All posts tagged Philly

July 30: The 2012 Philly Pig Dinner at Mémé

by Drew Lazor on June 25, 2012 in Chef News with No comments

Two weeks back, six Philly chefs made their way up to NYC’s James Beard House to cook the very first collaborative Pig Dinner off their home turf. Chef David Katz, who launched this porky tradition at his restaurant Mémé in 2009, invited John Taus (The Corner), Terence Feury (Fork, until next month), Peter Woolsey (Bistrot La Minette), Michael Solomonov (Zahav) and Jennifer Carroll (Carroll Couture Cuisine) up with him to crank out the multi-course meal, the only stipulation being that every plate had to include a porcine element in some way. Those who couldn’t make the trip up for the occasion should start thanking their lardo-coated stars — on Monday, July 30, Katz is getting the crew back together for a second run, at his spot right here in Philly.

In contrast to previous events, which featured a pair of seatings, 2012′s Pig Dinner 2.0 will have only one, and it’ll be capped at 30 people. All the chefs from the New York field trip are returning, and this go-’round will feature some choice additions to the crew, too. Starting at 7 p.m., Nick Macri, Southwark sous chef and charcuterie assassin, will be slicing his handmade salumi (hearing rumors about an Old Bay salami) along with a whole roast suckling pig and hors d’oeuvres via Katz and his kitchen. And mercenary pastry chef Monica Glass, a past Pig Dinner participant, is joining the fun this year on the sweet side of things. Michael Madrigale, the Philly-boy sommelier of NYC’s Bar Boulud and Boulud Sud, will handle choice wine pairings for the six-course meal, which kicks off at 7:45.

Mémé will begin taking reservations by phone (215-735-4900) this coming Wednesday, June 27. The price is $200 a head. Cancellations must be made no later than 48 hours before the event; guests will be charged $100 a person for cancelling anytime after the two-days-before mark.

Photo: David M. Warren, Philadelphia Inquirer

That’s Your Queue: Behind the Shake Shack Line

by Drew Lazor on June 15, 2012 in Openings with No comments
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The greatest trick Danny Meyer ever pulled? Convincing the world that it wants to wait in The Line.

Since 2004, when the effervescent restaurateur opened his first Shake Shack in New York City, Meyer’s dealt with heavy queues — snaking through Madison Square Park regardless what’s falling from the sky, trickling out of a glitzy Theater District doorway, packing a greenified courtyard on the Upper East Side. Now, with Philadelphia’s one-week-old Shake Shack spreading crinkle-cut love all over Center City, The Line has a permanent 215 area code. It clings to the eastern wall of Shack’s former-dry-cleaner digs, stretching, at its longest, to the corner of 20th and Moravian, where late lunch-rush arrivals stare at their shoes, closer to Tower Style Pizza‘s graffiti’d Dumpster than to chilly salvation via Termini cannoli-studded “Liberty Shell” concrete.

And that’s precisely how the founder and CEO of Union Square Hospitality Group wants it. “We didn’t engineer having the line,” Meyer told CNBC in 2010, “but we did embrace it.”

At first exasperated glance, The Line seems impenetrable, interminable and not even remotely worth waiting in, lest ye be clowned by your Philly friends for liking something tourists also like. But for some reason, This Line is different, standing out from Sabrina’s sidewalk clusters or Village Whiskey‘s pert we’ll-call-you promises. “There is nothing particularly innovative about any single component of Shake Shack,” writes Meyer in his 2006 service-industry sacred text Setting the Table. “The key, as always, [is] how we might blend all the components to make it feel original.”

That statement, perhaps intentionally, glosses over the quiet power of The Line. “For a restaurant that takes no table reservations, the existence of a line means that patrons are willingly making the choice to wait for their food while standing,” Meyer tells me. “[We] make sure there’s something so good at the end of the rainbow. Smiles and good food are a good start.”

Kicking rocks while waiting to grub at a popular joint staffed by shinyhappypeople is nothing new (hi, In-N-Out), but the Shack’s ravenous queue possesses this very particular and very sincere twinkle, free frozen custard samples and friendly curbside employee banter notwithstanding. Why do we wait in The Line? And why is everyone in The Line so calm and cool, especially here in Philly, where we are traditionally not calm and not cool about anything? I visited Shake Shack on a beautiful afternoon last week in search of answers.

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