Category: Restaurants

Stephanie Maslanik was sitting on her couch Tuesday night when her phone dinged with a text message from a friend. But she was doing something with the kids and didn’t look at it right away.

“Then I opened it up and I was like, ‘Whaaaat?’ It took me a minute to put two and two together and I gave it to my husband,” she said. “I told him, ‘Does it say what I think it says?’”

It was exactly what she thought it said: It was a video clip of that evening’s Michelin Guide Northeast Cities ceremony, where Dalessandro’s — the family’s cheesesteak shop in Roxborough — had been among the recipients of an award.

Their old-school corner shop was officially Bib Gourmand royalty — Michelin’s category for great food at a great value. Dalessandro’s was one of three cheesesteak shops that impressed arguably the world’s fussiest food critics.

Maslanik blew up the family group chat: her parents, Steve and Margie Kotridis, and her younger sister, Christina.

“I’ve been in the food business for 50 years, and this is a dream,” said Steve Kotridis, 63, who with his wife, 67, bought Dalessandro’s from the founding family in 2008. William Dalessandro opened in 1961 at Henry Avenue and Wendover Street, a year after its founding on nearby Ridge Avenue.

Michelin is living up to its reputation of international mystery. As of Saturday, the Kotridises said they had not heard from Michelin (though Dalessandro’s is listed on its website, accompanied by an unrelated photo). It is also not clear why the Kotridises apparently never received an invitation to the gala. The owners of the other Bib Gourmand cheesesteak shops, Nish Patel of Del Rossi’s and Danny DiGiampietro of Angelo’s, were seated in Marian Anderson Hall that night.

Steve Kotridis was doing paperwork and knocking around the house that night — Margie was in Florida for a niece’s shower — and he didn’t read his daughter’s text until the next day.

He had never realized that a cheesesteak place could even be eligible for a Michelin award, “but certainly if one would be, this would be the place,” he said. “It’s validation.”

The Dalessandro’s scene

On Friday afternoon, the line at the ordering window was just as long as on any other chilly Friday afternoon in late November. Inside, the spatulas slapped and the rib eye sizzled on the flattop. The crew cheered in unison at each tip left by a customer.

“I’ve been getting a lot of people telling us it’s their first time coming, but it’s mostly our really good customers who are saying, ‘Everybody knows now,’” Margie Kotridis said.

Steve and Margie come from food families. Her late father, George Tsihlas, owned Towne Pizza at 19th and Pine Streets from 1967 to 1994. Steve’s mother, Antigoni, now 92, still oversees a series of food carts in Center City — including the cart outside the United Engineers Building at 30 S. 17th St. that Steve ran for 30 years.

Soon after they were married in 1982, they bought a building in Lafayette Hill and opened a diner, Stefano’s Restaurant & Pizza. After two years, “we had to get rid of it,” Margie said. “We were throwing plates at each other.” They went back to vending but kept the building, now home to the Persian Grille.

Meanwhile, Steve had been a Dalessandro’s customer. “I sat down at that counter and I’d put two cheesesteaks down like it was nothing,” he said. “I’ve lost weight since then.” (His go-to is a cheesesteak with American cheese, fried onions, salt, black pepper, and long hots.)

In 2008, five years after William Dalessandro’s death, the Kotridises bought the shop and kept it much as it was.

They shut down for 10 weeks at the start of the pandemic in March 2020. The setup, where takeout customers were smushed against people eating at the counter, could not continue in the new social-distancing world.

The Kotridises installed two windows — one for ordering, one for pickup — and locked the front door. (Regulars can ask to come inside to eat, especially when the patio is full or the weather is bad.) A friend set them up with an ordering system that displays wait times and names on a monitor outside and provides text alerts. There’s no yelling. An electronic voice calls out customers’ names and directs them to the correct window. It’s still cash-only.

The typical wait is 10 to 15 minutes during the week, but an hour Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, as the line wends along the sidewalk and traffic snarls on Henry Avenue.

About the Dalessandro’s steak

Dalessandro’s serves an old-school sandwich: The rib eye is chopped fine — almost minced. The cheese is layered atop the beef, not mixed. The Amoroso’s roll is softer than the crispy-crusted, house-baked breads from such newer-generation shops as Del Rossi’s and Angelo’s. Dalessandro’s chops its fried onions in a huge, toothsome dice.

Dalessandro’s flatly resists the recent industry move to Cooper Sharp American cheese. “We brought it in like a year ago and we tasted it,” Margie said. “All Cooper Sharp is, is sharp American cheese. We already use sharp American cheese. We made [test] cheesesteaks. Nobody could tell the difference.”

Asked what made their steaks stand out to Michelin, Steve said: “I’m not sure. We just do it the right way and we make food the way we would like to eat it. We slice fresh rib eye all day long. Our rolls get here at 11. We fry our own peppers.”

Margie said she routinely drops an order slip, anonymously, into the queue and samples the sandwich.

“Consistency is very important,” she said. “I go out to eat somewhere and I find something I love and it’s so delicious. You go back the next time and it’s like a whole different sandwich or a different meal than what you ate last time.”

“One of the four of us is always here,” Margie said.

This is why Steve said he has resisted offers to open additional locations. “At this age, I’m not interested. The problem today is you can’t be everywhere. To run a good place, you have to be on top of it, so you could wind up killing the name.”

Dalessandro’s has won plenty of awards, including an Inquirer reader poll in 2023.

“I think the people that pay attention to Michelin and … the foodies — it’s going to make a big difference,” Steve said. “They’re all going to come and try it, and they’ll all have their own opinions of what they like and what they don’t like, and hopefully everybody will love it and come back again.”

Margie said: “But then, everybody has a favorite, right? Some people like vanilla, some people like chocolate, and some people like strawberry ice cream. You can’t please everybody.”

Barely 12 hours after Michelin included the fine-dining destination Laurel among its list of Recommended restaurants, chef Nicholas Elmi delivered the news that its final night of service would be Friday.

Laurel’s closing after 12 years had been set in motion over the summer, as Elmi told The Inquirer in June that its lease was ending and that he wanted to open in Rittenhouse.

Wednesday’s announcement on Instagram included word that reservations were available for a seven-course meal prepared by Elmi and chef de cuisine Kevin McWilliams.

Although honored with the Michelin accolade, “I feel like I’ve known what’s been going on over the past year, so I’ve already gone through the whole gamut of emotions,” Elmi said. “Last night was incredibly motivational for me — it made me redouble my efforts and figure out what my next step is. So that’s where I am: keeping my options open, keeping my eyes open, and trying to remain inspired.”

The closing a week before Thanksgiving after a five-month wind-down was intentional. “Everyone’s starting new jobs in December, so it lets them take a week and a half off, get through Thanksgiving, decompress a little before moving on to the next stage of their lives and careers,” he said. “And it gives me the month of December to clear the place out and get myself organized. Winding down a business isn’t just flipping a switch — there’s a lot of paperwork to get through right now.”

Elmi said he was looking forward to family time as well as focusing on his Bala Cynwyd restaurants Lark and the Landing Kitchen, as well as the Pump House events venue, which he own with Fia Berisha.

What’s next for Elmi and Laurel?

The new restaurant will not be the same as Laurel, he said. “As the culinary landscape of Philadelphia has changed, Laurel needs to be updated, whatever form that takes. There are a couple of different concepts we’re playing with right now. I think Michelin is certainly going to improve the aspect of fine dining in Philadelphia, and I want to take some time to figure out what that means to me in the context of how I’ve grown up cooking and doing fine dining over the past 20 years.”

He said he was unsure if the Laurel name will continue.: “There’s a big part of me that understands Laurel is a recognized, branded name. But Laurel was also a little, tiny, beautiful restaurant stuffed into an apartment on a street in South Philadelphia. It was so intimate and so fun, and it represented a really cool moment in my life — being able to cook like that, and cook so freely.

“There’s part of me that wants that to remain a memory, not only for myself but for the people who worked there and for the guests who came through over the past 12 years. So I’m still struggling with the idea. I’d love to carry the name on, but that name carries weight, and there’s an expectation that comes with it. Moving into something different isn’t off the table.”