Kanella Grill: Konstantinos Pitsillides returns to Center City with a kebab house
He and wife Caroline Christian are calling it Kanella Grill, and it will be a kebab house when it comes back in July. It will be BYOB, as before.
Kanella's original space at 10th and Spruce Streets - vacant for more than a year after chef/owner Konstantinos Pitsillides moved his Cypriot fare to plusher quarters in Queen Village - will be reopening as a more casual iteration.
He and wife Caroline Christian are calling it Kanella Grill, and it will be a kebab house when it comes back in July. It will be BYOB, as was the previous restaurant.
"Very simple, traditional, with homemade gyro," Christian told me. They will serve Cyprus-style pita, and are trying to source gluten-free pita, as well.
Sous chef Dominic Santora will head Kanella Grill's kitchen, and Kanella/Vetri alum Michael Dejoseph will handle the front of the house.
Its rustic decor won't change much. It will be open for lunch and dinner Tuesday to Sunday. Delivery will be offered through Caviar.
When Pitsillides closed Kanella in May 2015, he had considered a kebab-house concept as he also tried to lease the storefront, in a prime spot in Washington Square West. Why wait so long to reopen? "Confusion and madness," Christian said with a laugh.
From its opening in Wash West in early 2008, Kanella racked up plenty of distinctions, including a rave "$1 million review" last year from English critic Giles Coren, who described Pitsillides as "a shine-headed, nut-brown, heavily-built hunk of Cypriot man, with forearms like legs of mutton and a blue-eyed stare that could freeze nitrogen."
Meanwhile, Kanella South, a LaBan three-beller and the critic's best new restaurant of 2015, is rolling along on Front Street in Queen Village.
The news, posted as a note on the Kanella window, was first noted earlier Saturday on Billy Penn.