Arrive - Summer/Fall 2016

To protect the innocent, let’s call our amateur critic Annie. She’s a regular at Vernick Food & Drink on the edge of Rittenhouse Square in Philadelphia. Annie, who has longevity on her side, comes in every week around 5: 30 p.m. Tonight she has walked from her table in the front of the restaurant back to the kitchen’s pass, where chef Greg Vernick gives each dish a final stamp of approval.

Vernick has spent his whole life in kitchens, beginning with his grandfather’s nearby butcher shop. He cooked for Jean-Georges Vongerichten in New York City and then became the corporate chef trainer for Vongerichten’s restaurants around the world. His skill is clear: Vernick makes a silky smooth beef tartare showered in grated horseradish and spread upon a raft of toast. He rethinks a cast iron pot of mussels by serving the bivalves in a bowl of creamy couscous and corn, brightened by a painter’s dash of green tarragon aioli. And for the evening special tonight, he has simmered rabbit and mixed it with pancetta and foie gras to create a sausage worthy of the gods.

Annie, though, has found fault with the sausage special. She wears thick glasses and is barely tall enough to see over the pass. Under the hot glow of the industrial lights, she looks up at Vernick.

“There were some seeds in there—what was that?” she asks, adding, “It was good, but …” Vernick smiles tightly. He nods out of politeness and not necessarily agreement.

Annie goes back to her table and then returns to the pass at the end of her meal. She’s got her fanny pack strapped to her waist and her husband by her side. They’ve come to thank Vernick because they’re some of his biggest fans and most loyal patrons.

“If she is not pleased with something one night, she will let me know,” Vernick says later. “But she will still come back.”

Hold the Cheesesteaks

Annie is typical of many Philadelphia diners who, for years, lamented that Philadelphia’s culinary reputation rested on cheesesteaks and the legacy of the late Le Bec-Fin.

It’s more stereotype than reality. As one local said, “No one here eats cheesesteaks. I wish the myth would die.” The myth endured because nothing replaced it. Philadelphia’s dining scene has lacked a true identity beyond red sauce joints and neighborhood BYOBs that serve heirloom tomato salads and grilled salmon—like every other neighborhood bistro in the country. However, a new wave of restaurateurs and chefs like Vernick is currently recasting the city’s culinary scene to celebrate global cuisines built with ingredients from the surrounding farms and fields.

Dizengoff is devoted entirely to serving warm pitas and hummus, topped with fixings like charred corn, soft-boiled eggs and fried chicken skins. High Street on Market bakes hearth-fired breads and stuffs its sandwiches with everything from Lancaster bologna to duck meatballs. One can dine around the world in a night by starting with crab deviled eggs and short rib poutine at Marc Vetri’s gastropub Alla Spina, followed by a primi of chickpea pappardelle sauced with whey-braised lamb at the Sicilian-inspired Brigantessa, before tucking into a summer stew of clams, squid, avocado and long hot peppers at Serpico.