With a new Michelin star in hand, chefs Amanda Shulman and Alex Kemp open another restaurant
The new Pine Street Grill is aimed at the Fitler Square neighborhood.
Chefs Amanda Shulman and Alex Kemp have each built distinct destination restaurants — the newly Michelin-starred Her Place Supper Club and My Loup. This week, they opened one together.
Pine Street Grill, across from Fitler Square at 23rd and Pine Streets, is their take on a neighborhood restaurant. It’s a comfortable, restrained setting with white stamped-metal ceiling, Streamline Moderne-style schoolhouse light fixtures, white walls, and a long bar running through the narrow space. The two single-occupancy restrooms are intentionally contrasting: One is entirely pink, while the other is a tribute to the Sixers, from the photo-collage wallpaper down to the “Smells Like a Sixers Win” candle on the toilet tank and basketball-shaped soap dispenser on the sink. Fitler Square-based contractor Kaman Global built the restaurant, with Philadelphia firm Canno Design consulting.
The menu, by Shulman, Kemp, and chef de cuisine Jonathan Rodriguez, is timeless American. For starters, there’s a snack plate of mortadella-stuffed cherry peppers, olives, and spelt crackers ($11); shrimp Louie served in little gem lettuce cups with avocado and pickled onion ($16); wings in brown-butter hot sauce with Stilton blue cheese ($14); and a small soft pretzel with hollandaise mustard ($10). There also are Philly Balls, croquettes filled with roast pork, provolone, broccoli rabe, and spicy relish ($12 for two) that previously appeared on My Loup’s opening menu.
Sandwiches include a turkey club with maple bacon on multigrain ($16) and a signature double dry-aged smashburger with Cooper Sharp and onion condiment on a seeded milk bun ($22).
There’s a chopped Greek salad with Persian cucumbers, marinated feta, tomato, red onion, and oregano ($15) and a root-vegetable salad with chicories, aged cheddar, cranberries, and praline vinaigrette ($16). Entrées include hanger steak with pot-roast jus ($30); half a rotisserie chicken with gravy ($28); grilled salmon with piccata and spinach ($27); and eggplant Parmesan ($26).
Desserts include a nut-free carrot cake ($13) with rum raisins, carrot jam, and cream-cheese mousse; sourdough chocolate-chip cookie skillet ($12) with vanilla ice cream — the same cookie Shulman serves at Her Place; and a sundae ($14) of malted-milk ice cream with brownie bites, spiced walnuts, hot fudge, and a cherry.
There’s even a children’s menu, dubbed Belle’s Bites, after their daughter’s middle name: $10 each for nuggets and fries, grilled cheese, crudités and ranch, and red or white shells.
The late-night special for grown-ups, offered from 9:30 to 10:30 p.m., is any draft beer and the burger.
Jillian Moore, bar director of My Loup and bar consultant for the group, developed a cocktail list that includes a freezer martini made with local vermouth, a John Daly cocktail (a boozy Arnold Palmer) on draft, and Irish coffee. There’s Guinness, Strongbow cider, and birch beer on tap.
Nicole Sullivan, Her Place’s beverage director, set up the wine list, which draws inspiration from European tavern culture. General manager Allyson Allen has worked with Shulman and the couple’s Libbie Loup group for several years, including at Her Place and Amourette, their 2024 summer pop-up.
Pine Street Grill’s corner space has had a busy history: It housed Stix, a vegetarian restaurant, from 1997 to 1999; a location of Dmitri’s from 1999 to 2014; a branch of wine bar Tria from 2015 to 2017; and most recently Cotoletta, which closed last year after a five-year run.
Shulman, a Connecticut native and Vetri alumna, burst onto the Philadelphia dining scene in 2021 with Her Place, offering versions of the homespun dinner parties she hosted in her student apartment at Penn. She and Kemp opened My Loup in 2023, three months before their wedding. Shulman has received multiple James Beard Award nominations, including Emerging Chef nominations in 2022 and 2023 and Best Chef Mid-Atlantic in 2025. Kemp, who is Canadian-born, previously worked at Montreal’s Joe Beef and New York’s Eleven Madison Park. The couple met at Momofuku Ko in New York.
Pine Street Grill, 2227 Pine St., no phone, pinestreetgrill.com. Hours: 4 to 11 p.m. Wednesday to Monday; kitchen closes at 10:30 p.m. Half of the dining room is reservable via OpenTable for parties of up to eight; remaining tables are held for walk-ins. Happy hour: 4 to 6 p.m. weekdays, with a discounted food menu and $2 off draft beverages.