🥃 What Craig LaBan is gifting this year | Let’s Eat
Philly’s hottest chef couple opens another restaurant, Greg Vernick is heading to Kensington, and we get all Scrooge-like about a holiday bar.
Tough job, evaluating nearly three dozen whiskies for gift-giving. Craig LaBan and friends went there.
🔔 Note that this is the last “Let’s Eat” newsletter of 2025. I’ll be back in your inbox Jan. 7.
Also in this edition:
New restaurants: Chefs Amanda Shulman and Alex Kemp, of My Loup and Her Place Supper Club fame, have just opened the more casual Pine Street Grill. I’ll also tell you about chef Greg Vernick’s next restaurant: Emilia will open soon in Kensington.
Kombucha for your face: Olga Sorzano has found a new use for her kombucha.
New Year’s Eve ideas: Check out our list.
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Craig LaBan and his whiskey-loving friends sniffed and sipped their way through 33 bottles from across the world — even one from Beyoncé. Here are 14 he’d be happy to give and get.
🍷 Also: Here are the best wine shops in the region.
Fresh off their Michelin glory, chef couple Amanda Shulman and Alex Kemp have opened the casual Pine Street Grill. We took a first look.
Pine Street Grill is on a former site of a Dmitri’s restaurant. In tribute, the couple is serving a riff on Dmitri Chimes’ popular shrimp pil pil appetizer.
Secondhand Ranch has a secondhand/vintage shop on one side, and a honky-tonk bar on the other, and it’s all deep in the heart of Fishtown.
“Our skin is alive,” says Olga Sorzana, founder of Phoenixville’s popular Baba’s Brew. She’s infusing her kombucha into a line of skincare products.
Beatrice Forman says she went to Bucket Listers’ Emo Christmas bar in search of whimsy and holiday cheer — but “I left $139 poorer and feeling like a poser.” Bah, humbug.
🎅 There is no shortage of holiday bars.
On our plate this week: Tagliatelle at Alice, plus a burrata-topped brunch dish at the Love and our first bites of a PopUp bagel before the hyped chain comes to town.
🤤 Want more of this weekly feature? Get caught up here.
Scoops
Greg Vernick has a fourth restaurant on the way, and he’s headed to Frankford Avenue in bustling Kensington. Emilia will feature the Italian stylings of longtime Vernick Food & Drink chef de cuisine Meredith Medoway in an unfussy setting.
If you had your ear to the ground, you’d know that the bar set to replace Roxborough’s former Tavern on Ridge will be called Hop Lil Bunny. Prospective owner says it’s just a hare early to discuss specifics.
Restaurant report
Casa Oui. A French pastry chef and a Mexican restaurant manager fell in love, and the result is Queen Village’s newest all-day café. You can get coffee and pastries in the daytime and cocktails and Mexican fare (like the aguachile shown above) at night.
La Maison Jaune. Zahra Saeed’s cozy, new French-style cafe near Fitler Square combines her two passions: delicious food and beautiful design. She plans to expand, which would send her line of pastries, including macarons de Nancy, financiers, and madeleines, all around the city.
Among the openings on tap: Side Eye, the neighborhood bar coming to the former Bistrot La Minette space at 623 S. Sixth St. in Queen Village, and Bikini Burger at 44 Rittenhouse Place in Ardmore.
Briefly noted
Nine categories, four nominees in each: It’s the 2026 edition of the Tasties, the Philly restaurant awards handed out by the “Delicious City” podcast. The gala will be Feb. 1 at Live Casino, and the nominees are here.
Manny’s Restaurant’s eight-year run in Holland’s Gateway Center will end Jan. 4 as the partners focus on their smaller deli at Willow Grove Pointe Shopping Center in Horsham.
Zsa’s Ice Cream marks its finale Sunday after 14 years in Mount Airy. A year ago, Danielle Jowdy announced the shop’s “grand closing” as she sought to find a buyer. Final hours will be 3 to 9 p.m. through Friday, and noon to 9 p.m. Saturday and Sunday.
Hunger-relief group Sharing Excess estimates that one truckload of food costs $1,290 to deliver and can feed 80 families for a month. For each $1,290 sponsorship, Sharing Express gives the donor a branded toy truck (like those Hess trucks). Details are here.
❓Pop quiz
The Pennsylvania Farm Show will have a special feature when it starts in early January. What is it?
A) red, white, and blue milkshakes
B) a butter sculpture shaped like Saquon Barkley
C) cow-tipping contests
D) mushroom cheesesteaks
Find out if you know the answer.
Ask Mike anything
Is 333 Belrose in Radnor ever coming back? — Marty P.
Opened in 1999, this bar and grill tucked off King of Prussia Road has been closed since June as owners majorly remodel not only the interior but the menu. Reopening is targeted for mid-January. I’ll have more info on this and dozens of other openings in my “what’s coming in 2026″ feature just after New Year’s.
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