The hottest new neighborhood for Philly’s biggest restaurateurs? Not Philly.
Mike Solomonov is going to Miami. Ellen Yin will bring a.kitchen to D.C. Stephen Starr has projects teed up in D.C. and Nashville. Michael Schulson has sushi plans in N.Y. and Miami.
Philadelphia restaurateurs are spreading out into the rest of the East Coast for splashy projects.
This week brought the news that Zahav creators Mike Solomonov and Steve Cook will head to Miami to open Aviv, a restaurant that a press release says “embraces ancient cooking methods paired with the modern energy of Miami and Tel Aviv.” It will be a 186-seater, inside and out, at 1 Hotel South Beach on Collins Avenue, and is scheduled to open this fall. The menu will include Yemenite-style bread, hummus, mezze plates, and kebabs grilled to order over charcoal. Besides Zahav, CookNSolo own Laser Wolf, K’Far, Dizengoff, Goldie, and Federal Donuts in Philadelphia, and have a Laser Wolf, K’Far, and Jaffa Cocktail & Raw Bar in Brooklyn.
Ellen Yin’s High Street Hospitality Group, which has operated AKA Rittenhouse Square’s onsite restaurant and bar, a.kitchen+bar, since 2014, will open an a.kitchen at Hotel AKA Washington Circle in Washington, D.C., this summer.
Stephen Starr, whose restaurant empire stretches from New York to South Florida, is expanding to Nashville with a location of Pastis, the French brasserie created by his business partner Keith McNally. (There are locations of Pastis in New York, Washington, and Miami now.) Starr is also headed back to Washington to revive the posh Occidental in the Willard Center and to open another Osteria Mozza, a restaurant and store, with Los Angeles-based chef Nancy Silverton. Projected opening dates were not made available.
Michael Schulson, expanding to Atlantic City this summer with Samuel’s and Pearl & Mary at the Ocean Casino Resort, has locations of Double Knot, his izakaya, under construction in Midtown Manhattan and in Miami’s Wynwood neighborhood. Projected opening dates were not made available.