Now you can order Parc en route to New York or D.C. Amtrak is rolling out dining experience with new dishes from Philly mainstays Parc, Pizzeria Stella, and Buddakan, in partnership with STARR Restaurant Group. But you’ll have to book a first class ticket on the NextGen and FirstGenAcelatrains to enjoy these favorites on board.
The options include: lasagna al forno,saucy lasagna with rich ricotta, mozzarella, and Parmesan cheese, from Pizzeria Stella. There’s also spiced black pepper marinated tenderloin topped with wok-tossed herbs, red finger chilies, and crispy Chinese crullers from Buddakan, or Parc’s rich, slow-simmered spaghettibolognese with crunchy garlic toast.
A server pushes a bar cart down the aisle of a business class car in a NextGen Acela
Onboard, Amtrak aims to offer the same culinary expertise enjoyed at Starr’s restaurant portfolio across Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor.
“Serving elevated offerings in Acela First Class in partnership with STARR Restaurant Group adds an exceptional touch to our customers’ experience onboard on our trains,” said Eliot Hamlisch, Amtrak’s executive vice president and chief commercial officer, in a statement.
Amtrak is also debuting two new dishes by executive chef David Gottlieb. There’s a caramelized apple bread pudding for breakfast and chilled harissa salmon for lunch and dinner.
In many cultures, Chinese New Year, which falls on Feb. 17 this year, is a holiday spent at home. It’s a time to get together with one’s family, preparing auspicious dishes that represent wealth, like spring rolls that mimic the appearance of gold bars and dumplings that are shaped like ancient gold ingots.
Here in Philadelphia, it is the perfect opportunity to get out and about within the wider Pan-Asian community. Several restaurants are joining forces to celebrate the Year of the Horse, collaborating on menus that combine different New Year’s traditions, while others have special one-offs and time-limited offerings to mark the event.
Philly observes a truly global version of Chinese New Year, whichissometimes called the Spring Festival, celebrating the end of winter and onset of spring. Chinese New Year is also known more inclusively in the U.S. as Lunar New Year, though not every East Asian or Southeast Asian community celebrates the New Year at the same time (or for the same length of time). For instance, Khmer New Year occurs between April 14 and 16 this year, and Tibetan New Year, or Losar, is Feb. 18. In Vietnam, Tết is celebrated for several weeks (longer than in most Chinese cultures).
The Year of the Snake is celebrated in Chinatown Sunday, Feb. 2, 2025, bringing in the Lunar New Year with a parade, lion dancers and fireworks.
If you’re celebrating at home, Chinatown’s grocery store shelves are well-stocked with essential New Year foods like seeds and nuts for good beginnings and plants that are considered lucky, like mandarin trees and bundles of willow branches. Vendors are now selling red envelopes for lai see, or lucky money, and red scrolls denoting traditional well wishes on most Chinatown street corners. Expect some restaurants to be closed for the holiday.
Here are some noteworthy opportunities to celebrate.
This list may be updated as new information becomes available.
Dinner series and collaborations
Lunar New Year dishes for a special collaboration dinner between Gabriella’s Vietnam and Ember and Ash.
Ember & Ash and Gabriella’s Vietnam’s “Smoke meets Saigon”
Scott and Lulu Calhoun, the owners of Passyunk’s Ember & Ash, are hosting their fifth annual Lunar New Year celebration, this time welcoming Gabriella’s Vietnam chef Thanh Nguyen. There will be Vietnamese street food-inspired bites to start, then meat and fish cooked over live fire, along with noodle dishes (denoting long life) and rice and vegetable sides.
Dinner is $75 per person (not inclusive of tax and a 20% auto-gratuity) and will be served family-style starting at 5 p.m. in staggered seatings throughout the evening. Reservations, available on Resy, are strongly encouraged.
Thanh Nguyen of Gabriella’s Vietnam and Lulu Calhoun of Ember and Ash test Lunar New Year recipes.
The Muhibbah dinner at BLDG39 at the Arsenal
The Muhibbah Dinner series was started by chef Ange Branca of Kampar in 2017 to celebrate diversity and raise money for immigrant and refugee nonprofits in Philadelphia. Its next iteration is on Feb. 16. While it isn’t strictly a New Year’s celebration, dinner will commence with a prosperity yee sang salad, which diners traditionally toss in the air with chopsticks.
Dinner is BYOB and tickets are $170 per person. Sales will benefit Puentes de Salud, a nonprofit that promotes the health and wellness of Philadelphia’s Latinx immigrant population. Tickets are available at muhibbahdinners.org/tickets.
Feb. 16, BLDG39 at the Arsenal, 5401 Tacony St., 215-770-6698, bldg39arsenal.com
Com.unity’s Tết collaboration dinner at Yakitori Boy
Ba Le Bakery, Cafe Nhan, Le Viet, Miss Saigon, and more are teaming up for Com.unity’s third annual Tết dinner, hosted this year at Yakitori Boy in Chinatown. After dinner, guests can walk over to the Lunar New Year Parade presented by the Chinatown PCDC and the Philadelphia Suns. Áo dài, or traditional Vietnamese outfits, and other formal garment are strongly encouraged.
There will be one 60-seat seating, with doors opening at 6:30 p.m. A cash bar will be available for the LNY cocktail menu from the Yakitori Boy team. Dietary restrictions cannot be accommodated. Dinner tickets are $108 per person and can be booked via a link accessed through Com.unity’s Instagram profile.
Feb. 16, Yakitori Boy, 211 N. 11th St., 215-923-8088, yakitoriboy.com
Chicken and ginger wontons from The Wonton Project by Ellen Yin.
Hot Pot at the Bread Room
Ellen Yin’s the Wonton Project will host Lunar New Year Hot Pot parties at the Bread Room for groups of six to eight ($125 per person, excluding tax and gratuity). The parties are inspired by an event the Bread Room hosted with Natasha Pickowicz, the author of the cookbook Everybody Hot Pot.
Diners will cook Lunar New Year menu staples together, such as noodles for longevity, Shanghai rice cakes, and dumplings for prosperity. There will also be whole fish on the menu and spring rolls. It will be available to book on OpenTable.
Feb. 17-21, the Bread Room, 834 Chestnut St., Suite 103, 215-419-5820, thebreadroomphl.com
Buddakan’s Lunar New Year brunch
Stephen Starr’s Buddakan will be serving a tasting menu of modern interpretations of traditional Chinese New Year dishes like trotter-stuffed spring rolls, Dungeness crab longevity noodles, whole fish with black bean sauce, as well as a horse-themed dessert (for the Year of the Horse). Brunch runs from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Seats are $75 per person (excluding tax or gratuity), with a four-person minimum for reservations. Reservations can be made on OpenTable. The Lunar New Year menu will also be available a la carte for parties of any size.
The Kensington-based Vietnamese coffee roaster and cafe will serve two specialty drinks based on Tết treats: a black sesame hojicha, consisting of black sesame paste, hojicha (roasted green tea), milk of choice, condensed milk, and topped with salted foam. “This drink reminds us of kẹo mè đen, which is a black sesame taffy usually found in the traditional Vietnamese Mứt Tết tray (the tray of dried fruits and candies),” said owner Thu Pham. They’re also making a black sesame banana matcha (black sesame paste, matcha, milk of choice, condensed milk, and topped with banana foam), reminiscent of kẹo chuối, a banana taffy also found in the traditional Vietnamese Mứt Tết candy tray.
Black sesame banana matcha and black sesame hojicha from Càphê Roasters for Lunar New Year 2026.
Luk Fu at Live! Casino
Luk Fu is serving an a la carte menu of very traditional Chinese New Year dishes such as braised pork trotters ($38), whole pompano ($48), and a New Year’s stir fry with spring vegetables and auspicious ingredients like snow peas, wood ear mushrooms, and sweet lapchong, or Chinese sausage ($28). Reservations are available on OpenTable.
At this Washington Avenue institution, you can pick up Tết essentials like the cylindrical bánh tét ($20) and square-shaped bánh chưng ($25), savory rice cakes made with mung beans and pork belly and wrapped in banana leaves. Takeout only. Order online.
Available now until Feb. 18 (or until sell-out), Ba Le Bakery, 606 Washington Ave., 215-389-4350, balebakery.com
The National Labor Relations Board is pursuing charges against Philadelphia-based restaurateur Stephen Starr and his company, Starr Restaurants, over union-busting allegations at his D.C. steakhouse St. Anselm, according to documents reviewed by The Inquirer.
The NLRB’s case revolves around anti-union activity that Local 25 alleges occurred in February at St. Anselm, one of three D.C.-based Starr restaurants that sought a union at the start of 2025 and the only one where workers voted to unionize.
The complaint consolidates a set of unfair labor practice (ULP) allegations Local 25 initially filed to the NLRB on behalf of St. Anselm workers, who said that Stephen Starr and a St. Anselm supervisor directly coerced employees with false information, made promises of improved benefits if they voted against unionizing, and threatened loss of revenue if they voted for it.
In one instance, the complaint alleges, Starr “interrogated” a St. Anselm staffer about their union involvement during a one-on-one conversation.
A delegation of workers pose in front Stephen Starr’s D.C. steakhouse St. Anselm before delivering their union petition in Feb. 2025.
The ULP filings were submitted to the NLRB in June. After investigating, the board’s general counsel found merit in the accusations that Starr Restaurants, Starr, and the supervisor violated the National Labor Relations Act. It is now set to bring the charges before an administrative judge on Feb. 24, 2026.
“We are aware of the complaint and strongly disagree with the allegations made therein,” a Starr Restaurants spokesperson for St. Anselm said in a statement. “We look forward to vigorously defending this case through the litigation process.”
The spokesperson declined to address whether Starr spoke directly with St. Anselm employees about union efforts, citing pending litigation.
“It speaks volumes about what happened at this restaurant that, given the challenges that the NLRB is facing, that [general counsel] have chosen to act on this issue,” said Benjy Cannon, Local 25’s communication director, referring to the staffing shortages the agency has faced.
A spokesperson for the NLRB declined to comment.
A contentious dynamic from the start
In January, workers at three of Starr’s sevenD.C restaurants announced plans to unionize with Local 25: French bistro Pastis, Parc-inspired brasserie Le Diplomate, and St. Anselm, an outpost of the upscale Brooklyn steakhouse. The Starr workers, along with employees at two high-profile restaurants affiliated with Knightsbridge Restaurant Group, would’ve ultimately added 500 members to Local 25, if the drives proved successful.
Nearly a year later, both union campaigns remain caught up in litigation.
A picket line outside of Stephen Starr’s D.C. restaurant Le Diplomate is led by Unite Here Local 25 after Starr Restaurants challenged a unionization vote at St. Anselm.
Relations between Starr Restaurants and organizers there turned acrimonious almost immediately. The Washingtonian magazine reported that Starr Restaurants hired anti-union consultants from the American Labor Group to meet with St. Anselm staff. Other employees there told online publication Eater that Local 25 organizers had ambushed them at their homes and pressured them to sign cards that indicate they want to vote for union representation.
Only workers at St. Anselm voted to unionize in February. Local 25 lost the union election at Pastis by a margin of 20 votes, and Le Diplomate’s election has been suspended indefinitely as of March.
Starr Restaurants has yet to recognize the St. Anselm union and filed an objection to the results with the NLRB in February, alleging that Local 25 organizers unfairly influenced the outcome through a campaign of bullying and intimidation. The case remains open.
What workers say
Working conditions at St. Anselm have been a mixed bag, according to Ana Reyes, who has been a line cook at the steakhouse since 2022. The fast-paced workplace allowed her to make enough money to help put her youngest daughter through her freshman year of college, Reyes said in Spanish through an interpreter. But, she said, management often ridiculed employees who didn’t speak English, telling them to learn the language if they wanted to get questions answered about pay or scheduling.
Greg Varney (left) and Ana Reyes, both with Unite Here Local 25, outside Starr headquarters at 134 Market St. as they work to unionize.
Reyes, 43, told The Inquirer that she wanted to join Local 25 for respect: “Whether we speak English or not, we deserve to be respected because we’re doing the work they don’t want to do.”
About two weeks into the union drive in February, Reyes recalled, Starr personally asked to meet with all morning-shift staffers. During the meeting, she said, Starr was “surprised to learn that we didn’t get raises each year … and promised to look into it.”
“He made a lot of promises about sick pay, about vacation pay,” Reyes said. She added that nothing has changed to date.
One host at St. Anselm spoke to The Inquirer on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation. About four months into working there, she said, Starr asked to chat with her alone, pulling her aside in a near-empty restaurant to ask questions about any problems she had and her involvement in the union.
“I certainly felt cornered and uncomfortable,” she said. Starr “ultimately told me that supporting the union was [quote-unquote] delusional, and that if I voted no, it would be in my own best interest.” The host departed St. Anselm a month later for a full-time customer service job.
Dennis Asaka, a St. Anselm bartender, doesn’t recall Starr making any promises about improved wages or benefits when he sat in on a voluntary informational meeting led by the restaurateur.
In late 2024, however, Asaka recalled a new server at St. Anselm, asking to join him for Bible study at his Baptist church in Arlington. After attending a second meeting, Asaka said, the server invited him to her house to discuss their faith. There, Asaka said he was instead met by several coworkers who pressured him into signing a union card. Asaka declined.
“I felt like I was kind of blindsided and just kind of used a little bit,” Asaka said.
Cannon denies the union ever engaged in such conduct: “We don’t believe that there were any labor laws broken.”
Stephen Starr (right) talks with Erik Battes, Starr Restaurants’ executive vice president of food and beverage, during at a menu-tasting for the Italian restaurant Borromini, in Philadelphia, July 1, 2025.
What happens next?
Unfair labor practice charges are common, said Rutgers University labor and employment law professor James M. Cooney, and cover a variety of tactics that employers or unions can use to interfere with union elections, from retaliation and coercion to promising incentives. Once a ULP is filed, a regional NLRB will launch an investigation. If the board believes there’s merit, they will issue a complaint.
After the hearing, both parties can appeal the administrative law judge’s decision with the NLRB at the federal level, which can decide to uphold and or reject the decision. There’s no punitive damages on the table in most ULP complaints, Cooney said, only an admittance of wrongdoing.
The five-member federal NLRB has been in a bureaucratic standstill since January, when President Donald Trump fired board member Gwynne Wilcox. The move left the independent agency without a quorum, forcing the NLRB to leave hundreds of cases in limbo.
So, why then did the NLRB decide to wade into union drama at one D.C steakhouse?
Because the charges are “old school, really in-your-face-type labor violations,” said Cooney.
“These violations appear to be really egregious that the board just couldn’t overlook them. It’s true that the board isn’t moving on a lot cases, but this one may be easier for them to prove,” Cooney said. “Everybody knows you can’t threaten workers for supporting a union, and you can’t make promises. This is labor law 101.”
Former President Joe Biden waves to the crowd gathered outside Stephen Starr’s Rittenhouse Square restaurant Parc, where he dined for lunch with his family in April 2023.
Starr is a registered Democrat who has donated thousands of dollars to campaigns for politicians including Tom Wolfe, Barack Obama, Sen. John Fetterman, and Hillary Clinton, according to OpenSecrets.org. His restaurants are common stomping grounds for D.C’s political elite, including former President Joe Biden.
In June, Local 25 called for a boycott of Starr’s three buzziest D.C. restaurants (all currently uninvolved in union efforts). To date, 88 members of Congress signed on, including Sen. Bernie Sanders, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortes, and Sen. Chuck Schumer.
Cooney does not think the NLRB’s complaint has partisan motivations. “The board has been historically apolitical” at the regional level, he said.
Regardless, the stakes of the proceedings are high for all parties, including employees.
If St. Anselm is forced to recognize the union, Asaka said he’d quit. “I have [health] insurance that includes dental and medical. I have a 401(k) plan. I have commuter reimbursement … I have paid vacation. Those are things that don’t really happen in restaurants,” he said. “I have everything I need.”
