Main Line to get a buzzy new restaurant led by a Fork and Vernick alum

One of the year’s more closely watched Main Line restaurant projects now has a name, a chef, and a clearer identity.

Old Friend, a contemporary American grill built around live-fire cooking, is targeting a late-fall opening in downtown Wayne with former Fork executive chef Sam Henzy leading the kitchen.

The 86-seat restaurant — 78 in the dining room and eight at the bar — will be at 166 E. Lancaster Ave., in a newly constructed ground-floor retail space at Lancaster and Louella Avenues that is part of the Apartments at Wayne Station. It is amid Wayne’s restaurant row, across from Maison Lotus and Rosalie, and just a few blocks from At the Table, White Dog Cafe, and the North Wayne Avenue dining strip.

Old Friend is the creation of Larry Kagan and Chas McFeely, who met in 1984 at Welsh Valley Middle School and later attended Harriton High. McFeely, an advertising copywriter who lives in Alameda, Calif., has family ties to the Main Line and returns frequently.

Kagan, who works in financial services and is a partner in the Campus sports complex in Downingtown, offered the first public outline of the project at a March Radnor Township Board of Commissioners hearing for its liquor-license transfer, describing an unnamed grill restaurant “that’s going to have the soul of a steakhouse.”

Kagan told The Inquirer this week that the name “old friend” describes his relationship with McFeely: “It’s someone between friend and family — someone you can pick up at any time, you can be yourself.” The name, he said, also reflects the sort of relationship they hope to develop with customers.

Kagan acknowledges that neither he nor McFeely is a restaurateur. They brought in Stove & Co. chef-owner Joe Monnich as a consultant to develop the concept and assemble the operating team. Monnich will remain in a leadership role while continuing at Stove & Co., whose holdings include Stove & Tap and Joey Chops.

The connection to Henzy came through Monnich. The two met at Morimoto when Henzy was about 20 and, as he puts it, “green as grass.”

“Joe was the first chef who pushed me really hard, but he did that great older-brother thing of pushing somebody while being there to answer questions,” Henzy said. “He really took me under his wing.”

They remained friends as Henzy built his career. He did not know the name of the Wayne restaurant until he recently visited the space with Monnich and the owners.

“When they told me it was going to be called Old Friend, it just made me smile,” Henzy said, “because that’s how I think of Joe.”

Henzy, who grew up in Delaware, is best known locally for his two years as executive chef at Fork in Old City. His résumé also includes Middle Child Clubhouse, Vernick Food & Drink, Noma in Copenhagen, and Quince and Angler in San Francisco.

Henzy’s experience with live-fire cooking began during a six-month internship at Noma. He remembers touring the cutting-edge restaurant and encountering a Josper charcoal grill set up in a makeshift shack out back.

“In that moment, I was like, ‘Oh, I’m taking that station,’” Henzy said.

He eventually did, spending the final three months of his internship on the Josper. Later, he sought out Vernick Food & Drink in part for its wood-burning oven. His most intensive live-fire experience came at Angler, where he was executive sous chef and the cooking line had no conventional stoves.

“It’s just fires,” Henzy said. “It’s fires everywhere you look.”

Old Friend will bring him back to that style of cooking. Its open kitchen will center on a charcoal-fired Josper combination grill and oven, which Kagan calls the restaurant’s “engine.”

Designed by Stokes Architecture & Design, the restaurant will feature reclaimed mushroom wood, an oak bar, and an open, firebrick-lined hearth that will put the Josper in view of the dining room.

Kagan calls Old Friend a contemporary American grill. The developing à la carte menu will move from small and medium plates to larger-format proteins intended for sharing. The wine list will be compact and closely matched to the food.

Fish — including some dry-aged fish — as well as poultry and other proteins will be cooked on the Josper. Henzy gained experience dry-aging fish at Angler and wants to explore the technique further at Old Friend.

“I think dry-aging fish is both an underused and a misunderstood technique,” he said.

Old Friend also represents a move away from what became Henzy’s signature at Fork. Pasta may appear on the menu, but it will not be a focus. At Fork, he said, its popularity “took on a life of its own,” sometimes overshadowing the rest of the menu.

“I’m really big on never resting on my laurels and taking on new challenges,” Henzy said.

After years away from a live fire-fueled kitchen, Henzy said, “I’ve really been itching to get back into the flames.”