CHEU FISHTOWN

You may have read my article about the five quirkiest restaurants in Philly, but I wanted to give you a real sample of one of them: a personal favorite, Cheu Fishtown. I had the pleasure of interviewing owner and head chef Ben Puchowitz about his inspiration behind his Jewish-Asian fusion concept, how the menu is constructed, and how the restaurant got its start and expanded from South Philly to Fishtown.

Article by Andie Goldmacher Photos by Randy Bach

CHEU&A

Q: What was your biggest inspiration behind Cheu, and specifically what inspired the Jewish-Asian fusion elements?

A: We opened the first iteration of Cheu on 10th and Spruce. During that time, I was inspired by Anthony Bourdain, as well as the other Asian-fusion restaurants going on at the time, like Momofuku and Mission Chinese in San Francisco. Asian-fusion was a trendy restaurant concept at the time, and I was obsessed with eating noodles. I’m a big noodle person; I ate noodles almost every day at that point, and I’m a big fan of Asian food in general. Before Cheu, I was the head chef of Madison, a fine dining BYOB in Rittenhouse, which served a weekly five-course tasting menu that changed themes every week but skewed towards Asian-inspired themes. One of my best friends who worked in marketing at Qdoba was working to start a business at the time, and proposed opening a restaurant together. As far as the Jewish elements of the menu, I’m Jewish. T, and the winter before the opening of Cheu, I ate at Mission Chinese for the first time. They had a special on the menu of matzo ball chicken ramen. I thought I could tweak this; I knew it worked as a soup since my grandma used to make matzo ball soup with little egg noodles, so I wanted to have a soup with a matzo ball in it. This dish sparked a lot of interest from the public.

Q: What was the process of creating the menu? Did you have to try a lot of different dishes before settling on the ones currently on the menu?

A: Cheu Fishtown is like a sequel to our first restaurant, with a lot of improvements. Cheu Fishtown has a lot more space and a bigger kitchen that can fit more people on the line. We took the main menu items from the original Cheu and expanded on those. We

Jewish-Asian Fusion

expanded some of the sections of the menu; we only had one dumpling at the original Cheu, but the menu for Cheu Fishtown has two to three. We have set classics from the original, but also riffed on new stuff. We didn’t have buns at the original Cheu, but now we have steamed pac-man buns on the menu. I like to have a structure and format for the menu, then plug in as needed. The menu always consists of something vegetarians would like that will get changed throughout the seasons, and a rice bowl dish whose toppings change for seasonal purposes. The menu changes three to four times a year, but the main core items never really change.

Q: What is the process for getting the fresh fish and other ingredients?

A: We don’t do a ton of fish, but the three main fresh fish we get in are tuna, hamachi, and salmon. We also get scallops and crab. We’ve learned from making mistakes over the years ordering-wise with different brands and purveyors. We use optimal purveyors; we use

True World for tuna, salmon and hamachi. Samuel’s is another fish company we use in tandem with True World that also delivers good products. We order produce from Baldor, which specializes in using local farms, and the system is almost like ordering from Amazon. It shows you where the food comes from in each case of produce you get.

Q: How did you guys choose the awesome firehouse that Cheu is in?

A: We have a relationship with a commercial real estate brokerage, and they send us emails and texts when they find a new, interesting space. We were looking for a new space at the time, and we got a text or per restaurant, and about 50 between the streetery and the patio. The two restaurants in one have 110 seats, whereas Cheu on 10th had 24. email that they found a place in Fishtown, so we went and looked at it. There wasn’t much on Frankford Avenue at that point, but since we opened, everything has opened past us. There was no City Fitness, or wine bar, or Suraya. It was a good time for us to get in because rent prices were pretty cheap at that point compared to now. Now rent prices are almost double what we paid. The best part about Fishtown are all the large warehouses; there aren’t too many large restaurants in South Philly, but Fishtown is basically all warehouses and big buildings, so once rents started going up, all the warehouses and retail that lived there for the ability to drive in trucks and park and the cheap rent moved out, and restaurant concepts moved in, so it’s an awesome area to be in.

Q: What is your favorite dish on Cheu’s menu?

A: It always changes, but I had dinner at Cheu two nights ago, and I had the Loco Moco, which is a play on a Hawaiian rice bowl dish, but not an authentic version of it because we changed the elements. It has short grain rice on the bottom, a miso chicken gravy, which is a bolognese-y type sauce, and kimchi and a fried egg on top. It’s a homey, warming rice bowl dish that fills you up nicely.

Q: How much bigger is Cheu Fishtown than the original Cheu?

When we opened in 2017, we had 35 seats, then we opened up the patio seating, which added another 25 seats. Now we have Nunu next door, which we combined with Cheu, and a streetery. There are 30 seats