This South Philly restaurant has a killer soup cocktail

Cocktails in Philly have been getting ever more savory, taking inspiration from pickles, salad, even soup — the last being the most seasonally timed. Several local bars like El Techo and Jerry’s Bar have even been poking fun at cocktail’s “soup season,” posting videos of people consuming their margaritas and espresso martinis with spoons, blowing on the sips as they go.

But there’s at least one soup cocktail taking the trend more seriously. Chef Thanh Nguyen’s signature pho cocktail at Gabriella’s Vietnam is a many-layered marvel. It’s not like drinking pho broth spiked with vodka. Instead, it’s warming and softly spicy — the heat hits the back of your throat and sinks into your chest — the beefiness only an umami-laden back note. It’s complex, mildly sweet, and more well-balanced than, say, a typical spicy margarita. A tiny squirt of Sriracha muddled with fresh culantro and ginger adds a soft orange hue.

“Culantro is what gives you the true pho flavor,” said Nguyen. “In South Vietnam, we use culantro more for pho than basil, which they do here [in Philly]. And of course, we need Sriracha.”

The cocktail is shaken up with fresh lime juice, simple syrup, and a mix of vodkas (one part pho-infused vodka, three parts plain vodka).

The liquor license at Gabriella’s (a two-time pick for The 76 most essential restaurants in Philadelphia) is a satellite license associated with Five Saints Distilling — allowing the restaurant to serve any beer, wine, and liquor made in Pennsylvania — and so the Norristown distillery’s line of spirits forms the backbone of Gabriella’s bar program.

There’s actual beef steeped in the vodka that forms the base of Gabriella’s pho cocktail. Thin slices of brisket and eye of round, like the ones in a typical bowl of phở tái, are seared, then crammed into the bottles of vodka, to sit for three weeks, creating a lava-lamp effect as they release droplets of fat into the liquid. At the three-week mark, the vodka is strained multiple times through coffee filters. (Nguyen discards the beef that infuses the vodka with its meaty flavor. I tried a bite before it went in the bin, but that was all: If I had kept on eating, I risked inebriation by beef.)

Next, toasted spices are added to the bottle: fresh ginger, star anise, coriander, fennel seed, cardamon, cloves, and cinnamon. “The exact same spices for when I made pho,” said Nguyen. The concoction steeps for another three weeks, “until it’s the color of Coke,” said Nguyen.

Nguyen approaches mixing cocktails with the mind of a chef. This is most apparent in this cocktail, which is simultaneously an ode to the pho she served at her former restaurant, Melody’s Vietnam Grill in Ambler, and to the medicinal concoctions her now 94-year-old grandfather made her drink as a child and, later, as a postpartum mother.

“He would make vodka — yes, homemade vodka — and put garlic, ginseng, or ginger in it. This was his medicine. He’s never taken any other medicine in his life,” said Nguyen. “After I had my daughter, he had me drink this liquor with ginger soaked in it.”

Pho-spiced cocktails are common in bars in Vietnam, made popular at upmarket places like the Michelin-starred Anan Saigon and the Anantara Hoi An (whose pho cocktail is heavily garnished with fresh cilantro and whole star anise). The cocktail is frequently credited to Hanoi bartender Pham Tien Tiep. But each of these versions take the inspiration of pho far less literally than Nguyen does.

“I don’t want to limit myself to one thing,” Nguyen said, explaining her experimentation behind the bar. “I love cooking but I have more fun behind the bar sometimes.” And she wants there to be constant crossover between her kitchen and bar. The passion fruit that her beef carpaccio is marinated in goes into her margarita. The kumquats that appear seasonally in her salads are muddled into her Saigon smash cocktail and blended into margaritas.

As for the future of her soup-based cocktails, Nguyen is working on developing a bún bò huế-infused vodka. “I’m still trying to get shrimp paste and lemongrass flavors to come through,” she said.