Your first look at Ellen Yin’s Italian hangout | Let’s Eat

Ellen Yin is about to open a chichi all-day bar in Rittenhouse, and we take you inside.

Also in this edition:

— Mike Klein

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High Street Hospitality founder and James Beard Award winner Ellen Yin is just about ready to hit Rittenhouse with Bar Cicci, an all-day drop-in for espresso and pastries by morning, sandwiches by day, and spritzes, cicchetti, and small plates by night. Join Beatrice Forman on Sansom Street for your first look.

Shore season isn’t done yet, and neither are farmers markets, which have seen an uptick in business locally in the midst of a cyclospora outbreak. Hira Qureshi maps out where you can buy local produce, baked goods, and more at markets down the Shore.

Besides Bar Cicci, a half-dozen new restaurants are on tap this month, including Recipe Philly in Center City, Cecilia in Bridgeport, and Mixteca in East Kensington, where the red, white, and green of la bandera figures into the signature cocktail.

Lancaster Avenue in Ardmore, one of the Main Line’s busiest commercial strips, is now home to two new dessert shops. Denali Sagner explains that one specializes in tea, cakes, and buns, while the other celebrates the mango.

Canned-cocktail brand Top Dog is setting up listening rooms in Kennett Square and Fishtown, embracing the Japanese jazz kissa model — a music cafe or bar that’s focused on listening to vinyl records. Brooke Schultz chatted up Top Dog’s Ken Smukler, who aims to deliver an “analog feel in a digital world.” The Fishtown location is tiny. It used to be an ATM.

The handmade tarts from Market Day Canelé layer summer tomatoes over a corn custard with cremini and button mushrooms, herb-roasted cotto ham, eggs, and Gruyère in a flaky crust. Kiki Aranita says you have to act fast to snap one up.

Two chefs have made big professional strides from their roots in Roxborough, and now they’re coming home to Manayunk to take over the Winnie’s space with a “punk French” eatery.

Aldar Bistro in Bala Cynwyd is giving way after 34 years to a white-tablecloth Southern Italian restaurant called Bruzi.

Does a spate of restaurant-closing announcements — such as Hiroki, Federal Donuts & Chicken, and the Lodge by Two Robbers — portend industry doom? No, and I’ll explain why not.

Gabriella’s Vietnam in South Philadelphia is counting down to closing in mid-December as the new owner of her building is planning a restaurant of their own. Chef-owner Thanh Nguyen told Kiki Aranita that she is looking for a new spot.

Side Eye, the Queen Village bistro, gets a bit of side eye from critic Craig LaBan, who likes the vibe and pricing but thinks the execution could be sharper.

New drive-thru coffee option: The syndicated 7 Brew has opened at 4000 Woodhaven Rd. in Northeast Philadelphia’s Knights Road Shopping Center.

More bagels are coming round: Central Florida-based Jeff’s Bagel Run — schmeared with private-equity investment — has cinched a franchisee for 10 stores from the Harrisburg area east through Reading and the Lehigh Valley to suburban Philadelphia. No leases have been signed, the company announced in a press release.

Cantina la Martina’s fourth annual Cemita Festival returns from 11 a.m.-4 p.m. Sunday at the Garden Center across from Mural City Cellars (1825 Frankford Ave). Six restaurants will each serve interpretations of Puebla’s iconic cemita sandwich for $16: Cantina la Martina, Gilda, Bolo, Vientiane Bistro, Cinteotl Tamalli, and Los Cuatro Soles Restaurant. Also: beverages from Mural City Cellars, DJ Cali Rumba, dance performances by Danza Tonantzin Cultura, face painting, and artisan vendors. It’s pay-as-you-go. Some cemita vendors are cash only.

Post Haste in East Kensington will become Philadelphia’s only participant in the inaugural Global Pay What You Can Day on Aug. 26, joining restaurants from Mexico City to Mumbai in a one-day effort to make dining more accessible. Guests can order whatever they’d like and pay what they can (excluding alcohol), building on chef Ari Miller’s weekly pay-what-you-can program launched earlier this year. (Miller is married to Inquirer staff writer Kiki Aranita.)

The Fishtown Pickle Project is taking its annual pickle-themed dinner outside of Fishtown for the first time. The Aug. 27 edition will have founders Niki Toscani and Mike Sicinski in Rittenhouse to collaborate with Uchi on a nine-course, pickle-centric tasting menu (e.g. oysters with giardiniera, yellowtail with pickled peach, salmon with pickled enoki, and a dessert featuring pickle jam). Seatings: 6 and 8:30 p.m. Tickets: $125 per person, plus tax and gratuity.

Chef Chaz Brown, in partnership with Forman Arts Initiative, will present the third annual Oxtail Collective from 1-5 p.m. Aug. 30 at the Substation in Kensington. Titled “The Hercules Posey Celebration” — after George Washington’s enslaved chef — the event will bring together Black chefs, historians, artists, and entrepreneurs to explore the intersections of food, culture, business, and history while serving as an early public introduction to Forman’s future 100,000-square-foot arts campus. Participating chefs include Chad Williams of Friday Saturday Sunday, Omar Tate and Cybille St. Aude-Tate of Honeysuckle, and Shola Olunloyo of Studiokitchen. PBS NewsHour’s Geoff Bennett will moderate panels, and the program also includes tastings from 15 chefs, cooking demos, and a marketplace featuring Black-owned businesses. Tickets ($92.55, including fees) are on sale.

Delicious City Philly Podcast’s second annual Hoagie Throwdown has a date: Sept. 27, from noon-4 p.m., at Other Half Brewing in Fishtown, drawing 20 chefs, restaurants, delis, and sandwich makers to compete. There will be unlimited hoagie samples, beer/soft drinks, and pro wrestlers grappling. (Last year’s outing was a scene: The Inquirer’s Craig LaBan, in a Zorro mask and big hat, went through hoagie-making boot camp.) The podcast has made 500 tickets available and early pricing starts at $55.

Which Pennsylvania farm crop is in the crosshairs of the U.S. Department of Commerce?

A) mushrooms

B) hay/alfalfa

C) corn

D) apples

Find out if you know the answer.

What is going on at 117 Chestnut St.? The restaurant 117 is closed already and it just opened. — Chris D.

Old City restaurant 117, which opened only last November, posted a note on Instragram last week that it had closed “due to circumstances beyond our control.” According to Philadelphia court records, the restaurant was evicted over back rent.

The space’s previous occupant, the Avery, also had a very short run last year. Previous occupants had better luck: 2nd Story Brewing Co. closed in 2024 after a decade and was the last to use the brewing equipment installed by Triumph Brewing Co. for its own run from 2007 to 2014.

Adding intrigue now is the liquor license application that was filed at 117 Chestnut St. last week in the name “Finish Your Champagne LLC.” Finish Your Champagne is the name of the long-in-the-works Columbus Boulevard cocktail bar project from Kevin Dolce, owner of Center City’s Taste Cheesesteak Bar and Savù. Dolce declined comment.

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