Jean-Georges at the Four Seasons will reopen as Philadelphia’s most expensive restaurant
The six-course tasting menu, served 3 days a week starting March 10, is priced at $198 a person, plus tax, tip, and beverages.
SkyHigh, all right.
Idled for nearly two years, Jean-Georges, the atmospheric dining experience at the Four Seasons Hotel on the 59th floor of the Comcast Technology Center, is reopening the reservation book at noon Tuesday, Feb. 15 and its doors March 10.
The restaurant will serve a six-course tasting dinner menu priced at $198 a person, plus tax, tip, and beverages, Thursday to Saturday — by far the priciest menu in Philadelphia. It will be $60 less than chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten’s six-course menu at his Manhattan flagship.
The Philadelphia restaurant, which opened 1,000 feet above Arch Street in summer 2019, previously offered an a la carte menu whose tabs averaged $132, including tax, tip, and drink.
Jean-Georges will offer two tasting menus: one featuring what representatives call “delights of the land and sea,” while the other will be focused exclusively on “the earth.” Reps also promise a roving Champagne trolley carrying rare labels by the glass or bottle.
Although March 10 marks a return for Jean-Georges, the Four Seasons’ more casual JG SkyHigh lounge on the 60th floor reopened in summer 2021.
During the hiatus, JG brought in a new chef de cuisine, Cornelia Sühr, a native of Germany. Her primary background was at Michelin-starred restaurants in Europe (Atelier in Munich, Alain Ducasse in London) before relocating to Dubai (St. Regis) and then to New York City (The Carlyle and then Shun).
» READ MORE: Philadelphia's best tasting and fixed-price menus
Vongerichten’s representatives said that the tasting menu was not ready for release but that guests could expect Jean-Georges’ favorites, such as egg toast and caviar and yellowfin tuna ribbons. Dishes will be created with local, seasonal ingredients.
Philadelphia’s second-most-expensive tasting menu, by the way, is the four-course experience at Vetri Cucina, at $150 per person.
Think $198 is out of line for Philadelphia? Consider that the prix-fixe dinner at the august Le Bec-Fin was priced at $89 in 1991 and $120 in 2001; using the Consumer Price Index, that translates to about $184 and $190 today.