A Center City pub has cut itself in two, creating a new steakhouse
Rockwell & Rose is being positioned as a neighborhood restaurant — comfortable enough for a casual dinner, but refined enough for celebrations.
When Tim Killeen joined the Philadelphia location of P.J. Clarke’s three years ago, he thought that the restaurant seemed backward.
Well, maybe sideways.
During the pandemic, the entrance transitioned from the Curtis building’s Walnut Street side to the Sixth Street lobby, home of the building’s famed Tiffany glass mural, The Dream Garden. With the bulk of the seating then on the Sixth Street side, Killeen felt that the rear dining rooms — facing Walnut Street and the interior of the Curtis — were underused.
Why not create a separate restaurant back there, sharing the kitchen with P.J. Clarke’s but offering a different menu and approach? By recent example, Tequilas across town reopened with its offshoot La Jefa cafe and cocktail bar.
After getting buy-in from P.J. Clarke’s owner Phil Scotti, they’ve set up a steakhouse called Rockwell & Rose, opening Thursday. They’re positioning Rockwell & Rose as a neighborhood restaurant, comfortable enough for a casual midweek dinner and cocktails but refined enough for celebrations. It’s open Wednesday to Sunday.
Chef and culinary director Ryan Lloyd — a new hire who’s made local stops at Ocean Prime and Dear Daphni in Center City and 9 Prime in West Chester — has created an American steak and seafood menu with nods to Chinese, Japanese, and Thai cooking. The poached salmon ($39), for example, has a Thai chili-miso glaze and is served atop crispy sushi rice. The duck wings ($19) are tossed in a five-spice sauce.
Main dishes include pear and gorgonzola dumplings ($29) and the curiously named Freedom From Want ($32), inspired by Rockwell’s iconic Thanksgiving illustration, which reimagines turkey with sourdough stuffing that’s rolled and sliced porchetta-style, then filled with cranberry sauce and sweet potato puree.
Most steaks are Certified Angus, including a 12-ounce, center-cut New York strip ($59); a dry-aged 18-ounce, bone-in Kansas City strip ($65), and a 38-ounce porterhouse for two ($145) carved tableside.
The dessert list includes monkey bread, s’mores cheesecake, and a grasshopper baked Alaska that contains a brownie and mint chocolate chip ice cream inside.
P.J. Clarke’s, the classic bar with New York City roots, retains its footprint. You can get to Rockwell & Rose through Clarke’s, or use the reactivated entrance on Walnut Street.
Scotti and Killeen have created Rockwell & Rose in a series of rooms. There’s the bar, which has a raw-bar station with oyster shucking. There’s also a cozy side room filled with comfy furniture intended for after-dinner drinks.
Notably, Killeen removed the booths along the Walnut Street windows and flipped the setup so that lamp-lit tables now face Washington Square.
The color palette throughout combines antique pink and sage green tones with candlelight and park views defining the atmosphere by night.
Since the restaurant is open five nights a week, Killeen is giving staff a consistent schedule. It also will allow customers to see the same servers and bartenders night after night, a hallmark of the old Palm on Broad Street designed to cultivate regulars.
The Rockwell & Rose name was inspired by the building’s history as home to Curtis Publishing, where Norman Rockwell’s illustrations appeared in the Saturday Evening Post, as well as Rosie the Riveter, the wartime icon featured in one of Rockwell’s illustrations for the magazine. It also honors Scotti’s mother, Rose, a Norristown-area native who died in May at age 98.
You may remember part of the space as the old Norman Rockwell Museum, which opened in 1976 and closed in 1989.
Rockwell & Rose, 601 Walnut St. Hours: 4 to 10 p.m. Wednesday and Thursday, 4 to 11 p.m. Friday and Saturday, and 4 to 8 p.m. Sunday. Reserve via Resy.