Dozens of Philadelphia-area restaurants have signed on to participate in CHOMP for CHOP, a weeklong fundraiser to benefit Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia’s Food Pharmacy program, which provides food access and nutrition resources for families in need.
The initiative, created by CHOP’s food pharmacy manager, Abbe Stern, aims to raise $50,000 for CHOP’s programs addressing food insecurity between Nov. 10 and 16. Participating restaurants will raise funds in various ways, such as selling specific dishes, offering special menus, donating a percentage of sales, and allowing customers to contribute on their tabs.
Abbe Stern, food-pharmacy manager with Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, takes a selfie with volunteers from Vanguard after they distributed 90 bags of food on Oct. 23.
The restaurants include some of the city’s most recognizable names, such as Zahav, Scampi, Amá, Little Water, Yanaga Kappo Izakaya, a.kitchen, Federal Donuts, Riverwards Produce, Santucci’s Original Square Pizza, El Chingón, Forsythia, Barbuzzo, Bar Hygge, El Merkury, Huda, Irwin’s, Kismet Bagels, the Boozy Mutt, Lark, Khyber Pass Pub, Wilder, Bridget Foy’s, Cry Baby Pasta, Sabrina’s, Middle Child Clubhouse, 48th Street Grille, Vientiane Bistro, Fishtown Pasta, and Cavanaugh’s Rittenhouse. More restaurants are signing up daily, Stern said.
Stern said she got the idea after hearing about a restaurant week fundraiser in the suburbs. “I had this idea: ‘Can’t we just do something like that in Philly?’” said Stern, who previously worked for the Rittenhouse Hotel and also for the app Too Good to Go, which addresses food waste. “I knew there was so much motivation within the Philly restaurant scene to help the community and feed people.”
Alyssa Drummy and David Forgione with Vanguard distribute food outside Karabots Pediatric Primary Care Center in West Philadelphia as part of CHOP’s food-access initiative.
Stern reached out to public relations executive Peter Breslow, who with his colleague Mike Prince agreed to help recruit restaurants. “We had a really quick call and brainstormed how to engage the restaurant scene to raise funds,” Stern said. “From my experience, I wanted restaurants to create something that would work for their businesses and encourage patrons to buy, while helping us build food access for the community.”
Stern said the effort is timely, as families face mounting hardship amid impending cuts to SNAP benefits, with more patients and providers reaching out for help. “Families are scared, struggling, and can’t find support anywhere else,” she said.
Through CHOMP for CHOP, she hopes to connect the city’s hospitality community with families in crisis. “These businesses are excited to say they’re part of the solution — part of a big initiative to feed our neighbors,” Stern said.
Ed Baumstein is betting that Philadelphia’s next great restaurant won’t come from a professional chef — rather, from the kitchens of everyday Philadelphians.
Baumstein, a longtime business executive, is behind the ambitious Recipe Philly, a 175-seat restaurant, opening next spring at Broad and Arch Streets. In a novel hook, the menu will exclusively feature recipes created by the winners of a competition, and the creative process will be filmed as a docuseries of the same name.
A rendering of the bar and entrance at Recipe Philly, planned for Broad and Arch Streets.
Baumstein said those personal stories will differentiate Recipe Philly from other food-competition shows. “We’re capturing the story behind the dish and the people,” he said in a phone chat last week. “There have been several applicants already that give me goosebumps — the love that goes into the dishes and the people they cook for. It’s almost romantic.”
How Recipe Philly will work
The competition will begin Nov. 8 with a casting call and registration at the Convention Center’s Broad Street atrium; pre-registration is open at recipephilly.castingcrane.com. With cameras rolling, contestants will fill out recipe cards and share the stories behind their dishes, not the dishes themselves.
Josh Randall, the warmup host for American Idol, will emcee that day’s filming. Production will continue as producers whittle the entries down to about 100 contestants, and then to about 35 finalists.
Contestants will compete across eight categories: appetizers, soups and salads, poultry, pasta, seafood, meat entrees, desserts, and an “other” category for creative outliers. Film crews will tape at contestants’ houses and on the site of the new restaurant as the competition continues. The recipes will be judged — by “chefs, food influencers, and community voices,” according to the show’s press release — based on taste, creativity, and story.
A rendering of the dining room at Recipe Philly, planned for Broad and Arch Streets.
Each winner will receive $1,000, with additional category prizes of $2,000, and their names and photos will appear on the restaurant’s menu next to their dishes. They’ll also eat for free at the restaurant as long as their recipe remains featured.
“Here’s the beauty of this,” Baumstein said. “We have no idea what we’re going to serve yet. It’s part of the intrigue of the show.”
The docuseries will consist of eight to 10 episodes, beginning with the November casting call and the early stages of restaurant construction. Later episodes will focus on the competition, the judging, and the restaurant’s transformation from an empty space to a fully realized dining room designed by Nelson, an international design and architecture firm. (Joe Scarpone, himself a former chef-restaurateur, and Alex Snyder, both of MPN Realty, represented Baumstein in the lease at the One City building. Stefanie Gabel and Jacob Cooper of MSC represented the landlord, an affiliate of Alterra Property Group.)
Baumstein said he expects to secure a network or streaming partner in early 2026. He also wants to expand the idea to other cities. “Every restaurant will have a completely different menu — indigenous to its home city,” he said.
From potluck to prime time
Baumstein, 70, a graduate of Olney High School and Temple University, is an unabashed Philadelphia booster. “This city’s vibrant, especially when it comes to food,” he said in an interview last week. “It’s the best-kept secret in the country — 25% cheaper than New York, 25% cheaper than D.C., and just full of family and community.”
Baumstein’s inspiration for Recipe Philly traces back to his days running SolomonEdwards, the Philadelphia-based consulting firm he founded in 1999, expanded internationally, and sold three years ago.
Signage for Recipe Philly on the windows of the One City building on Oct. 24.
During the 2008 recession, Baumstein’s chief financial officer proposed canceling the company’s annual holiday parties. Baumstein refused. Instead, he invited employees to his suburban Philadelphia home for a potluck dinner. “I was just blown away by the enthusiasm that our colleagues brought to the Christmas party,” Baumstein said. “They were super-excited about making their dishes. They watched the buffet table to see who was eating their dishes. We gave out little prizes, and just getting that three minutes of fame was unbelievable.”
SolomonEdwards compiled the recipes into a cookbook, which Baumstein kept as a reminder of how food brings people together. “What I love more than food is the inspiration that people give you,” he said. “In a world full of negativity, I wanted to create something that highlights the positive.”
The team behind the kitchen
Baumstein’s Homebred Hospitality owns the Recipe Philly brand. His restaurant partner is chef Andy Revella, who has handled menu development and operations for restaurants including Bennigan’s, Steak & Ale, and Rainforest Cafe and is a former director of food and beverage for Harrah’s Casino. Jarrett O’Hara, formerly culinary director of Federal Donuts, is vice president of culinary operations.
Baumstein said the total budget was $4 million — comparable to similar restaurants.
A rendering of the private dining room at Recipe Philly, planned for Broad and Arch Streets.
Asked if he had ever thought of opening a restaurant before, Baumstein replied: “No, and thank God, and I’m not going to be the one responsible for the daily operations. That’s Andy’s job. I’ve grown some big companies, and I think probably what my skill set is hiring really smart people that are talented and are able to get the team all rowing together in the same direction.”
Filming for Recipe Philly begins Nov. 8 at the Pennsylvania Convention Center. Registration and details are available at recipephilly.castingcrane.com.
Three and a half years after fire shut down the quirky Wine Dive on South Street West, Chris Fetfatzes, Heather Annechiarico, and Susan Freeman are reviving it in a former nail salon in Rittenhouse.
Its soft opening at 1534 Sansom St. — next door to Marathon Grill and on the same block as such nightlife destinations as Ladder 15, Oscar’s Tavern, and Shay’s Steaks & More — will be 4 p.m. Oct. 31 with limited hours and an abbreviated menu. Grand opening is set for Nov. 6. Hours will be 4 p.m. to 2 a.m. with the kitchen open until 1 a.m., with a late-night menu offered after 10 p.m.
Bar at WineDive Rittenhouse, 1534 Sansom St.
This incarnation of WineDive, in a smaller space, is a bar only; the bottle shop section at its opening in 2020 did not make it to Center City — neither did the space between “Wine” and “Dive.”
Fetfatzes describes WineDive as “Old Hollywood meets Atlantic City,” drawing retro inspiration from the early casino days, specifically the cheesiness of the Playboy Hotel. The interior, seating about 30 people at tables and 14 at the bar, blends amber glass blocks, dark wood paneling, tufted seating, and low lighting.
The facade of WineDive (and Liquorette upstairs) at 1534 Sansom St., as seen in June 2024.
The menu includes roast beef sandwiches inspired by South Philly luncheonette Shank’s & Evelyn’s, with horseradish and provolone on seeded kaiser rolls; chicken cutlets; loaded baked potatoes; shrimp Lejon (the bacon-wrapped shrimp dish made famous by Clam Tavern in Delaware County); wedge salads with creamy Russian-ranch dressing; and brûléed pimento cheese dip with Cheez-Its. Desserts include rotating baked cookies, ice cream sandwiches, and soft-serve “ice cream bumps” in flavors such as brown butter and warmed apple pie.
Wine director Tim Fordham has assembled a list of 20 wines by the glass list that will change six times a year, with selections including grower Champagne, Alpine whites, skin-contact orange wines, and classics from Burgundy, Barolo, and Bordeaux. Freeman said the list also would include wines from women-owned wineries and female winemakers.
WineDive’s previous location, as seen in January 2020, was 1506 South St. It was next to what was then the Cambridge and is now Sonny’s Cocktail Joint.
Cocktails lean toward nostalgia, Fetfatzes said, with interpretations of drinks such as the Rusty Nail, Surfer on Acid, Pickle Martini, Mind Eraser, and Tequila Sunrise.
WineDive’s signature $5 house wines will return, and weekly themed programming will include Microdose Mondays (small pours of rare and allocated bottles), T for Tuesdays (a late-night happy hour focused on wines and spirits beginning with T, such as tempranillo, txakoli, and tequila), Bottomless Baked Potato Wednesdays, “Naturdays” (highlighting natural wines and pét-nats), and industry brunch Sundays, a 10 p.m. late-night brunch aimed at hospitality workers and night owls.
The owners, branding themselves Happy Monday Hospitality, also have Grace & Proper, Sonny’s Cocktail Joint, and Quick Sip Delivery, an on-demand wine delivery service.
Upstairs from WineDive, they’re working on Liquorette, a European-style cocktail bar to open in early 2026. They also intend to reopen the original South Street WineDive, at 1506 South St., in the future.
In East Asian folklore, the Jade Rabbit is a celestial figure known for compassion and hospitality. When a hungry goddess tested the kindness of animals, the rabbit offered itself as food. Moved by this selfless act, she granted it immortality, sending it to live on the moon.
There, the Jade Rabbit eternally mixes the elixirs of life for the gods — a symbol of generosity, sacrifice, and eternal service.
At Jade Rabbit, the cocktail bar that opened this week beneath Maison Lotus in Wayne, siblings Pearl and Paul Somboonsong are mixing their own elixirs — if not for the gods, then for, well, Main Liners.
The Jade Rabbit Moon Landing cocktail gets its bubble on at Jade Rabbit.
In March, the Somboonsongs opened Maison Lotus, an upscale Vietnamese restaurant and all-day cafe at 175 Lancaster Ave., the former site of Margaret Kuo.
As they planned the two-story restaurant, they decided that the basement would be an ideal spot for a speakeasy-style bar as a passion project, alongside a banquet room where they’d host private events and mah-jongg games.
Pearl Somboonsong grew up on the Main Line, where her parents, Win and Sudita Somboonsong, created a string of restaurants, including Mikado Thai Pepper, Teikoku, Azie, and Blue Elephant.
The bar at Jade Rabbit in Wayne.Dining tables at Jade Rabbit in Wayne.
After college, she lived in New York and Chicago, “and there was always a speakeasy scene,” she said. Philadelphia has one, too. But not so much on the Main Line, as she discovered when she moved back to join her brother in Win Hospitality, the family business.
There are stylish bars, she said, but “I was asking, ‘Why is there not really a place where I can have that same experience where the cocktails are really the focus?”
Hamachi with calamansi, pickled radish and chive oil at Jade Rabbit.
Of course, Jade Rabbit is licensed, unlike a true speakeasy. But it has the characteristic unmarked door leading down from Maison Lotus as well as a low-lit, low-key vibe for its eight bar seats plus 18 more at tables. Opening night was fully booked, and there are 30 on the waiting list for tonight, Pearl Somboonsong said. It’s only open Thursday and Friday for now; more days may be added if there is demand.
Bartender Curtis Daulerio and Win Hospitality beverage director Katrin Kanikkeberg set up the bar, whose cocktail menu is Vietnamese-inspired. For a drink called the Circle Jawn, they use a Porthole Infuser, a circular contraption invented for the Aviary, a seminal speakeasy-style bar in Chicago.
The Circle Jawn steeps on the bar at Jade Rabbit.
The Circle Jawn is meant to resemble a bowl of pho, so Daulerio loads the infuser with vermicelli, roasted carrots, basil, and spices such as star anise, cinnamon, cloves, cardamom, and coriander seeds. Then he pours Diplomatico rum, Pedro Ximenez sherry, and black walnut bitters into the porthole. The drink ($39 for two), which is poured atop a large ice cube, picks up new flavors and colors as it steeps.
Like many new bars, Jade Rabbit also has a FlavourBlaster, the device that creates oversize bubbles and smoke on top of a drink. “Of course, we play with fire and smoke and stuff, but I didn’t want it all to be gimmicky,” Pearl Somboonsong said. “At the end of the day, it has to be about class. The goal is an amazing, well-balanced cocktail.”
Crystal dumpling dessert at Jade Rabbit.
Jade Rabbit offers three options for reservations: There’s a $30 per-person deposit for a bar seat; the customer orders à la carte drinks and food, and the deposit is applied to the final bill. In the dining seats, there’s a $145 five-course food and cocktail pairing menu with hamachi, flower dumplings, Chilean sea bass, A5 Wagyu steak, and crystal dumplings filled with guava and strawberries — all unique to the lounge. The third option is a three-course cocktail progression, which covers any three cocktails for $65.
À la carte food includes bites such as Bangkok toast (brown sugar butter and bourbon creme anglaise atop milk bread), umami popcorn, and Japanese street corn, plus larger plates including the steak and sea bass.
Jade Rabbit, beneath Maison Lotus, 175 Lancaster Ave., Wayne, maison-lotus.com/jaderabbit. Hours from 5:30 p.m. Thursday and Friday. Reservations suggested, though walk-ins are allowed.
Hey there. I goofed last week on some key dates. The print edition of The Inquirer’s 76 will be included in newspapers on Thursday, Nov. 13. The Inquirer’s Food Fest at the Fillmore in Fishtown is Saturday, Nov. 15. And while we’re at it: Tuesday, Nov. 18 is the unveiling of the 2025 Michelin Northeast Cities winners in an exclusive ceremony at the Kimmel Center.
There’s been a recent bumper crop of fine new pizzerias in the city and suburbs. Let me tell you about the rustic grandma pies, the puffy Neapolitans, bar pizzas with verve, a gluten-free option, and even tasty slices sold out of a gas station.
🍕 Tip: Do not miss the drunken grandma pie at the new Anomalia Pizza in Fort Washington — or anything else on the menu.
Cuzzy’s Ice Cream Parlor in Queen Village, which closed abruptly a year and a half ago, reopened last weekend at 762 S. Fourth St., two blocks from the previous shop, doling out such flavors as brown butter pecan, vanilla beans, chocolate cake, cinnamon apple streusel, pistachio biscotti, maple walnut pie, coffee, and grape sorbet. Watch Instagram for the shop’s hours.
Restaurant report
What’s tasty out there? In the current installment of “The Best Things We Ate This Week,” the Food team and friends chronicle their dining travels: Zorba’s for the shareable lamb platter (above), pasta from Fiorella, soft-serve from a brick-and-mortar Mr. Softee, and a smash burger that was so incredible, our correspondent forgot to photograph it.
Briefly noted
The Buttery’s Malvern flagship (233 E. King St.) will reopen Saturday after a redesign, an expansion from 18 seats to 62, and a new menu including pizza, tartines, sandwiches, and bowls. The first 100 customers Saturday will receive a free sable cookie with purchase.
Pica’s Restaurant, the Upper Darby landmark, will close its dining room after service Sunday, as it readies for its move to Broomall. The restaurant will remain open for takeout for the foreseeable future.
Philly Cider Week begins at 3 p.m. Sunday at the Headhouse shambles (Second and Lombard Streets) following Headhouse Farmers Market sales. Vendors will vend till 7 p.m.
Ange Branca, owner of South Philly’s Kampar, took to Instagram earlier this week with an update on repairs to the restaurant, idled since February by a fire. Water damage was extensive, she reports. Kampar will set up an ikan bakar (grilled-fish) market pop-up at Jet Wine Bar (1525 South St.) from 4-9 p.m. Sunday. Two ways to go: Pick your whole fish and sambal from the outdoor stand, where it will be priced by weight and prepared (walk-ins OK), or dine inside for dinners at 5:30 and 7:30 p.m. ($75pp) featuring five Malaysian fish dishes. Cocktails and wines available. Reservations are here.
Provenance (408 S. Second St.) will host an Oct. 29 collaboration dinner honoring the late chef Jim Burke and benefiting Twist Out Cancer, for which Burke’s wife and business partner, Kristina Benene Burke, works. Provenance chef-owner (and Burke disciple) Nicholas Bazik will be joined by chefs including Ron Mckinlay (formerly Canoe, Toronto), Alex Kemp (My Loup), Eli Collins (a. Kitchen), Evan Snyder (Emmett), Tim Dearing (Ule), Greg Heitzig (the Fountain Inn; former CDC of Pineapple & Pearls, Washington), as well as Provenance pastry chef Abby Dahan. It’s $395 per person (plus tax/gratuity/beverages) with all profits going to the foundation.Seatings in the wine cellar are available at 7 p.m., and at 5 and 8:30 p.m. upstairs.
Honeysuckle’s first wine-centered event will be a ticketed five-course dinner with André Mack and Maison Noire Wines on Oct. 30. It’s $175 per person, plus tax, tip, and fees). Tickets via OpenTable.
Opera Philadelphia will join Jean-Georges Philadelphia for a collaboration of music and food — a tasting menu interspersed with live performances — on Nov. 20. Details are here.
Marcie Turney and Valerie Safran of Safran Turney Hospitality (Barbuzzo, Bud & Marilyn’s, Darling Jack’s, etc.) were named to Out magazine’s 31st annual Out100 list. They’ll join fellow honorees Nov. 21 at the Out100 event at Nya Studios West in Hollywood.
❓Pop quiz
Old City’s Amada, chef Jose Garces’ flagship restaurant, marks its 20th anniversary this month. Can you name one of the restaurants where Garces was chef just before it opened?
A bonus: Anyone remember the name of the restaurant that preceded Amada’s Old City location? Email me.
Ask Mike anything
What’s going on with High Note Caffe at 13th and Tasker? From the outside, it looks like it’s been ready to open for at least a few years now. — Caitlin D.
Owner Frank “Franco” Borda has taken his sweet time (four years!) converting his long-running restaurant into a supper club. It’ll be offering sporadic ticketed jazz and opera performances to start out. The first two dates, in early November, are sold out, but the next is Dec. 12. Here’s the calendar.
📮 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.
By submitting your written, visual, and/or audio contributions, you agree to The Inquirer’s Terms of Use, including the grant of rights in Section 10.
“Philadelphia has no good pizza” is one age-old chestnut that needs to be put to rest, as so many pizzerias, such as the expanding Angelo’s, Beddia in Fishtown, Pizzata in Rittenhouse and South Philadelphia, and Sally near Fitler Square, are raising the local game. The Pennsylvania and New Jersey suburbs have plenty of quality, too — for example Brooklyn Original in Haddon Heights, Verona in Maple Glen, Pizza West Chester, and Johnny’s on the Main Line.
Here are 11 prime pizzerias that have opened in the last several months, as well as intel on four others on the way.
Suburban Philadelphia pizzerias
Anomalia Pizza
Deena Fink and Frank Innusa traded careers in show biz to entertain on an entirely different stage: a slice shop across from the Fort Washington Regional Rail station. Their drunken grandma pie is a thing of beauty: a crispy, almost buttery-bottomed square topped with fresh mozzarella and ribboned with a thick, creamy vodka sauce amped with pancetta. Read on for their story.
Anomalia, 414 S. Bethlehem Pike, Fort Washington, 215-628-3845, anomaliapizza.com
Barclay Pies
Gluten-free arugula pizza from Barclay Pies.
TJ Hunton and Daniel Romero, whose immediate family members have celiac disease, are behind this cheery newcomer in Cherry Hill’s former Season’s Pizza offering gluten-free crusts (using Caputo’s GF flour) along with a line of conventional pies, plus other stuff (chicken tenders, wings, fries, cookies) that are gluten-free from inception. The lineup: five red pizzas (plain, pepperoni, sausage, pineapple, and a vegan margherita featuring cashew milk mozzarella cheese by Miyoko’s Creamery) and four whites (arugula, mushroom, broccoli, and buffalo chicken). Allergen info and protocols are up on their Instagram. Plain and pepperoni slices are available over lunch.
Pizza Margherita at La Pizza & La Pasta restaurant at Eataly in King of Prussia Mall.
The Italian marketplace opened earlier this month in King of Prussia Mall with two pizza options: a sit-down experience in the restaurant with well-crafted, puffy-crusted Neapolitans, as well as a counter with Roman-style pizza by the slice.
Grandma pie from Genova Pizza 2 Go, 748 Sicklerville Rd., Williamstown, N.J.
Pizza from a gas station? Since it’s Jersey, of course it’s full service at this new branch of Audubon’s Genova Pizza, tucked inside Marathon Gas. The grandma pies, with their crispy, olive-oil-slicked crusts, and the thicker-crusted Sicilians are the big draws. Bonus: Brothers Ali and Omar Doukali are planning yet another location, in Sicklerville, according to South Jersey Food Scene.
Chef Brad Daniels checks a Rocky pizza at Gloria Sports & Spirits, 1500 Main St., Warrington, on Oct. 20, 2025.
It would be far too easy and wildly inaccurate to brand the sprawling Gloria in Central Bucks’ Shops at Valley Square “a sports bar.” Yes, the bar is ringed with TVs and there are two golf simulators and a shuffleboard table. Happy hour is on from 3 to 6 p.m. weekdays. But Gloria’s pedigree explains why this is right up there with the best bar pizza in the northern burbs.
It’s led by Vetri alumnus Brad Daniels, who with his partners also owns the acclaimed, high-end Tresini in Spring House, turning out light but sturdy-crusted 13-inch rounds with quality toppings. And not the same old. Take the saganaki, a riff on the Greek fried cheese. Daniels slices and preserves lemons, and lays them alongside mozzarella, feta, garlic, and oregano for a sweet-tart flavor bomb. The “brock party” gets plenty of shaved broccoli, along with ricotta sauce, roasted garlic, and mozzarella. The red pies get just enough Bianco di Napoli sauce, and he uses fior di latte on them instead of generic mozz.
This week’s big Main Line pizza news is John Bisceglie’s soft-opening phase of a second Johnny’s Pizza, in a strip center near the farmers market in Wayne. It’s a companion to his Bryn Mawr original, which appears in The Inquirer’s 76 for his 20-inch cheesesteaks and “unforgettable pies both thick and thin(ish), rectangular and round, red and white.”
Owner Gary Lincoln demonstrates the kiosk ordering system at Knot Like the Rest Pizzeria in Pine Hill.
Gary Lincoln’s latest South Jersey pizzeria, which opened less than two months ago, is assuredly knot like the rest. It’s all online for delivery, and walk-in customers must head to two kiosks for their slices and pies — no ordering from a counterperson. Punch in your order, perhaps a Pickle pizza (pickles, bacon, cheddar, mozzarella, ranch dressing), a “Zinger” (secret sauce, steak, banana peppers, mozzarella, American cheese), or a Knotty Vodka, with its edges ringed with garlic knots. Eat at the counter or a few round tables. Lincoln also owns New Wave Pizza in Turnersville and All About the Crust in Woodbury.
Knot Like the Rest Pizzeria, 1193 Turnersville Rd., Pine Hill, 908-382-7960, knotliketherest.com
Philadelphia pizzerias
15th Street Pizza & Cheesesteak
Sauce is applied to a pizza from 15th Street Pizza & Cheesesteak.
A decade ago, Andrew and Michael Cappelli took over the shuttered pizzeria next door to their cigar shop on 13th Street near Locust — popularly known as Gay Pizza — and reflagged it Pizzeria Cappelli. It still rocks till 4 a.m. Last summer, feeling that Rittenhouse needed a slice shop for the wee-small hours, they opened a companion in the former Starbucks at 15th and Latimer. At 15th Street Pizza & Cheesesteak, serving a variety of thin-crust slices till 3 a.m., the hits include the white garlic with ricotta and anything topped with Buffalo chicken. Do not skip the garlic-Parm wings.
Owner Steve Calozzi holds a slice of a 24-nch tomato pie at Italian Family Pizza.
Bucks County-bred Steve Calozzi moved to Seattle for a while and ran pizzerias there before returning to Bucks. Now he’s working out of the former Subway shop at 17th and the Parkway, across from Friends Select School, and his specialty is the Trenton-style (cheese on the bottom) 24-inch pizza, available whole and by the slice. Order the meatballs and the cannoli, too.
Italian Family Pizza, 1701 Benjamin Franklin Pkwy., 215-801-5198
Puglia Pizza
Roman pizzas from Puglia Pizza, 901 South St.
Last time I checked in with Cosimo Tricarico, he was running the quaint Caffe Valentino in Pennsport. But after it closed in early 2021, even his phone number died. Recently, I heard that a Cosimo was running a fine new pizzeria at Ninth and South. One and the same. Although he still owns Valentino’s building, Tricarico and his girlfriend had decamped for his native Puglia, where they had kids. Now they’re back here, and Tricarico is mixing it up in pizza world — football-shaped Romans as well as traditional rounds. Don’t miss the sfilatini, which are thin, pressed baguette sandwiches with fillings like meatballs and vegetables.
Though not a pizzeria by any stretch, this new bistro inside the Suburban Station building (aka One Penn Center) has five excellent pies — all 14-inch rounds. The reds get a sauce made of San Marzano D.O.P. tomatoes.
Of particular note is the Funghi, whose wild-mushroom mix gets a topping of Dijonnaise, fresh mozzarella, and rosemary gremolata.
Wild mushroom pizza with Dijonnaise at Rhythm & Spirits, 1617 JFK Blvd.
Cerveau, opening in the next few weeks at 990 Spring Garden St., will be a cicchetteria serving shareable pizzas, pastas, and small plates with Mediterranean flavors. Chef/co-creator Joe Hunter was among the partners at the former Pizza Brain, which closed last year.
Lillo’s Tomato Pies, the Trenton-style pizza purveyor from Hainesport, Burlington County, is supposedly close to opening in Gloucester City at the former Thomas Murphy’s Pub (157 S. Burlington St.) after a protracted liquor-license process.
Tomato pie from Lillo’s Tomato Pie, 2503 Marne Highway, Hainesport.
Marina’s Pizza, a slice shop expected next month at 1425 Frankford Ave. in Fishtown, will be the pro debut of Mason Lesser, whose maternal grandfather, Angelo Lancellotti, owned dozens of shops in the area over the years.
Pizzeria Cusumano, backed by Sal Cusumano of the Angelo’s Pizza shops in Berlin and Voorhees, is finally back on track for its opening at 872 Haddon Ave. in Collingswood. Cusumano, not willing to share a projected opening date, said work has just begun, more than four years after he signed an agreement to buy the building.
Some pizza gossip
Maybe this is non-pizza gossip, but Vince Tacconelli of the Tacconelli family’s New Jersey branch says he is looking at a December opening of Bar Tacconelli, a 50-seat Italian cocktail lounge on the former site of Versa Vino, 461 Route 38 in Maple Shade. He and partners Stacey Lyons (ex-Attico) and GregListino (the restaurant-equipment firm Rosani) plan to offer oysters, charcuterie, fried bites, and pastas — served late into the night, with a focus on craft cocktails. But no pizza, as it’s four minutes from Tacconelli’s Maple Shade location.
“Anomalia” might be a mouthful. But so are the pizzas in the display case at Anomalia Pizza, the New York-style slice shop that opened last month across from the Fort Washington SEPTA rail station, in what had been Little Italy for two decades.
The thin-crusted, 18-inch rounds are generously topped, though the crispy, sturdy bottoms can stand up to all the blistered cherry tomatoes, mozzarella, and olive oil layered atop the bruschetta pie, for example. Red pepper pesto gives sweet balance to the rib-eye, Cooper Sharp, and caramelized onions on the Italian Stallion. Close your eyes and take a bite of the plain red-sauce pizza, and you could almost believe you’re in Brooklyn and not a mile off of Route 309 and the Pennsylvania Turnpike.
The drunken grandma pizza at Anomalia Pizza, 414 S. Bethlehem Pike, Fort Washington.
The world needs to know about Anomalia’s drunken grandma, a crispy, almost buttery-bottomed square topped with fresh mozzarella and ribboned with a thick, creamy vodka sauce amped with pancetta. Other hits include the stromboli and the uncommon mozzarella in carrozza — basically, a mozzarella stick in sandwich form (cheese tucked inside bread, crusted with bread crumbs, and fried).
There are no actual sandwiches for now.
The owners, Long Island native Deena Fink and Florida-born Frank Innusa, had a classic meet-cute: An opera singer, she went to New York University to study musical theater, and he moved to Manhattan to become an actor. They met while working at the Hard Rock Cafe in Times Square, she tending bar and he waiting tables.
“Oh, you’re an actor?” Innusa said, parroting a joke that probably dates to vaudeville. “What restaurant?”
“Most actors get out of the business when they land a TV show,” said Innusa, 40, as he topped a plain pie last week while a gaggle of kids from nearby Germantown Academy awaited their orders. “I kind of fell out of love with acting — and fell in love with restaurants.”
Frank Innusa and Deena Fink at their pizza shop Anomalia in Fort Washington.
He and Fink were married in 2018 and a year later moved to Florida for a change of pace. Innusa enrolled in a motorcycle-mechanics program, but COVID-19 made hands-on training impossible. “I still had to pay full tuition,” he said. “So I stopped — and that’s when I really started cooking.”
Cooking, he said, became an obsession. “I’d wake up thinking about it and go to sleep thinking about it,” he said. “I hadn’t felt that since acting.”
Innusa’s father had made pizzas and calzones at home, but with social-distancing restrictions in place, the fascination stuck. “He was reading the books, watching the videos, testing dough,” Fink said. “So much dough testing.”
Stromboli await the lunch rush at Anomalia Pizza.
Innusa filled a notebook with flavor combinations and textures, she said. That experimentation now shows up as Anomalia’s “pizza of the week.”
Back in New York after the pandemic, Innusa got his first pizzeria jobs at King Umberto and West End Pizza on Long Island, while Fink, now 33, managed and performed at the Duplex, the West Village cabaret where she performed years before.
Rather than add to the roster of New York pizzerias, they looked toward Philadelphia, which had long appealed to them as “a smaller city with a big food scene,” Fink said. “Fifteen minutes outside the city, there are trees and deer. That balance really drew us.” They moved to Chestnut Hill, and Fink took a job nearby at Chestnut Hill Brewery at the Market at the Fareway.
A mozzarella in carrozza at Anomalia Pizza in Fort Washington.
Their original 10-year plan for Anomalia was a food truck, but they learned that the owners of Chicko Tako, the market’s Korean-fusion stand, were selling their other business, Little Italy.
Innusa said he wanted to name the shop Anomalisa, after the 2015 movie. “But Deena said, ‘It doesn’t mean anything,’’’ Innusa said. She suggested anomalia, Italian for “anomaly” and pronounced “a-nom-a-leah.”
“We want to be different from the norm, not the usual,” Innusa said.
Anomalia Pizza, 414 S. Bethlehem Pike, Fort Washington, 215-628-3845, anomaliapizza.com. Hours: 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Tuesday to Sunday.
There’s joyous chaos inside Indian markets on Diwali — and mithai (sweets) are at the center of it. The Festival of Lights, significant for people of Hindu, Jain, Sikh, and Buddhist faiths, falls on Monday, Oct. 20. Like clockwork, laddoos, gajar ka halwa, burfi, gulab jamun, and more, have begun to fill display cases with the vibrant, colorful sweets (made with dairy, sugar, and nuts) beckoning guests to pack two or three boxes for their loved ones.
There’s gajar ka halwa, a carrot-based treat studded with nuts; and gulab jamun, made sweet with rose water syrup and sometimes coated in coconut. Kulfi is a traditional creamy no-churn ice cream, similar to frozen custard with a distinct taste of the fruits and nuts it’s flavored with. Then you have creamy, milk-based mithai like burfi, ras malai, kalakand, and cham cham. And you can’t forget about laddoos, rava kesari or suji ka halwa — nutty, semolina-based sweets.
Whether you’re gifting or feasting by yourself, here are a handful of Philly spots to get your mithai in time for Diwali.
“Mithai is the go-to gift to bring to people or celebrate with,” said owner Paramjit Singh.
There’s fresh, frozen, and canned mithai offered at the shop. Packaged boxes sit in the front. Canned are stacked on shelves, and frozen packages from India and Canada are in the refrigerators in the back.
Singh has a variety of options for the area’smany students and price-conscious customers. But he noted that prices of mithai have increased as well as the cost to ship boxes from India.
Find boxes of bundi and motichoor laddoo, gulab jamun, badam and kaju burfi, kalakand, and a variety of Bengali sweets in the fresh market up front.
With the Philadelphia Sikh Society nearby, this Upper Darby store is bustling with energy on Diwali morning, said co-owner Mohinder Pal.
“Mithai is a favorite, everybody likes it,” he said.
Walk up to the refrigerators next to the cashier station and pick from a variety of boxed mithai. There’s gajar ka halwa, laddoos, assorted cham cham, coconut and regular gulab jamun, and more. Frozen mithai is also available.
📍6700 Market St., Upper Darby, 📞 610-352-3400, 🌐facebook.com/sabjimandi, 🕑 Monday to Sunday 9 a.m. to 8 p.m.
A traditional Indian Ice Cream (Malal Kulfi) topped with poached blueberries and creme-de-cassis, at Veda in Philadelphia, Pa., on Thursday, May 25, 2023.
Inside this modern bistro in Rittenhouse Square, order kulfi topped with poached blueberries. The dessert is sweetened with sugar that’s added as the milk is reduced in a flat pan. It’s frozen with crushed cardamom seeds mixed in that bring an inviting texture to the kulfi. Enjoy for $7 at Veda. (The dessert is also offered at Bhasin’s four other restaurants: Indiya in Collingswood, Coriander in Voorhees, and Naan in Moorestown).
📍 1920 Chestnut St., 📞 267-519-2001, 🌐 vedaphilly.com, 🕒 Daily, 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. (lunch) and 4:30 to 9:30 p.m. (dinner), till 10 p.m. on Friday and Saturday.
On Chestnut Street, you’ll find freshly made gulab jamun, gajar ka halwa, and ras malai. Step into the restaurant and you’ll see the tub of brown spheres soaking in a sugary bath in the display case. That’s gulab jamun. The ras malai is milky, soft, and sweet. The gajar ka halwa is creamy, filled with carrots and perfectly nutty — it’s a specialty item for the fall and winter season.
“Ras malai is really the selling item,” said owner Asad Ghuman. “We get catering orders and families coming in to the restaurant (for food and sweets).”
📍4201 Chestnut St., 📞 215-222-8081, 🌐kabobeesh.com, 🕑 Monday 11 a.m. to 11 p.m., Tuesday to Sunday 11 a.m. to midnight.
If you’re in West Philly, small boxes of gulab jamun, gajar ka halwa, and orange sticky, sweet jalebi wait for you. Kheer or rice pudding, and ras malai are also available.
Wah-Gi-Wah in University City is a big fan of Crown Kulfi. Restaurant manager Muhammad Khan said they previously served housemade kulfi but switched to the premade brand. “[The brand] is very famous over here in Philadelphia,” he said. Enjoy chocolate, coconut, almond, pistachio, mango, and malai as frozen pops ($3) or in cups ($4.50).
Compared with other Latin American communities in the region, the Chilean crowd is quite small — by many estimates, in the low thousands.
But Cote Tapia-Marmugi knows that this is a passionate audience eager to get a taste of the homeland 5,000 miles away.
Alfajores at Copihue Bakehouse.
When she was about 10, Tapia-Marmugi’s family emigrated from Santiago to Westchester County, N.Y., where they frequented Los Andes Bakery, in nearby Sleepy Hollow. “Even if it’s a couple of hours away, you drive to it and it’s a thing that you do,” she said. “You spend your Sunday afternoon eating and buying all the goodies that you miss from home. You go, you have empanadas, you buy stupid amounts of junk food, and then you go home happy, and you do it again in a couple of months.”
She has created a similar destination a hundred miles south in downtown Ambler. Last month, she opened Copihue Bakehouse, named after Chile’s national flower and pronounced “ko-pee-way.” Along with local customers strolling Butler Avenue, she’s meeting Chileans who drive into town to order empanadas or the pastry known as tortas mil hojas, and sit at one of the few tables.
Those visits can run for an hour. “We chit-chat for a while, they tell me about where they’re coming from and what part of Chile they’re from, and they find out my background. Then they sit and order one thing, then they get up and browse a little bit, order some more and sit,” said Tapia-Marmugi, 40, whose husband, David Marmugi, a Venezuelan-born engineer, joins the conversation when he’s there.
Sometimes the food hasn’t even hit the case before it’s sold. Last weekend, she had made a batch of the flan-like semolina pudding called sémola con leche. “I didn’t even put it out, and people were like, ‘Oh, my God. You have this?’ and they scooped it right up,” she said.
A ladder shelf is stocked with groceries at Copihue Bakehouse in Ambler, Pa.
The selections in the cases are ever-changing and subject to sell out. The most popular items on the savory side are baked cheese empanadas as well as the cheese-and-onion empanadas known as pequén, served with pebre, a hot sauce made of coriander, tomatoes, parsley, chopped onion, oil, and vinegar. Tomato toast comes out on her house-baked Irish soda bread slathered with tomato and a sprinkle of salt and oregano, as well as traditional avocado toast — a popular South American snack long before Americans bougie-fied it.
You’ll find manjar, a sort of dulce de leche, in many desserts, such as the intensely rich lucuma cups (crispy meringue pieces in a creamy cup full of the fruit known as lucuma and whipped cream); the tortas mil hojas (flaky layers of pastry alternating with manjar and walnuts); brazo de reina (a sponge cake rolled with manjar and covered in coconut); and alfajores (thin, crunchy cookies with manjar in the center). She also sells various scones; cakes such as kuchen de nuez; pies (notably a buttery-crusted lemon meringue); and brown-butter chocolate chip cookies.
The counter of Copihue Bakehouse.
Along with teas and coffee from Càphê Roasters are mate, cafe helado, and mote con huesillo — traditionally a summertime drink made with peaches cooked in sugar, water, and cinnamon, and, once cooled, mixed with cooked husked wheat berries.
Tapia-Marmugi, whose family moved to Lansdale, Montgomery County, when she was a teen, came up as a cake baker. She won an episode of Netflix’s Sugar Rush, as she ran Mole Street Baker out of her home when she lived in South Philadelphia. In 2021, she joined Ange Branca’s pandemic incubator, Kampar Kitchen, to develop her savory cooking and also worked at the restaurant Kampar.
Table seating in the window of Copihue Bakehouse.
Since Tapia-Marmugi is vegetarian, so is everything she makes. “There won’t be any meat on the menu, which I know will [annoy] a bunch of Chileans,” she added, laughing. “But that’s just how I grew up.”
The walls of the sunny shop are filled with her framed photos. A rack is stocked with Chilean snacks, like the gummy candies called guaguitas; ramitas, a crunchy wheat stick; and Super 8 chocolate bars.
“This is kind of my ode to Chile — the food memories. I want people to go inside and feel like they’ve just stepped into a little piece of South America.”
Copihue Bakehouse, 58 E. Butler Ave., Ambler, copihuebakehouse.com. Hours: 8:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. Thursday to Sunday.
I should have read the fine print before I agreed to participate in a recent “Hoagie Throwdown” at Other Half Brewing in Fishtown, produced by my friends at the Delicious City Podcast. I assumed they’d drafted me simply to be a judge and taste their lineup of sandwiches from 20-plus restaurants vying to be Philly’s hoagie champ.
Two wrestlers, including one in a hot dog suit, tussle at a match held at Other Half Brewing in Fishtown where hoagies were also in competition.
But I was not meant to praise hoagies. I was summoned to the wrestling arena at Other Half Brewing to make them, something I’d actually never done before in a city where the meat slicer’s whirring hum is the lunchtime lullaby at a thousand neighborhood delis.
“Sorry if I wasn’t completely clear in my early communication,” said Eli Kulp after I’d reached out with concern a few days before the event. The former Fork and High Street chef-turned-podcaster thought it would be hilarious for me to participate in an Iron Chef-style “celebrity” hoagie-making scrum inside a wrestling ring against two still to-be-determined foes. “We want this to be fun for you.”
I couldn’t back out now. But I also wasn’t going down without a fight —and I needed help. A hoagie whisperer. A cold cuts QB coach. A seasoned pro to train me in the sweet science of hoagie-making.
I knew just who to call: Cara Jo Castellino, the sandwich queen of Fishtown’s Castellino’s Italian Market.
The owners of Castellino’s Italian Market in Fishtown, Matthew Barrow and Cara Jo Castellino, prepare to run Inquirer Restaurant Critic Craig LaBan through his paces at Hoagie Boot Camp.The exterior of Castellino’s in Philadelphia.
“You should come over to the shop … and make a test hoagie if you’d like to practice,” she told me.
Hoagie boot camp? That is exactly what I needed! Sign me up, Cara Jo!
Two days before the event, I stepped inside her little market at the corner of East Palmer and East Thompson Streets, and inhaled the heady aroma of cured meats and pickled peppers. Castellino was waiting. She handed me a black apron. I nervously tied it on as she led me into the narrow space behind the tidy counter, where a friendly crew was already in the lunch-rush groove: her husband and co-owner Matthew Barrow peeling sheer pink rounds of spicy capicola off the slicer; Pat Caviness hand-slicing mountains of ripe tomatoes; A.J. Jones busily assembling hoagies on the board; and Derrick Bobb (“We call him Bobb”) working the register with his unflappable charm.
Hoagie architecture 101
The life cycle of every Italian hoagie begins and ends with olive oil, Castellino says, but be careful to stripe the bread side-to-side (as opposed to lengthwise) so it doesn’t pool in the crease of the roll’s hinge and break: “You’ve got to protect the hoagie’s hinge at all costs … When your hoagie’s hinge breaks, it’s very sad,” she says.
The sandwich is then built atop the bottom of the roll, so that when it’s closed, every bite brings a consistent layer of each ingredient.
More roll protection comes from provolone rounds layered down like shingles. Castellino prefers mild provolone because its creaminess buffers against the salty meats to come. She deftly forms the slices of soppressata and mortadella into rosettes, whose bouncy pink curls trap flavor-boosting oxygen between their folds. “You don’t want a dense wad of meat,” she says, arranging gossamer kerchiefs of imported prosciutto over top for the finish.
“Three is the ideal number,” she says, referring to the quantity of different meats preferred for contrasting flavors and textures.
Castellino’s fingers move swiftly atop each hoagie, layering the tomato rounds, sculpting tufts of arugula (prized for its peppery bite and durability), then seasoning it all with more oil and red vinegar “like a salad.”
“Tuck her in!” she says, deftly coaxing the ingredients deeper into the roll with the serrated knife’s blade, slicing the sandwich in half and then rolling it inside paper like a lovingly swaddled baby. It’s fastened shut with a piece of tape. Tuck, roll, snap! Tuck, roll, snap! She makes it look so easy.
The meticulous layers of an Italian hoagie are revealed at Castellino’s Italian Market in Fishtown, built by “trainee” Inquirer restaurant critic Craig LaBan.
My turn. A mess. Too much olive oil immediately sogs up my hinge. My provolone is layered the wrong direction. My cold-cut rosettes are more crumpled balls than fluffy flowers. I bunch up the tomatoes, leave too many inedible stems on the banana peppers, then pile on so much arugula it looks like I’m trying to tame a wild bush. And whoa … the vinegar comes out in a gush!
“Once you do 100 of them, you’ll get the hang of it,” deadpans Castellino.
She patiently coaches me through another classic Italian; the fiery Adronos layered with spicy meats, peppercorn Asiago, and cherry peppers; the mellow Franklin with turkey, cheddar, and sweet bacon jam; a Caprese with milky mozzarella, juicy tomatoes, sweet balsamic, and silky ripples of prosciutto. Only by the last one do I finally manage to wrap a sandwich without half its crust hanging out. I feel encouraged but humbled.
“I don’t think I’m cut out for the lunchtime pressure of this hoagie counter,” I say as I gratefully hand back my apron.
“Nah, you absolutely killed it!” says Castellino, who, like any good coach knows just when to pump up her student for a big moment. She offers a parting secret: “Make exactly what you want to eat. People can feel the love and affection that goes into making a hoagie you yourself would want to devour.”
Three hoagies from Castellino’s Italian Market built by “trainee” Inquirer Restaurant during a stint at Hoagie Boot Camp.The Hoagie at Castellino’s in Philadelphia on Sept. 10, 2024. Food Styling by Emilie Fosnocht
Sandwich smackdown
I left hoagie boot camp with some genuine new skills. But would they be enough to spin gold from whatever ingredients awaited me on the competition table? Eli Kulp, channeling his best Vince McMahon impresario swagger, encouraged me to bring my own secret ingredient for added assurance: “If you’re not cheating in wrestling, you’re not trying!” I took the advice to heart as I stashed a few surprises in a small cloth bag that I hid beneath my black cape.
I arrived to the arena incognito, my face obscured by a Zorro mask and a wide-brimmed hat. Kulp’s words rang loudly in my head as I stood ringside and watched the Pro Wrestling Entertainment talent spar with an unlikely food theme: A bug-eyed, psychotic pizzaiolo named Luigi Primo blinded his competitor with spinning rubber pizza dough, while the Sandman (of Extreme Championship Wrestling fame) whacked the same guy across the back with a kendo stick with hoagie rolls taped around it. I watched a large man in a hot dog suit soar from the ropes to flatten his sweaty foe in the middle of that ring, sending the beer-soaked crowd of several hundred fans into a bloodthirsty roar.
To say I was a tad apprehensive as the hoagie table was set up in the middle of that same ring — with a wooden board of mystery ingredients for my own match — would be an understatement.
Reluctantly, I stepped into the ring with my competitors, the “cannoli-smashing bar-knuckle brawler” also known as FeedingTimeTV (aka Dave Wesolowski) and influencer “Doug _Chase_U,” who instantly began tossing our prosciutto into the crowd.
The ensuing mad scramble for ingredients was only the first of my concerns. I really began to sweat beneath my mask when Chase_U suddenly tagged inone of Philly’s best hoagie pros — Jason Okdeh, aka “Gabagool_Papi” of Farina di Vita — to commandeer his roll.
Only lightly shook, I snapped back to the ingredients before me, remembered my training, and stayed focused on my fundamentals. I quickly gathered three different meats, provolone, tomatoes, onions, banana peppers, and lettuce. But … where was the olive oil?!
The table was set with bottles of brown mustard, vinegar, and two kinds of mayo, including truffled mayo — the use of which should trigger automatic disqualification. But building my entry withoutolive oil, the life-giving elixir for any hoagie, would be like trying to play a stadium concert with your amp unplugged.
That’s when I knew it was time. I opened my cape, reached into my bag, and unveiled my secret weapon to the crowd: a jar of hoagie relish.
The secret ingredient
I lathered the spicy pepper spread on both sides of my rolls, aiming to impress the judges with a flash of juicy heat while also protecting the hinge. I tucked in my chosen ingredients, rolled my hoagies into shape, and delivered my tray to the judges: chef Bobby Saritsoglou of Stina (the recipient of multiple favorable restaurant reviews by yours truly), anonymous Instagram food critic Djour.philly, and Maria Maggio of Food Trade News.
They nibbled and scribbled while I waited, no longer feeling the squeeze. But suddenly I heard my name: I was the winner, with just two points more than Cannoli Crusher Dave.
Djour praised my hoagie’s “great ratio of salad to meat to wet fixins … (which) may or may not have been legally added.”
“We wanted to celebrate the Philadelphia hoagie,” wrote Saritsoglou. “And yours checked all the classic boxes (minus the olive oil, lol). My only regret was not jumping into that ring.”
Craig! Craig! Craig! Craig!
Was this crowd seriously chanting for me? Yes, they were! The emcee was holding a trophy high and calling back me in, and so I bounded up between the ropes, careful not to trip on my cape, and began babbling through a delirious ringside interview to recap the battle. Was I “having fun?” Oh yeah, you bet, as I took a tart and hoppy swig of Other Half’s Yuzu Queen from the chalice of my trophy.
It only felt real, though, when I spotted Castellino and her husband Matt in the crowd visibly cheering. I leaned into the mic and publicly thanked my hoagie whisperer in a Stallone-like croak of joy: “We did it, Cara Jo!”
It’s best for all I now graciously leave the sandwich-making stage to the professionals. No way would I ever wish to replace old favorites like Castellino’s, Lil’ Nicks, Pastificio, Farina di Vita, or upstart chef Reuben “Reuby” Asaram, whose hot pink “Undertikka” roll stuffed with Indian chicken tikka salad won the pro title — a reminder that Philly’s creative hoagie life force is infinite.
But for this one glorious afternoon, I put my critical cold cuts on the line. I paid tribute to Philly’s sandwich gods, fought to the crusty finish, and earned the title of “Hoagie Hero.”
Inquirer Restaurant Critic holds his “Hero of the Hoagie” trophy high inside the ring after winning a celebrity hoagie making competition held by the Delicious City Podcast at Other Half Brewing in Fishtown.
