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We’re hosting a dream Saturday for Philly food lovers. Read on for highlights of the forthcoming Inquirer Food Fest. 📰 Glossy copies of The 76 — our guide to Philly’s most essential restaurants — will be included with print editions of Thursday’s Inquirer. Additional copies can be ordered through The Inquirer’s store. Also in this edition: — Mike Klein If someone forwarded you this email, sign up for free here. Forty-nine Philly chefs under one roof means one thing: the first-ever Inquirer Food Festival, all day Saturday at the Fillmore in Fishtown. This distinctly Philly event will include pasta-making and cake-decorating workshops, a very unserious hot dog competition, a tasting hall filled with bites from some of Philly’s most-talked-about restaurants, and entertainment. Attendees can also meet our Food team, as we’re joining the star-studded lineup. I’ll be there for a 12:30 p.m. fireside chat with restaurateur Stephen Starr. Writer Kiki Aranita will interview a surprise celeb guest from the Philly sports world at 2:15, and critic Craig LaBan will share the mic with chef Eli Kulp, Marisa Magnatta, and Dave Wez of the Delicious City podcast at 3. Tickets officially sold out earlier this week, and none will be available at the door. But! There is a waitlist — first-come, first-served — if organizers drop any last-minute tickets. Angelo’s Pizzeria has been on a meteoric — or is that meat-eoric? — trajectory over the last year. Our cheesesteak columnist, Tommy Rowan, wondered if this rapid expansion is really a good thing. Read on for his findings. You can send Philly love this holiday season: Here are 15 iconic eats suitable for gifting, from soft pretzels and tomato pie to chocolate truffles and fried pickle kits (!). Our Thanksgiving food guides 😋 Where to order Thanksgiving takeout 🦃 Where to dine out on Thanksgiving The Marines marked their 250th anniversary this week. In Old City, two rival groups are aiming to recreate the Corps’ birthplace. Mike Newall stopped at the two events: at the new Tun Tavern (the former site of Mexican bar Lucha Cartel) and, about 400 feet away, at a parking lot owned by the nonprofit Tun Legacy Foundation that is expected to house a separate Tun reproduction. Scoops Two significant restaurant locations — the former Bing Bing Dim Sum on East Passyunk Avenue and the onetime Genji on Sansom Street in Rittenhouse — have new chef-tenants on the way, Kenjiro Omori and Biff Gottehrer. Read on for their plans. Haraz, the Yemeni coffee house, has a third location on the way, after University City and Fishtown. It’s soon taking over a former Starbucks (and long-ago Friendly’s) on Bethlehem Pike at College Avenue in Flourtown. Keg & Kitchen in Haddon Township will pack it in after 15 years as the owners retire. A new pub is preparing to slide in with small plates and 17 taps. Humpty’s Dumplings is having a great fall (and potentially a decent winter) as it launches six dumpling varieties on the menu at both MilkBoy locations (11th and Chestnut, and Fourth and South). For Friday’s debut, they’re priced at $1 each. Varieties: French onion soup; cheesy potato; Mexican street corn; broccoli cheddar; spinach, ricotta and mozzarella; and apple pie. The Glenside-based dumplings specialist had a location on Fifth near Bainbridge a few years ago. Winnie’s Manayunk has closed, capping the owner’s three decades on Main Street. The contents of the shuttered Izakaya Fishtown, one of the Glu Hospitality casualties, will go up for sheriff’s sale on Dec. 4. Restaurant report Wine Dive. Everybody’s having fun at the boisterous new reincarnation of Chris Fetfatzes, Heather Annechiarico, and Susan Freeman’s South Street West bar, now open in a former nail salon off 16th and Sansom in Rittenhouse. In a narrow storefront, Wine Dive is a playfully irreverent, unpretentiously sophisticated natural-wine bar/dive bar mash-up, blending serious products with tongue-in-cheek attitude. (As in: “We know our stuff, but we’re not taking ourselves too seriously.”) Cocktails riff on nostalgia and bar-culture fun (“Pornstar Martini,” “Pickle Martini,” “Surfer on Acid), blending retro references with millennial irony. Beers run from domestic staples (PBR, Bud Light) to craft/imports. Chef Scotty Jesberger’s food is hearty, comfort-driven bar fare (shrimp Lejon, roast beef sandwich, loaded baked potato, and a fantastic chicken cutlet for $10), designed for late-night eating; the kitchen stays open until 1 a.m. Wine Dive, 1534 Sansom St. Hours: 4 p.m.-2 a.m. daily. New this week: Caffe Cacio e Pepe (144 Haddon Ave., Haddon Township) is a days-old offshoot of Albertino’s in Collingswood serving espresso, pastries, Italian sandwiches, and the signature cacio e pepe made in a Locatelli wheel. Cerveau, billing itself as “the grown-up surrealist cousin to Fishtown’s cult favorite pizza shop [Pizza Brain] — a psychedelic, Mediterranean cicchetteria meets contemporary pizzeria,” soft-opens this evening at 990 Spring Garden St., where Roy-Pitz was. Chef Joe Hunter is stressing cocktail and zero-proof programs. Netflix House, a fun house featuring merch, minigames, and activations based on hit Netflix titles (e.g. Wednesday, Squid Game, Stranger Things), opens this afternoon at King of Prussia Mall in the former Lord & Taylor. Aroma on Ford, a sibling of Pennsport’s rustic-cozy Italian spot Aroma on 3rd, will debut Friday at 101 Ford St. in West Conshohocken (the former Catch 101 and Stella Blu). Owners are Gary and Gail DeSanto and chefs-brothers Tony and Joe Cardillo. This location will have a full bar; the Philly location (1245 S. Third St.) is getting a bar upstairs. Wissahickon Brewing Co. heads to Maple Glen Friday for its third location, a takeover of Brick & Barrel at 870 Welsh Rd. Briefly noted Congee Kitchen, a fundraiser from the Wonton Project and AAPI Unite, is serving kombu congee topped with pickled egg, toasted nori, pickled shiitakes, chili crisp, fermented greens, and fried shallots for a pay-what-you-can donation ($14 suggested). Co-organizer Ellen Yin says it will run for about the next two weeks out of the old High Street Bakery, 101 S. Ninth St., from 9 a.m.-noon (or sellout) Tuesday-Thursday. Proceeds will benefit SEAMAAC’s food bank, which distributes more than 800 food boxes weekly to Philly’s Southeast Asian community. David Suro-Piñera, founder of Tequilas and padre de familia of its adjacent La Jefa, has been named one of Food & Wine’s “drink visionaries.” Seaforest Bakeshop offers riffs on classic Korean dishes, such as kimchi-ricotta puff pastry pocket pies and sweet potato cheesecakes. Let Hira Qureshi introduce you to the creator, social worker-turned-entrepreneur Suerim Lee. Ron’s Signature Sauce owners Brandon and Cab Washington will pop up at Post Haste in Kensington from 2-8 p.m. Sunday for a collab featuring plates of charcoal-grilled pork ribs from Green Meadow Farm and sides of oyster corn grits ($24). The Washingtons’ father, Ron, ran the landmark Ron’s Ribs at 1627 South St. before his death in 2002. Walk-ins or reservations. Kouklet & Tanda Brazilian Bakehouse’s new second location (1429 Wolf St.) has launched breakfast and lunch service from 7 a.m.-2 p.m. Wednesday-Monday. Menu star is Brazilian tapioca flatbread, a naturally gluten-free flatbread made from hydrated tapioca flour. Chef Dana Herbert of Newark, Del.’s Desserts by Dana is competing on Food Network’s Sweet Empire: Winter Wars (9 p.m. Sunday). Herbert won the first season of TLC’s Cake Boss: The Next Great Baker. ❓Pop quiz Chef Marc Vetri, newly out with The Pasta Book, has a favorite saying. What is it? A) “hug the noodle” B) “consider the pastabilities” C) “my sauce is the boss” D) “tagliatelle me what I want to know” Find out if you know the answer. Ask Mike anything I walked past Isot and saw that the storefront was for rent? What happened? — Sabrina W. Isot, the Turkish BYOB on Sixth Street near Bainbridge, has indeed shuttered after 10 years. Owner Fatih Kekec told me that he had first decided to close temporarily because of sewer line problems he thinks were triggered by city work crews, but then decided to close permanently. He hopes to reopen elsewhere someday. 📮 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.
