In a North Philly writing lab, young food critics are born — after being duped

Olde Kensington’s hottest pop-up restaurant is Fancy Pants Café. Located outside a repurposed 19th-century schoolhouse, this edgy al fresco destination has everything — 128-year-old bricks, a $20 PB&J, primo views of an idyllic graveyard shaded by moody sycamores. And when I stopped by for lunch last week, I discovered that this white-hot boîte draws an exclusive clientele: a hungry mob of terrifying young food writers, deeply perturbed by the inedible slop being served.

Fancy Pants really did materialize beside a historic building — Second Street’s Crane Old School, whose classrooms now host painters, sculptors, and the avant-garde theater troupe Pig Iron. And it really abuts an old cemetery, one belonging to St. Michael’s Catholic parish up the block. But it’s not a real café, no matter how convincing the precious menu or communal tables decorated with flower-filled Ball jars might be.

This was an exercise dreamt up for a day camp run by the nonprofit Spells Writing Lab, another Crane tenant that’s training Philadelphia’s budding Anton Egos on the finer points of restaurant criticism. Since I’ve been covering the local food scene since 2005, they asked me to stop by to chat with the campers, which I was happy to do. But it turned out these kids already understood a foundational truth of my job: The worst meals often make for the best prose.

Donning bow ties and aprons, Spells’ college-age staffers played Fancy Pants’ polished servers, offering pleasantries as they distributed a menu featuring choices like secret-spiced “Charming Chicken Tenders” ($28), a Kobe burger topped with prosciutto ($32), and a high-end sundae promising “hand-cranked” ice cream, caramel, and gummy bears ($18). The 30 or so diners, 7- to 12-year-olds from all over the city, perused the options, placed their orders, and waited the requisite three minutes before launching into a remarkably organized, incredibly loud chant: We want food!

Cheers sharpened into jeers the moment dishes hit the table. The “spaghetti” was a tangly nest of orange yarn. The chicken fingers were pinecones. That cheffy burger was nothing more than a two-dimensional drawing on a disposable plate. That artisanal sundae? A plastic cup stuffed with construction paper and cotton balls.

It took about 10 seconds for the wide-eyed scribes to drop all dining decorum and erupt into a raving, finger-pointing scrum on par with the U.K. House of Commons on its worst day.

“I ordered a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, and they gave me a bunch of toys,” groaned 8-year-old Amina Greer of Olney, glaring at a basket of ping-pong balls. “You can’t eat toys. I’m going to tell everybody this is a horrible restaurant.”

“The fries are … wet,” said Eric Lee, 10, of Northeast Philly, pinching a sponge strip between his thumb and forefinger.

“I made my order very, very clear, and I did not get what I wanted,” seethed Lucy Hincher, 10, of West Philadelphia. “I wanted a soy ice cream sundae, and they gave me a dairy ice cream sundae. And it wasn’t even real! I am very dissatisfied.”

Spells’ counselor-waiters hammed it up with glee, countering the surliness with faux outrage. “You get no refunds!” yelled Temple education major Nick Tefft, whose tall toque outed him as this disaster factory’s irascible head chef. “I didn’t go to culinary school to be treated this way.”

As fun as the role-playing was, it served a purpose: acquainting the campers with writing about a bad experience colorfully, but also fairly. It’s an academic skill, but the Spells staff doesn’t want it to feel like homework. “A lot of kids might have apprehension about writing — they think they’re just going to school,” said program director Elizabeth Encarnacion, who has been with the writing lab since its inception in 2009. By keeping the lesson plans unconventional and interactive, “hopefully they retain more than if they were just sitting at a desk.”

Founded by Central High School alum Jill Schiller, an attorney and recent Democratic congressional candidate in Ohio, Spells got off the ground thanks to financial support from private donors, including the author and former Inquirer reporter Jennifer Weiner. Corporate and civic grants have helped it grow into a multifaceted literacy initiative that offers free writing workshops and in-classroom and after-school programming to around 450 Philadelphia schoolchildren.

Spells’ summer camp tackles a single meaty theme each week — pirates, villains, space. Food is just one of several writing cues. Prior to sitting down for their Fancy Pants lunch, the kids warmed up by grilling me with rapid-fire questions both smart (“When you are reviewing food, what if people have different opinions?”) and silly (“Do you have enough money to buy a private jet?” I lease).

Post-”meal,” counselors Ross Layton, a Swarthmore student, and Nathaniel Gabor, an aspiring comedy writer attending Sarah Lawrence, led an analysis of restaurant reviews (including those from the Inquirer critic Craig LaBan) to bullet-point best practices: relying on descriptive, sensory language; supporting subjective statements with reason and detail; addressing aspects beyond the food. Then it was time to write.

“You guys get to take all of that rage and dislike and share it with the world,” Layton told the group. “Isn’t that so awesome?”

Scattering throughout Spells’ indoor headquarters, the campers locked in on their clipboards. Some, like 11-year-old twins Claudia and Olivia Colella of Roxborough, sneaked off to secluded corners to focus. Others, like the still-steaming Lucy and her friend Chloe McNeil, 8, of South Philly, took a more collaborative approach, bouncing ideas off each other while perched on a bench.

A short while later, the young writers revealed their hottest gourmet takes to the crowd, reciting their pieces aloud, backed by the encouragement of their counselors and fellow campers. I have to give it to these writers: I’d never want to cross them.

“Listen! Listen! Spells Fancy Pants Café is a hoax!” bellowed Lucy, with all the oratory conviction of a tween Williams Jennings Bryan.

North Philly’s Ethan Edens, 10, was on Lucy’s level. “I give it one out of a trillion,” he read, instituting his own proprietary rating system. “It was the opposite of exhilarating. What type of food was that?”

Upon receiving his food, Benjamin Ma, 7, “became angrier than Goku,” a Dragon Ball Z hero prone to fits of supernatural rage. “The waiters were all lazy, too,” he added.

As this was an exercise in comic extremes, I was amused but unsurprised by all the brutal honesty (emphasis on the brutal). But these writers also displayed strong listening skills, absorbing the lessons Spells imparted and putting them to immediate work on the page.

“I didn’t know what I was expecting for a pop-up restaurant right next to a cemetery,” deadpanned Hannah Nguyen, 12, of Cheltenham, grasping the power that a compelling lead sentence can wield.

Jalen Miller, an 11-year-old poet from North Philly, didn’t find that aspect of the atmosphere creepy whatsoever. “The surroundings made me think of peace,” he observed, looking well beyond the food, as advised.

I particularly admired the levelheaded perspective of Max Sorvari, a thoughtful 7-year-old from Lansdowne, who still found something to like amid the culinary chaos. “My favorite thing,” he wrote, “is it was free.”