opened only last November, posted a note on Instragram last week that it had closed “due to circumstances beyond our control.” According to Philadelphia court records, the restaurant was evicted over back rent.

    The space’s previous occupant, the Avery, also had a very short run last year. Previous occupants had better luck: 2nd Story Brewing Co. closed in 2024 after a decade and was the last to use the brewing equipment installed by Triumph Brewing Co. for its own run from 2007 to 2014.

    Adding intrigue now is the liquor license application that was filed at 117 Chestnut St. last week in the name “Finish Your Champagne LLC.” Finish Your Champagne is the name of the long-in-the-works Columbus Boulevard cocktail bar project from Kevin Dolce, owner of Center City’s Taste Cheesesteak Bar and Savù. Dolce declined comment.

    📮 Have a question about food in Philly? Email your questions to me at mklein@inquirer.com for a chance to be featured in my newsletter.

    By submitting your written, visual, and/or audio contributions, you agree to The Inquirer’s Terms of Use, including the grant of rights in Section 10.

  • Philly’s kitchen professionals endure one heat wave after another

    Philly’s kitchen professionals endure one heat wave after another

    Even on 100-degree days, Philly’s chefs and cooks are still in the kitchen. For the most part, they only call it quits when the food they’re making can’t take the heat.

    How do they make it through their stifling shifts? The answer comes down to preparedness, hydration, and lots of icy treats to lower body temps and boost morale.

    Restaurant kitchens can easily run 10 or 20 degrees higher than whatever the temperature is outside, abetted by hot fryers and stoves, plus wood-fired grills and ovens that hover around 500 degrees.

    The planning for heat waves starts long before the mercury rises. At Pizzata Pizzeria‘s South Philly location, recently added split-unit air conditioners and commercial kitchen fans have kept temperatures moderate. “They have been tremendously beneficial and helpful to our staff,” said owner Davide Lubrano Lavadera. “For our Rittenhouse spot, we didn’t have a chance to install these units, so we added an evaporative air cooler there.”

    Pizzata Pizzeria co-owners and chefs Vinny Gallagher and Davide Lubrano Lavadera pose in the kitchen of their original pizzeria location on 22nd Street near Fitler Square.Craig LaBan / Staff

    Two weeks ago, when temperatures spiked over 100 degrees three days in a row, Gilda chef-owner Brian Mattera warned customers on social media that the cafe would close if the heat tipped above 120 degrees in the kitchen — besides being uncomfortable, it would compromise the cooking. The flaky, laminated dough for Gilda’s signature pastéis de nata is notoriously temperamental, Mattera said.

    “Our pastry chef, Sophia Fiorenza, is the star of the show. When she comes to me and says the temperature is one or two degrees up, she’s not being dramatic,” Mattera said. “The dough is tacky and difficult to work with. It’s unfortified and it can feel like papier mache.”

    When the kitchen temperature is too high, the dough expands and falls off the sheeter, the machine that folds the dough into its many layers. “We say the dough is angry with us,” Mattera said.

    The pastéis de nata at Gilda get harder to make in hot weather. Monica Herndon / Staff Photographer

    Even in Gilda’s diminutive space, with just six gas burners and a flat-top, Mattera needs five separate HVAC units to maintain the perfect temperature for the dough, around 70 degrees. They weren’t enough to keep the kitchen open during early July’s heat waves: Gilda’s crew called it a day when the temperature behind the line reached 137 degrees.

    When the heat’s that intense, Mattera has a trick. “I’ll get a deli container of ice water, bring it into the bathroom, pour it over my head, and go back on the line.”

    Chefs in nontraditional kitchens also battle the heat. Josh Broder owns Root to Fruit, a vegan meal-delivery service that operates out of the Culinary Collective commissary space in the Bridesburg neighborhood. “We’ve basically become professional heat dodgers. We start cooking earlier, pack our delivery bags like they’re headed to the Arctic with insulated bags and extra ice packs, and everyone’s usually carrying a water bottle in one hand and a spatula in the other,” he said.

    Shiho Utsonomiya, the chef operator of Haha’s Kitchen, rarely closes the tiny food cart she has operated at the corner of Seventh and Spring Garden Streets since 2018. But she was forced to break for a few days leading up to July 4 this year, when the heat became unbearable. She closed the cart Wednesday for the same reason.

    Shiho Utsunomiya in her food cart during a heat wave.Kiki Aranita / Staff

    “It’s been getting hotter every year,” she said. “Winter, I don’t mind! Minus 17 degrees, no problem. But the heat just kills me.” She’s surrounded by a burner, steam tables, a fryer, and rice cooker. She’s enhanced her setup this year with a rechargeable fan with a mister.

    Utsonomiya’s location has a significant benefit: free ice from her best customer. United Refrigeration’s offices are nearby and her cart is popular with their workers.

    Extreme heat also prompted Little Walter’s — where the wood-fired grill casts off 120-degree heat, according to chef-owner Michael Brenfleck — to close in early July. Brenfleck said reservations were light during the holiday weekend, but the same could not be said of the following Friday, when the restaurant was nearly fully booked. That presents a challenge in itself: The busier the restaurant, the hotter it is inside.

    Chef Michael Brenfleck cooks pierogi at Little Walter’s in Philadelphia on Wednesday, Sept. 4, 2024.Monica Herndon / Staff Photographer

    “Every person’s body radiates a certain number of BTUs, both in the kitchen and in the dining room,” said Brenfleck. His solution: “We’re going to put some cold specials on the menu, like a chilled pickle soup.”

    Brenfleck and Phila Lorn, the chef-owner of Sao and Mawn, were both amazed their respective staff endured the heat without complaint.

    “The real ones plan for these times and problem-solve,” Lorn said. “It amazes me to see my chefs in the kitchen crushing it. They’re eating popsicles, [mopping themselves with] cold wet towels, using Gatorade powder, but I swear to you, not one complaint from the back of house.”

    Liberty Kitchen staff trades tomato pie for soft serve on hot days. Monica Herndon / Staff Photographer

    Heat waves tend to foster community among restaurants — especially when there’s an ice cream shop involved. On the hottest days, the staff at Liberty Kitchen trades boxes of tomato pie with 1-900-ICE-CREAM, according to Liberty Kitchen chef Beau Neidhardt. “They’ll give us individual cups of soft serve for our staff. It’s very neighborly.”

    For many restaurant workers, it’s just part of the job.

    “We aren’t doing anything that needs to be applauded,” said Mattera. “At the end of the day, we’re all professionals. This is what we do. We can handle the heat.”