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  • All the new restaurants for fall | Let’s Eat

    All the new restaurants for fall | Let’s Eat

    About 60 restaurants are opening in the next hundred days or so. Surely there’s something for you.

    Also in this edition:

    — Mike Klein

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    Your guide to the new restaurants opening this fall

    Sixty restaurants are on the slate for this fall in Philadelphia and its suburbs on both sides of the river, with cuisines that span the map: Vietnamese, Lebanese, Greek, Caribbean, Cajun-Creole, Palestinian, Mediterranean, and contemporary American cooking, along with bagel shops, bakeries, breakfast concepts, wine bars, and cocktail rooms.

    🍴Opening today: Join us for a first look inside Carolyn’s Modern Vietnamese.

    A trattoria is ordered to shut down

    Heavy Metal Sausage was ordered to stop serving dinner. Beatrice Forman says this may spell doom for the acclaimed South Philly butcher shop/restaurant.

    A state grant for a restaurant gets mixed reviews

    The Michelin-starred Friday Saturday Sunday secured a $1.5 million state grant to expand into the rowhouse next door. Beatrice unpacked the process — and the reaction.

    Move over, boba

    When does a tea shop require security guards? When it’s heytea — just one of a slew of hyped Chinese beverage chains hitting Philly. Kiki Aranita reports on the hottest thing going in Chinatown.

    The best thing Craig ate last week

    There was a lot of crunching going on as critic Craig LaBan tucked into the Vietnamese fried chicken platter at South Philly’s Phở Duyên — which he dubs “my No. 1 food deal for $15 in Philadelphia right now.”

    Scoops

    Edd’s & Flo’s Artisan Bakery Cafe plans to close its Lancaster operation on Sept. 20 in advance of a relocation to Fishtown next year. Meghan Young and Sebastian Schuck are still working on a lease, so the location is under wraps. Edd’s & Flo’s, which started in their hometown as Wish You Well Bakery in 2021, found its niche in croissants, savory pastries, and weekend brunch. This move will be a Philly comeback for Young, a Restaurant School at Walnut Hill College graduate who worked at Darling’s Cheesecake Cafe, Green Line Cafe, Barbuzzo, Suraya, John & Kira’s Chocolates, and One Shot Coffee. Young and Schuck rebranded in 2024 with a name that’s both a nod to life’s ebbs and flows and a tribute to Young’s childhood cats, named for the musical duo Flo & Eddie. Stay tuned.

    You’ve seen the months of construction along Columbus Boulevard at Penn’s Landing for the park that will cap I-95 and link Old City to the Delaware River. The Delaware River Waterfront Corp. just applied for building permits for the Pavilion and Café (rendering above), which will be part of Penn’s Landing Park when it opens in 2029-2030 at Market Street. The project’s operator has not yet been identified.

    Restaurant report

    While chef-owner Liz Grothe of Scampi in Queen Village travels in Italy, chef RJ Smith of Ocho Supper Club will take over the restaurant for a five-course Afro-Caribbean tasting menu Sept. 18-21. The $130 menu includes curried oxtail, madai aguachile, plantain coco bread with crab, berbere-spiced duck breast, and turmeric tart. An optional Pennsylvania wine pairing is $50. Seatings are at 5 and 8 p.m., and à la carte dishes will be available on the patio. Reservations are on Resy and OpenTable. Smith is still leading his residency at the Rittenhouse Hotel; the space, which was Scarpetta, will become a steakhouse called Ruxton by next summer.

    Old Original Nick’s Roast Beef sets up starting Thursday at Live! Casino & Hotel’s 10th Street Market, where it will follow South Philly Barbacoa’s residency. Besides roast beef, Nick’s will deal in roast turkey, roast pork, baked ham, broccoli rabe sandwiches, and long hot peppers. The pop-up will be open from 5 p.m. to midnight (or sellout) Thursday and Friday, noon to midnight Saturday, and noon to 9 p.m. Sunday, through the fall.

    Briefly noted

    The Big Dill will mark National Pickle Day with a nine-hour pickle festival Nov. 14 at Stateside Live! in South Philadelphia, closing its 2026 national tour there. More than 50 vendors will offer pickle-themed food and drinks, while 20 pickle brands serve unlimited samples of more than 100 varieties. Entertainment includes the World Pickle Eating Championship, brine-chugging, live music, DJs, games, and mechanical pickle rides. Organizers also hope to break a record by gathering more than 888 people dressed as pickles; the first 1,200 ticket buyers receive numbered costumes. The event runs from 1 to 9 p.m., with early entry at noon. Tickets go on sale Sept. 15 at bigdill.com/tour.

    Mish Mish is launching Daydreamers, a quarterly series that will turn the East Passyunk restaurant over to chefs, makers, and other hospitality pros for one-night interpretations of their dream concepts. The first installment, with seatings at 5:30 and 8 p.m. Sunday, features sous chef Koby Epstein serving a six-course, late-summer tasting menu paired with Pray Tell Wines. Seatings, at 5:30 and 8 p.m., are $120 plus tax, tip, and drinks.

    Kennett Square’s annual Mushroom Festival is set for Saturday and Sunday with foods and goods from 220-plus vendors, including Aimee Olexy’s Talula’s Table. Signature bite: The restaurant’s so-called “World Famous Riz-Mac,” which places mushroom risotto and mushroom mac and cheese side by side. Festival details are here.

    Les Dames d’Escoffier Philadelphia’s Heritage Dinner is 4-7 p.m. Sunday at Glen Foerd, 5001 Grant Ave. More than two dozen chefs will participate, serving Sweet Amalia oysters, chicken mole, seared salmon, Vietnamese vegetable curry, beef tenderloin, and desserts honoring The Cake Bible author Rose Levy Beranbaum. Also honored are Canal House’s Christopher Hirsheimer and Melissa Hamilton and caterer Michele Leff. Tickets start at $200; a $300 ticket includes preferred seating and Beranbaum’s new memoir. Proceeds fund scholarships for women entering culinary and hospitality fields.

    Bite for the Fight Food Festival returns for a seventh year from noon to 4 p.m. Sept. 19 at the Greater Philadelphia Expo Center in Oaks with tastings, cooking demos, and a silent auction benefiting the Fight On Makenna Foundation, which supports pediatric cancer patients and their families at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. Featured chefs are Brian Duffy, Ariane Duarte, Kenneth McDuffie, and David Schorn. Tickets start at $120.

    Top Chef winner Nick Elmi will prepare smoked ribs, whole chicken wings, pork shoulder, brisket, cornbread, baked beans, mac and cheese, apple crisp, and soft-serve for the KB Foundation’s fifth annual BBQ Experience, Sept. 24 at the Pump House in Bala Cynwyd. VIP service begins at 6 p.m. with lobster pies, fried chicken with caviar and white barbecue sauce, smoked foie gras mousse, and oyster fritters; general admission starts at 7:30 p.m. Tickets: $175, or $250 for VIP. Proceeds support youth-mentoring programs.

    Uchi in Rittenhouse will launch a fall collaboration series Sept. 24 with Kevin Yanaga of Yanaga Kappo Izakaya. He, Uchi head sushi chef Josephine Fry, and chef de cuisine Ford Sonnenberg will serve 10 courses starting at 6 and 8:30 p.m. Tickets: $175 at the sushi bar, $150 at tables, plus tax/tip; an optional sake pairing will be available. Additional dinners will follow in October and November.

    Staff and friends of the recently shuttered Jose Pistola’s have organized a GoFundMe campaign for support (separate from an earlier one created by management).

    ❓Pop quiz

    Name the $88 dish that Kiki Aranita checked out recently at a Philadelphia restaurant.

    A) a tasting of New York strip steaks from Urban Farmer

    B) the caviar-topped baked potato from Mr. Edison

    C) the lobster terrine at Jean-Georges

    D) 3 ounces of Japanese A5 beef from Del Frisco’s

    Find out if you know the answer.

    Ask Mike anything

    Is ReAnimator Coffee really opening in Manayunk? — Jennie O.

    ReAnimator, the Philly-bred coffee brand founded in 2010 by Mark Capriotti and Mark Corpus, has indeed committed to a Manayunk location at 4226 Main St., which was last an art gallery. Capriotti optimistically thinks opening is six months away. “We just opened in Mount Airy and it took us a year,” he said. “But we’re hoping we can learn from our experience.”

    📮 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.

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  • Two childhood friends grew up to become top chefs. Now, they’re opening a ‘punk French’ restaurant together in Manayunk

    Two childhood friends grew up to become top chefs. Now, they’re opening a ‘punk French’ restaurant together in Manayunk

    After nearly four decades of friendship and two careers that took them in different directions, chefs Arthur Cavaliere and Justin Bogle are working together.

    The Roxborough natives and best friends since third grade, both 45, have signed a lease for the former Winnie’s Manayunk space on Main Street near Roxborough Avenue, where they plan to open a new restaurant in late fall. Though they are keeping most details, including the name, under wraps, they describe the project cryptically as a “punk French” restaurant inspired by the neighborhood that helped shaped them.

    The former Winnie’s at 4266 Main St. in Manayunk.Alejandro A. Alvarez / Staff Photographer

    For both, the restaurant represents the fulfillment of a dream they have shared since they started cooking together as teenagers.

    “Artie and I have been best friends since grade school,” Bogle said. “We always had this vision, this pipe dream, that someday we would join forces and do something together.”

    The two met at Shawmont Elementary in Roxborough and got their start in the late 1990s working for chef Derek Davis at his string of restaurants then on Main Street. Their careers soon diverged.

    Cavaliere is a longtime consulting chef. Among the gems he created was the shatteringly crispy chicken at the former Bar Poulet at 20th and Walnut Streets. He came up through Philadelphia kitchens including El Vez and Parc, where he was executive chef, and headed to chef Michel Richard’s orbit in Washington, before opening In Riva, Black Squirrel Pub & Haunt, and Foghorn in East Falls. He left that partnership last year.

    Chef Arthur Cavaliere’s fried chicken was a signature at Bar Poulet, which was open in 2021-22 at 2005 Walnut St. Michael Klein

    Bogle, who attended Walnut Hill College, cooked at Striped Bass and Alma de Cuba before heading to New York, where he became one of the youngest American chefs to lead a two-Michelin-starred restaurant at Gilt. In 2013, he returned to Philadelphia to open Avance — the successor to Le Bec-Fin — and after its 2014 closing joined Garces Group as corporate executive chef. He later returned to New York, where he spent years with Union Square Hospitality Group, most recently as executive chef of Manhatta.

    Family drew him home after nearly two decades in New York.

    “I knew I needed to give my kids a backyard,” Bogle said. “Raising three kids in a two-bedroom apartment wasn’t the goal for me.”

    Avance, led by Justin Bogle, had a 10-month run after Le Bec-Fin’s closing at 1523 Walnut St.David M Warren / Staff Photographer

    He left Manhatta last spring, relocated his family to the area last August, and immediately resumed planning with Cavaliere. They spent the past year evaluating Main Street locations before settling on the former Winnie’s, which closed last November.

    “When the right space presented itself, it was a no-brainer,” Bogle said.

    The partners are keeping quiet about the menu, name, and design while they refine the concept. Bogle will oversee the kitchen and said the long-term plan extends beyond a single restaurant. “We have goals and aspirations to do more than just this,” he said.

    Chef-owner Arthur Cavaliere at In Riva in 2013. Working the pizza oven at rear is sous chef Biff Gottehrer, now at Ripplewood, the Refectory, and Izzy’s.David M Warren / Staff Photographer

    If construction and permitting stay on schedule, they hope to open in November. If delays push the project into December, they are likely to wait until after the new year.

    Cavaliere said the concept is rooted in “friendship, memory, and the neighborhood that raised” them.

    “Their decision to invest in Manayunk is another testament to the strength of the neighborhood and the continued momentum of its dining scene,” said Veronica Blum of MPN Realty, who brokered the lease with Alex Charen. “It’s especially rewarding to help bring operators of this caliber to a community that values independent concepts.”

    For Bogle, returning to Main Street with the friend he has known since childhood carries a significance beyond opening another restaurant.

    “For us to come back to where it all started, plant our roots there, and have some fun — it has been a goal for a long time,” he said. “We’re just really excited about the opportunity.”