{"id":143898,"date":"2019-11-15T12:27:10","date_gmt":"2019-11-15T17:27:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.fourseasons.com\/magazine\/?p=143898"},"modified":"2023-12-19T15:35:01","modified_gmt":"2023-12-19T20:35:01","slug":"philadelphia-chefs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fourseasons.com\/magazine\/taste\/philadelphia-chefs\/","title":{"rendered":"The Chefs You Need to Know in Philadelphia"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Like many Philadelphia-area residents, Greg Vernick grew up spending summers \u201cdown the shore.\u201d His parents have a place in Margate, an Absecon Island town where the population quintuples during the summer. There, between the bay and ocean, Vernick\u2019s love of the sea and seafood was born. \u201cThere\u2019s nowhere I\u2019d rather be,\u201d says the chef-owner of Vernick Food + Drink and chef-manager of Vernick Coffee and Vernick Fish at Four Seasons Hotel Philadelphia at Comcast Center.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Greg Vernick\u2019s affinity for the region\u2019s seafood is both personal and professional.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

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Photography courtesy Dominic Episcopo<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

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Depths of Flavour<\/h2>\n<\/header>\n
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Forty miles south of Margate, in Cape May, New Jersey, the V-shaped mouth of the Delaware Bay decants into the Atlantic Ocean. In the brackish backwaters, a resurgent oyster industry thrives. \u201cSweet Amalias \u2013 they\u2019re the best,\u201d Vernick says. The farmers raising these small but plump and sparklingly clean oysters deliver 250 of them once a week to Vernick Fish, and, he says, \u201cOnce we\u2019re out, we\u2019re out.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The chef keeps the supply chain tight at Vernick Fish, where sustainable seafood is top of mind. Sometimes that means working directly with small producers like Sweet Amalia Oyster Farm. Other times, it means relying on a company like Island Creek Oyster Co., which distributes its own and other farms\u2019 oysters, turning six trucks on the road into just one. Sometimes it\u2019s a trade-off: carbon emissions for access to sustainable species such as abundant Galician sardines (tinned in olive oil and served with house-baked sourdough) and New Zealand\u2019s \u014cra King salmon (gently smoked tartare with quail egg and Parmesan). Other times, it\u2019s as straightforward as sourcing porgy and bluefish from the mid-Atlantic, but comes with the added challenge of convincing diners that fish with a poor reputation can be delicious in the right hands.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Left: At Vernick Fish, guests discover the bounty of the mid-Atlantic;
right: On the Vernick Fish dinner menu are lists of tartares and raw selections.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

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Photography courtesy Dominic Episcopo<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

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As the organic and local food movements have become more central to quality restaurants, sustainable seafood is catching on across Philadelphia. Jersey oysters like Stormy Bays, Rose Coves and High Bar Harbors adorn the raw bar menus of Oyster House in Center City and Aether in Fishtown.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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At East Passyunk\u2019s sister restaurants Laurel and In the Valley (also known as ITV), \u201cTop Chef\u201d winner Nicholas Elmi serves line-caught Atlantic albacore tuna, an overlooked but tasty alternative to overfished Pacific species. The choicest belly cut is cured and diced for creative crudos and tartares, and the scraps and trim are transformed into robust tuna Bolognese for house-made rigatoni.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201c\u2018Sustainable\u2019 is a big word with many meanings,\u201d Vernick says. \u201cI think the answer is to find balance. With fish, things are so fluid. You have to be nimble.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Play All Day<\/h2>\n<\/header>\n
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By the time the sun comes up over the Delaware River and canines start romping around the grassy space across from Fiore Fine Foods, Justine MacNeil has already been at work for two hours. As part of the growing local contingent of all-day dining rooms, Fiore opens at 8:00 am every day, its handsome bar stacked with her anise-sugared morning buns, almond-ricotta cookies, schiacciate<\/em> (a Tuscan flatbread jewelled with olives) and other Italian-inspired baked goods that glisten in the sunlight.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Justine MacNeil of Fiore Fine Foods<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

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Photography courtesy Dominic Episcopo<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

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MacNeil, formerly a pastry chef at Del Posto in New York, relocated to Philadelphia with her chef husband, Ed Crochet. When they decided to open Fiore Fine Foods in Queen Village, the morning-till-evening hours were a key part of the plan.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The bar at Fiore Fine Foods serves pastries by day and cocktails by night.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

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Photography courtesy Dominic Episcopo<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

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\u201cIf you\u2019re paying rent all day, you might as well utilize the space,\u201d she says. But the benefits are not only financial. \u201cIn my romantic idea, it\u2019s a way to bring all facets of the culinary field to the table \u2013 bread, pastry, coffee, alcohol, savoury \u2013 and having all these different programs gives us a way to work with our friends who have expertise in these areas.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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While all-day concepts are plentiful these days in other locales, they\u2019re a relatively recent phenomenon in Philly, where breakfast and lunch were long the domain of casual caf\u00e9s or Center City power restaurants. Ambitious indie spots tended to stick to dinner hours, until Hungry Pigeon, a plant-filled hangout a few blocks from Fiore, made the scene in 2016 serving three meals a day. MacNeil and Crochet arrived in town not long after Hungry Pigeon debuted, and then came Suraya, a glittering Lebanese palace in Fishtown that opened with a market and an all-day caf\u00e9 in 2017 and added a dining room and garden the following year. \u201cWe were like, \u2018All right, so people want this,\u2019\u201d MacNeil says.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Left: A scrumptious morning pick-me-up at all-day caf\u00e9 Fiore Fine Foods;
right: Ed Crochet\u2019s pork shanks and polenta<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

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Photography courtesy Dominic Episcopo<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

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Given how quickly her pistachio cornetti disappear, people clearly want breakfast, which can also include a fennel sausage, egg and fontina sandwich and a pizzetta layered with pears and stracchino. Crochet, a veteran of Philly restaurateur Stephen Starr\u2019s organization, fires up his wood-burning oven and grill for lunch and dinner, sinking pork shanks into polenta and serving caramelized kalbi-style short ribs with fermented porcini. As the sun sets, the light flooding Fiore\u2019s window-wrapped dining room takes on a lilac tint. The pooches reappear, out for their evening strolls. MacNeil and Crochet serve the last guests, clean up, kill the lights, and do it all again the next day.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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To the Tooth<\/h2>\n<\/header>\n
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Philly has long been a pasta town. Italian immigration, with numbers swelling in the early 1900s, has had an enduring influence on its culinary DNA; today the metro area ranks behind only New York in Italian American population. Michael Vincent Ferreri, who grew up in an Italian American household in Rochester, New York, adopted Philly as his hometown when he moved here in 2011. After honing his pasta-making skills at some of the city\u2019s best restaurants, he moved to Res Ipsa in the Rittenhouse neighbourhood, where he\u2019s dedicated himself to crafting unusual pastas. Dinner in this cosy caf\u00e9 might involve lorighetti, which look like braided basket handles; culingioni, potato-filled bundles from Sardinia; or strascinati, a Pugliese cousin of orecchiette. Ferreri and his team make them all in-house with semolina milled weekly at Green Meadow Farm in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Res Ipsa\u2019s Michael Vincent Ferreri<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

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Photography courtesy Dominic Episcopo<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

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\u201cI think the size of the restaurant speaks very pleasantly to what we\u2019re doing, because I could make something, run it on special, and I\u2019ll only need five or six orders of it,\u201d Ferreri says. \u201cSo some of the pasta shapes that are a little bit more involved, that take a little bit more time \u2013 even just to learn, let alone to physically make \u2013 we can make and serve people things that you wouldn\u2019t normally be able to get in most restaurants in America.\u201d The shapes take diners deeper into pasta-making traditions that vary not just from region to region in Italy, but from town to town.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Left: Res Ipsa\u2019s pasta shapes provide a culinary tour of Italian towns;
right: Philadelphia\u2019s Res Ipsa satisfies diners\u2019 hunger for comfort food and culinary expertise.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

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Photography courtesy Dominic Episcopo<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

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Pasta exists on a spectrum in Philly, from superb basics, like gumdrop-size potato gnocchi with emerald pesto at Mr. Joe\u2019s Caf\u00e9 and buttered bow ties kissed with lemon and poppyseed at Musi, to the esoteric shapes Marc Vetri makes at his Vetri Cucina with fresh flour milled on site from whole local grains. The key, Ferreri says, isn\u2019t whether the pasta is fancy: \u201cIt should be very comforting, and it should be very homey. For me, that\u2019s what pasta is all about.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Oh, Natural<\/h2>\n<\/header>\n
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Chloe Grigri is \u201cperpetually dehydrated,\u201d she says, draining a glass of water at Le Caveau, her new bar in the Bella Vista neighbourhood. Located above Good King \u2013 the 6-year-old French tavern she owns with her father \u2013 Le Caveau is all lace curtains, cosy tables, exposed brick attractively crusted with plaster, and wine bottles in colour-blocked rows of vermilion, blond, apricot, plum and pale pink. She\u2019s been tasting all the wines in the yearlong lead-up to the bar\u2019s late 2019 opening. Hence the dehydration.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Chloe Grigri opened the doors to wine bar Le Caveau in autumn 2019.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

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Photography courtesy Dominic Episcopo<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

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Most of the labels Grigri has curated for Le Caveau are natural, made from organic grapes and without additives. \u201cNatural wine is what wine has always been,\u201d she says; the style predates modern technology and chemically altered agriculture. When she began skewing Good King\u2019s selection towards natural winemakers five years ago, the movement was nascent in Philly. Now it\u2019s in full bloom, with restaurants like Walnut Street Caf\u00e9 in University City and Friday Saturday Sunday in Rittenhouse creating lists around natural bottles, and retailers like Tinys in Port Richmond and Bloomsday Caf\u00e9 in Society Hill dedicated to the stuff. \u201cNatural wine has pushed itself to the forefront in such a way that there is no restaurant that isn\u2019t doing it in some capacity,\u201d says Grigri, who can claim a good portion of the credit for that state of affairs.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Le Caveau provides a warm welcome to organically minded oenophiles.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

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Photography courtesy Dominic Episcopo<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

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Complemented by cheeses, charcuterie, and simple bar snacks like olives and nuts, about 15 wines are available by the glass at Le Caveau, but intimate clusters of tables invite patrons to linger over full bottles of crushable Gamays and cult grower Champagnes the way Grigri does when she hangs out at bars \u00e0 vins in France. \u201cI\u2019ve been strategically holding back certain hard-to-come-by wines for over a year,\u201d she says \u2013 and now it\u2019s time to pop some bottles.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Elevated Cuisine<\/h2>\n<\/header>\n
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The local culinary scene reached new heights with the opening of star chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten\u2019s Jean-Georges Philadelphia, one of four noteworthy dining outlets at the new Four Seasons Hotel Philadelphia at Comcast Center.<\/p>\n

The express elevator rises 60 storeys into the sky, taking you to the lobby of Four Seasons Hotel Philadelphia at Comcast Center and its JG SkyHigh lounge. An onyx staircase flanked by whispering twin waterfalls leads down to the 59th floor, where Jean-Georges Philadelphia\u2019s 40-foot (12-metre) windows look out over the shoulders of skyscrapers, the city resembling a giant green-and-grey picnic blanket below. Executive Chef Nick Ugliarolo sips a turmeric latte and surveys the view: \u201cPretty beautiful, right?\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten says he\u2019s \u201cthrilled to be joining this culinary community.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

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Photography courtesy Dominic Episcopo<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

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This vista welcomed the Connecticut native and five-year veteran of the Jean-Georges group when he relocated from New York to helm this flagship restaurant. \u201cNone of this was here,\u201d he says, gesturing to the dining room\u2019s glowing island bar, upholstered mid-century chairs and towering flower arrangements, \u201cbut from the view alone, I knew this was going to be awesome.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Michelin-starred chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten presents a new 59th-floor destination at Four Seasons Hotel Philadelphia at Comcast Center.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

Photography courtesy Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts<\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
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With 40-foot-high (12 metre) floor-to-ceiling windows, the panoramic city views set a dramatic backdrop to a dynamic menu.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

Photography courtesy Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts<\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
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Chef Jean-Georges\u2019 Philadelphia menu includes his signature Maine lobster roasted with Romanesco cauliflower, Romesco sauce and lime.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

Photography courtesy Dominic Episcopo<\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
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