At Kensington’s newest restaurant, chef Greg Vernick goes Italian

Chefs’ travels inspire their menus — for example, the konbini in Japan that Jesse Ito and Justin Bacharach visited for Dancerobot and the trattorias in Italy that Stephen Starr’s team scouted for Borromini, to name two just in the last year.

For Greg Vernick, the culinary inspiration for his first new restaurant in 6½ years — the casual Emilia, opening Tuesday in Kensington — was from a trip to Rome a few months ago with Meredith Medoway, Emilia’s chef de cuisine, and Drew Parrasio, culinary director for his restaurants.

“I’ve been to Rome before, but never as a chef traveling with other chefs,” said Vernick, who was named last week to the James Beard Awards’ 2026 list of semifinalists for Outstanding Restaurateur. (The Cherry Hill native won Best Chef, Mid-Atlantic for Vernick Food & Drink in 2017.)

Before they left, Vernick called chef friends like Marc Vetri, Jean-Georges Vongerichten, and Hope Cohen for recommendations: “Where do I need to eat? Street food, markets, trattorias, all of it.”

Emilia’s must-try dish came from a culinary school. Cohen’s suggestions included the American Academy in Rome. “We walked up one day thinking we’d just say hello and ended up spending the entire day there,” Vernick said. “They grow their own herbs and produce. We were eating arugula straight from the ground, picking rosemary and thyme — it felt cinematic.” Chef Sara Levi, who oversees the academy’s program, asked the three to join the students for the day’s family meal.

“One of the dishes was a simple chicken ragù pasta — hand-cut chicken, livers, hearts, very little sauce,” Vernick said. “Light, savory, a little gamey. We didn’t even talk much while we were eating it. Later, walking back into central Rome, we all realized: That was one of the best pastas we had on the trip, and we’d eaten three to five pastas a day for three days.”

Back home in Vernick’s kitchen, they tweaked it to “just honor the idea,” Vernick said. It’s on the opening menu as “rigatoni, ragù bianco.” It’s also Emilia’s lone chicken dish — a somewhat daring move.

Emilia, just north of the York Street roundabout on Frankford Avenue, seats 60 in the dining room, with an additional 10 seats at the bar and 20 in a lounge area; in keeping with Vernick’s desire to make this a neighborhood place, some tables are held for walk-ins.

Canno Design’s Carey Jackson Yonce, working with California-based designer Bob Bronstein, has the lighting set to “subdued.”

“I wanted it to feel like the kind of place where you walk in and exhale and relax,” Vernick said. “Industry-friendly, not precious. We want to hit two markets from day one: the neighborhood and the industry. If you get those right, everything else falls into place.”

Italian is a new turn for Vernick, who started here in 2012 with the New American Vernick Food & Drink before adding Vernick Coffee Bar in 2018 and Vernick Fish in 2019. The developers of Emilia’s building were keen on having an Italian restaurant, and Vernick’s thoughts naturally turned to Medoway, the longtime chef de cuisine at his flagship.

The bar program focuses exclusively on Italy, with low-intervention wines, amari, spritzes, and a rotating seasonal negroni, along with Italian sodas and zero-proof cocktails.

Much of the menu is coursed and priced as smaller plates (figure teens and $20s). The few entree-sized dishes, such as golden tilefish ribollita and grilled sea bream, start in the high $30s; top price is $53 for crispy veal with broccoli di ciccio.

There’s other house-made pasta on the menu, such as capellini with pesto, and radiatore in mushroom Bolognese. Much of Medoway’s cooking is centered on a 48-inch charcoal- and oak-fired grill. Each table receives complimentary breads — house-made focaccia, Mighty Bread’s sesame ciabatta, and the thin bread sticks known as grissini.

Another anchor main course dish is rabbit Emiliana, a regional take on cacciatore from Emilia-Romagna that Medoway devised after a trip of her own. The braised rabbit is finished with roasted peppers, green olives, fresh orange, and vinegar, giving it a punchy, slightly sweet-sour profile.

Several smaller plates lean into texture and contrast. Carta da musica, a paper-thin Sardinian cracker, is spread with soft butter, dusted with grated bottarga, and topped with a relish of fire-roasted peppers. You crack it at the table and share the shards. “It’s about breaking bread together,” Vernick said.

A sea scallop crudo pairs raw scallop with burrata and a caper-chili vinaigrette, a combination Vernick said surprises people at first because of the similar textures. “It works, though,” he said. “It’s simple but exciting.” Grilled cabbage, blanched and then charred over the wood fire, is tossed with a colatura vinaigrette and finished with pecorino. “It reads ‘boring,’ but it eats incredibly well,” he said.

Emilia, 2406 Frankford Ave., 267-541-2360, emiliaphilly.com. Reservations open on Resy. Hours: 5 to 9:30 p.m. Sunday to Wednesday, 5 to 10 p.m. Thursday to Saturday.