Modern bistro Banshee brings needed spark to a stretch of South Street

After I first tasted chef Bryan Donovan’s winter citrus salad at Banshee, I couldn’t stop thinking about it for weeks. It’s essentially a pile of fruit, but tastes like sunshine in a bowl. Dig deeper, and you’ll find contrasting shades of sweet-tart juice bursting from the various oranges and pomelo, with the subtle salty-sour curveball of pickled umeboshi plum in the background. Then comes the sneaky richness of brown butter and vanilla, the pop of toasted pine nuts, tart sumac, spicy Aleppo pepper, and minty purple shiso leaves on top.

This is the kind of ultra-seasonal dish that makes me wish this otherwise tiresome winter was not quite over, because it’s soon to disappear off the bistro’s menu. It’s also the kind of cooking that makes me excited for what’s next — not only for Banshee, but also for this stretch of South Street West that’s been in search of a high-level culinary destination for as long as I can remember.

It remains a mystery as to why some neighborhoods take off as red-hot restaurant districts while others that show promise never gain quite enough heat. But there’s always at least one logical explanation that begins with real estate. Ben Puchowitz, now a real estate broker and restaurant investor but best known for his matzo ball-ramen fusion during his chef days at the long-gone Cheu Noodles, has a simple theory as to why the 10 or so commercial blocks of South Street west of Broad have never quite caught the spark.

“There are a lot of [spaces with] small footprints less than 1,000 square feet where you can’t fit a large kitchen. That makes it hard to do something ambitious from a menu standpoint,” he said.

No doubt, there are a handful of small restaurants doing good work on South Street West, from the Vietnamese-fusion cafes Saigon Grace and the Breakfast Den to the Cameroonian flavors of Chateau Rouge. One of Philly’s iconic dive bars, Bob and Barbara’s Lounge, has been a fixture for more than half a century. Rex at the Royal has successfully stirred festive visions of shrimp and grits’ Southern grandeur. But surprisingly for a bustling retail stretch convenient to both Rittenhouse and Graduate Hospital, there’s been little of destination-dining consequence since the closure of pioneering BYOB Pumpkin in 2024. (Illata is one notable exception, but that fearless BYOB is on Gray’s Ferry Avenue, just below South at 23rd Street.)

Puchowitz and his partner, Shawn Darragh, hope to change that narrative with Banshee. And considering some of the more exciting plates and buzzy energy generated by Bryan, 34, and his twin brother, Kyle, the general manager, I believe they have a chance.

Banshee’s crisp, modern menu has virtually nothing to do with the cheeky Jewish-Asian fusions that Puchowitz and Darragh became known for at Cheu and Bing Bing Dim Sum, which they ran for a decade before closing them in 2024. Now they’re the impresarios here, giving a worthy, contemporary-bistro stage to Bryan — who started at Cheu before moving to New York, where he worked for the Four Horsemen and Bar Contra — and Kyle, who was Bing Bing’s manager during its final years.

I loved the herbal smack of dill steeped into the green mignonette that dapples the briny East Coast oysters. Hamachi crudo has become a menu cliché, but thick-sliced pads of this raw fish are delicious when paired with a marinade as bright as Banshee’s, a tropical passion fruit vinaigrette punchy with three kinds of chilies, citrus, and Thai basil.

Bryan’s chicory salad is another knockout, its zippy Dijonnaise dressing balanced with juicy slices of sweet Comice pears and shaved Midnight Moon, a nutty aged goat cheese. (If the now-obligatory radicchio salad topped with shaved Alpine cheese has become the Caesar salad of the moment, I’m OK with it when it’s this good.)

Leeks have made a bistro comeback, and I appreciated these tender alliums, which were a perfect canvas for the richness of broiled Comté cheese and the briny spark of boquerones laced over top. They were dusted with the breadcrumbs left over from the excellent house-baked sourdough (which I recommend ordering with good French beurre de baratte), a dish typical of Bryan’s cooking, layered with tiny little touches.

The chef’s combinations don’t always land in sync. The mussels in harissa broth was off because two key elements were overcooked — the mollusks too chewy, the marble-sized hakurei turnips mushy. I much preferred the grilled mackerel with Brussels sprouts and smoked clams on the earlier menu to the current fish entree of koji-glazed swordfish with brown butter and foamy seafood stock, which triggered an unpleasantly fishy backnote on normally mild-mannered swordfish. I enjoyed the contrast of the bright txakoli wine vinegar sabayon and the maple-sweetened carrot glaze on the grilled Kyoto carrots, but smokiness overpowered the dish.

Bryan’s earthy, veg-forward reinterpretation of Alsatian tarte flambée was startlingly different from the traditional dish that inspired it, but it grew on me. I initially found its crackery semolina base too dark and austere for a dish that typically features unctuous bacon, creamy fromage blanc, and caramelized onions. As I ate it, though, I came to appreciate this flatbread on its own terms: a woodsy snack of smoked cream mingled with maitake mushrooms and onions in many forms (caramelized, raw, roasted), dusted with chives and powdered green onion tops. It’s the kind of starter that will compel you to take a drink and pique your appetite without weighing you down.

There are a handful of larger plates on this concise menu worth sticking around for. The grilled Ibérico pork collar, a now popular cut of tender and flavorful pork, is lacquered with a sweet-tart glaze of dates and balsamic vinegar, then fanned over char-roasted cabbage and the comforting softness of tarbais beans enriched with brown butter.

Banshee is yet another restaurant to join the parade of fancy chicken entrees in Philly pushing $40 (apparently a bargain compared to the $50-plus-bird trend in New York). But at least it is splendid: half of a spatchcocked 5-pounder that’s brined, par-roasted, then crisped to finish with schmaltz before it’s set over an olive oil-whipped puree of Marcona almonds and chicken jus infused with bright and fruity habanada peppers. Definitely big enough to share.

Banshee fits right into the wave of sleek new wine bars showcasing oysters and sharing plates of all sizes that have been fashionable of late elsewhere across the city, from Tesiny in Dickinson Narrows to Fleur’s in Kensington, and Sao and Supérette on East Passyunk. Banshee brings an earthier touch to its corner at 16th and South, where the former Tio Flores has been transformed into a mid-century modern space with rustic bands of dark mushroom wood accenting the white-and-blue facade and the interior walls of the 48-seat dining room and bar, which is otherwise airy with cool natural tones of blonde ash.

Darragh, who’s gone into commercial construction since closing Bing Bing, helped design the space with Lance Saunders from Stokes Architecture and the overall effect is stylish, but not stuffy. With cushy striped banquettes lining the curtained 16th Street windows and splashes of red and blue, it has a polished amber glow that suits a date-night outing with the promise of local celeb spottings. (Eagle Jordan Mailata was dining behind me at on my first visit. Award-winning podcaster Matt Katz was at a separate table, loving his agrodolce-glazed pork collar.)

Of course, with all that wood on the floors and ceiling, it means that to be heard in Banshee, you need to scream like one, too. Our enthusiastic servers were well-informed on the affordable list of natural wines, but I could hardly hear whether they were recommending the txakolina or zweigelt rosé on draft, Pray Tell’s tasty local Orange Popsicle, or a nicely chilled Beaujolais gamay.

Only the happy rattle of bartender Mary Wood shaking my sesame-scented Password cocktail over ice seemed to rise above the din. The drink list’s savory-leaning cocktails and light-bodied, high-acid wines are well-tuned to complement Donovan’s globally influenced menu.

No one in Banshee’s kitchen has a background in pastry, and that showed in an unfortunate early riff on a Butterscotch Krimpet (terribly dry) and various panna cottas bouncy with too much gelatin.

But the baked Alaska here is pure fun, a fudgy chocolate cookie topped with mint ice cream that’s then buried in a swirling mound of retro meringue. Torched to order before it’s brought through the dining room in all its head-turning glory, it’s a festive finale that feels like an event.

Yes, Banshee still has some details to iron out. But it also seems like the beginning of something exciting and new that this stretch of South Street has been waiting for.

1600 South St., 267-876-8346, bansheephl.com

Dinner nightly, 5-10 p.m.

Entree-sized plates, $23-$39.

About 80% of menu is naturally gluten-free, and more can be modified.

Wheelchair accessible.

Street parking only.

Menu Highlights: Winter citruses; oysters with dill mignonette; hamachi crudo; chicory salad; house sourdough; tarte flambée; braised leeks; pork collar; roast chicken; baked Alaska.

Drinks: Well-crafted modern takes on cocktails lead the way, with hits like the Dirty Banshee (a garlicky martini with a blue cheese-stuffed olive), the shaken rum-and-whiskey drink scented with sesame called the Password, or the chili-sparked mezcal-rum blend Burn After Reading. About a dozen natural wines that lean light, bright, and minerally are available by the glass, along with a small collection of well-chosen beers, mostly local, and 20 amari and digestivi to finish the meal.