On the town: How to do SIPS like a pro | Let’s Eat

Center City District SIPS, the warm-weather happy-hour promotion, is launching its 20th season. We’ll help guide you through the tastier parts. Also this week, critic Craig LaBan reviews the new Radin’s Deli in Cherry Hill, there’s gnocchi being served out of a takeout window in Chinatown, and I do believe that I have found the toughest restaurant reservation in Center City. Read on.

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For its 20th anniversary as downtown Philly’s semiofficial Wednesday-night happy hour, Center City District SIPS — launching tonight — is delivering discounts from more than 70 businesses, a social area in Dilworth Park with a roller rink, and its own craft beer in a partnership with Broad Street Brewing.

In theory, 2024′s SIPS crowds should be larger than last year’s, as more businesses (and soon, the city government) are counting on workers to return to the offices. The pandemic idled SIPS in 2020 and 2021. The restart in 2022 and last year’s outing seemed to be well-attended.

The SIPS bullet points:

Like just about everything in Philly, people take sides on SIPS. Fans tout the camaraderie, detractors liken it to a giant frat basement. Perhaps it’s some of both — camaraderie in a small frat basement, maybe. All kidding aside, the food specials are easy on the budget and can expand your palate.

Want ideas? Here are 10:

Trend alert: Gnocchi served from a takeout window. They do it in Montreal (Drogheria Fine), New York (Gnocchi on 9th), and now in Philly at the new Gnocchi on Arch. Anna Maria Florio, aided by chef John Taus, slid open the window last week at La Cucina at the Market, her demo kitchen near Reading Terminal. Save room for the tiramisu.

Critic Craig LaBan visited Radin’s, the new Cherry Hill strip-mall home of Jewish deli king Russ Cowan, and lives to kvell about it. Craig, who’s followed Cowan and his pastrami for 25 years, says this may be his most heartfelt project yet.

Speaking of pastrami: The steamy, smoky, peppery cousin to corned beef is having a moment. Check out Craig’s guide to four of his favorites.

Famous 4th Street Deli, meanwhile, flunked a city health inspection last week, then reopened two days later. The owner owned up the deficiencies, and vowed to never let it happen again.

If you’ve ever wanted to get cheese, ice cream, or milk directly from the farm — maybe meet cows or a sheep or two along the whey — you have plenty of options. We’ve herded local-ish dairy outlets for you.

If food has you thinking about seeing a show, check out our latest “Two Critics, One Review” feature. With support from Visit Philadelphia, “Two Critics, One Review” is The Inquirer’s way of giving you two takes on the same show, so you can make the best decision about whether you want to go. This time, The Inquirer’s Rosa Cartagena and Earl Hopkins attended Once on This Island at Arden Theatre, a retelling of Hans Christian Andersen’s The Little Mermaid with a sprinkling of Romeo and Juliet. Read on for their joint review.

I’ll riff on the idea of “Two Critics, One Review” with something I call Two Destinations, One Parking Spot. For dinner within walking distance of the Arden in Old City is Radicchio Cafe, which has been turning out solid Italian food at Fourth and Wood Streets seemingly forever (well, since 2000). Radicchio recently added a service bar for wines and cocktails at your table (see it below), in anticipation of a renovation later this summer that will yield a larger bar with seating.

The Old City move of Han Dynasty from its grand quarters at 123 Chestnut St. into cozier digs down the street at 110 Chestnut is expected to be completed in about two weeks; shown above is the bar-in-progress last weekend. Han Dynasty has moved around on this block since 2010, when Han Chiang opened at 108 Chestnut. Three years later, he moved it into 123 Chestnut. Let me get you up to speed on Han Dynasty — but only if you agree to stop thinking you were the first to interpret “handynasty” as “handy nasty.” His backstory is here.

Char Pizza — Viraj Thomas’ itinerant pizzeria — has signed a lease for a brick-and-mortar. It will be at 310 Master St. in Kensington, the former eeva. Thomas just got the keys and says he expects to open in “maybe August.”

Vita. Sooo many secrets. When Massimo and Ana Boni chatted last year about the gelateria they were building in the front of the old Branzino restaurant on 17th Street near Rittenhouse Square, it was clear from their whispers and winks that more was in store. Turns out, they were planning an elegant restaurant tucked behind the gelateria’s red refrigerator door. (See my article here.)

Now that the restaurant behind the red door is also open, there are still more secrets. One: How do you get a table? Patience. To tune up the staff, the Bonis are keeping guest counts low at their hundred-seater. Resy is booked through July, and August’s tables go up July 1. You could cop a table or bar stool by using Resy’s waitlist. (Or know Massimo Boni’s cell number. )

The tree-shaded patio out back may open soon, boosting capacity.

Secret two: The menu, labeled as “sample menu,” is posted on their @morebehindthedoor Instagram. Here, for your inspection, are the drinks list (with tasty nonalcoholic sodas), the wine list (tight), and dessert lineup (much more than gelato).

Notes based on a quick stop the other night: Vita is low-lit with comfortable banquette and table seating, and lively airs that won’t make you yell over the synth-pop and Italian disco playlist. The bar’s pretty top lights from within, but the 10 seats are generally empty because they’re not yet taking walk-ins. Restrooms are downstairs, and while you wait, you can check out a neon mural (above).

The gamberi starter ($18) gets you six plump, head-on grilled prawns slicked with tomato, chili, lemon, and chives. Balanzoni ($28, shown below), a spinach pasta filled with sausage and topped with a buttery sauce perfumed with sage and nutmeg and studded with pistachio, cinched the executive chef’s job for Juan Urdaneta. The rigs in his rigatoni alla vodka ($23, shown above) are stubbier than the norm (rigatoncini? mezzi?), providing more surface area to showcase the sauce, thickened with mascarpone and popping with red pepper flakes.

When you’re finished, you’re not sent back through the refrigerator door into the gelateria. Rather, through the patio and down a side alley, back to 17th Street.

Vita, 261 S. 17th St. Dinner menu offered after 5 p.m. Thursday-Sunday by reservation only.

Home Cuban Cafe in Old City closed last week. Its owner told The Inquirer that the last several months had been especially hard, as she juggled her family life and the daily grind.

Classic Cake reopened in the Short Hills Town Center in Cherry Hill — across the parking lot from Radin’s Deli, incidentally — four years after the bakery was destroyed by fire. Hira Qureshi checks out the line of what they call “wow cakes.”

Stone’s Beer & Beverage Market will reopen following its renovation from noon-4 p.m. Saturday at 1701 Fairmount Ave. Stone’s opened in 1955, but was forced to close in 2022 so the landlord could tear down and rebuild. Local breweries and food business will sample, amid music, cornhole, spiked slushies, and swag.

This chef, with partners, recently opened an events space on the Main Line.

A) Mike Solomonov

B) Emeril Lagasse

C) Tod Wentz

D) Nick Elmi

Find out if you know the answer.

I saw an orange liquor-license application at the Battery, where that old power plant used to be off Delaware Avenue next to Penn Treaty Park. What’s up there? — Jonathan R.

Good eye. This will become a huge new indoor sporting facility called Ballers, with a turf field, sports bar, golf simulators, and space for racket games. Jake Blumgart, on top of our commercial real estate coverage, runs down the development, which will include a bar and restaurant.

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