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foodanddrink
feedingfrenzy D A N YA H E N N I N G E R
By Caroline Russock
➤ NOW SEATING
The Fat Ham | Kevin Sbraga is going west (as in West Philly) with his latest Southern-thinking venture, The Fat Ham. And while the “bones” of this place might be down-home, the menu is full of Sbraga innovation, like potato-chip-crusted macaroni and cheese, Carolina Gold rice with Sea Island peas and oxtails, and country-fried lobster tail, the Sbraga restaurant dish that started it all. Behind the bar there are are plenty of brown spirits as well as a few draft cocktails and a craft beer list that focuses on brews from south of the Mason-Dixon line. Mon.Thu., 5-10 p.m.; Fri.-Sat., 5-11 p.m.; 3131 Walnut St., 215-735-1914, fat-ham.com. Rosa Blanca | Jose Garces has transformed the former home of Chifa into a shiny new Cuban diner. The fare is Miami approved from milky-sweet, pulled-toorder cortaditos to flaky guava-and-cheese pastries to a mean Cuban sandwich. It’s also worth a mention that Rosa Blanca opens every morning at 7 a.m. for desayunos Cubanos, and the kitchen goes until last call on weekends for late-night empanadas and cocktails. Mon.-Thu. and Sun., 7 a.m.-midnight; Fri.-Sat., 7 a.m.-2 a.m; 707 Chestnut St., 215-9255555, rosablancadiner.com. Avance | The storied space that housed Le BecFin for so many years has been entirely rehauled to make way for Avance. The sleek space is the ideal canvas for Michelin-starred chef Justin Bogle to roll out his forward-thinking menu, combining elements of molecular gastronomy and loads of local producers. Opening highlights include arctic char with apple and fennel, an oh-so-in-fashion brassicas plate and a killer lamb burger available in the cozy bar along with some serious wines by the glass and kitchen-inspired cocktails. Tue.-Sat., 5-10 p.m., 1523 Walnut St., 215-405-0700, avancephiladelphia.com. Got A Tip? Please send restaurant news to restaurants@ citypaper.net or call 215-558-2646, ext.
TOP OF THE POPS: Nick Elmi with his daughter Grace and son Wesley at Laurel, Elmi’s East Passyunk restaurant. NEAL SANTOS
[ family meal ]
DADS ON THE LINE For two Top Chefs, fatherhood is the hardest and most rewarding job. By Adam Erace n the 10th episode of the current season of Top Chef: New Orleans, when tasked with cooking a dish that reminded him of home, Nick Elmi made his daughter’s favorite — gnocchi with pancetta, Parmesan and peas. “I feel a form of guilt because I missed a lot of my daughter’s first year,” the 33-year-old owner of Laurel on East Passyunk told the camera. “I missed her first steps, her first words — basically everything, More on: because I was working so much. My kids are only gonna be this age for such a short period of time, and it goes really, really fast.” Here, Elmi’s voice, normally as even as a carpenter’s level, cracked like a windshield struck by a pebble. “And I’m missing a lot of it.” When you think of dads being away from their kids, you think of the workaholic attorney in the corner office, the high-powered CEO, the traveling executive living out of suitcases and Courtyard Marriotts. White-collar, corporate-America stuff. Not chefs. But a cook’s hours are long, life-gnawing and arduous. Days start early and end late. Weekends are work nights. Thanksgiving and
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Christmas are about as sacred as Groundhog and Arbor days. It’s not a schedule that you’d call family friendly. Yet many chefs sign up for fatherhood, a second full-time position even more challenging than steering a busy kitchen through the weeds. When Grace, now 3, was born, Elmi was still chef of a slowly sinking Le Bec-Fin. “It was tough to begin with, with the recession, then having to count pennies just to keep the business open,” he says. “Every day, Georges [Perrier] was threatening to close, and it was just me and a sous chef, 14 hours a day, six days a week. My wife would just send me pictures while I was at work — the first time she stood up, the first time she crawled. You get your first child’s life through small texts and pictures.” During his year as chef of Rittenhouse Tavern, Elmi’s schedule was more lax, and when his wife, Kristen, MORE FOOD AND gave birth to their son, Wesley, almost 2, he DRINK COVERAGE “was taking almost two days off a week,” he AT C I T Y P A P E R . N E T / says. “I was able to hang out with them and M E A LT I C K E T. see things happen.” Then came Top Chef, which filmed this past May through July. “It was hard to go and hard to be away,” Elmi says. “Before going, I called Kevin Sbraga and asked him: If he knew everything he knew today about the show, would he do it again?” “Top Chef was one of the hardest things I’ve done,” says Sbraga, who has two kids: Jenae, 8, and Angelo, 3. “But if you don’t strike when you can, you can miss out.” >>> continued on page 22
C I T Y PA P E R . N E T | J A N U A R Y 2 - J A N U A R Y 8 , 2 0 1 4 | P H I L A D E L P H I A C I T Y PA P E R |
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