Emmett, a new Levantine-inspired restaurant for Philly, is another one to watch

One thing chef Evan Snyder has not been working on lately are recipes.

They have been locked in for two years, since Snyder hit the collaborative-dinner circuit with such chefs as Alex Yoon of Little Fish; Alex Garfinkel of Balboa Catering; and Dan Griffiths, Sam Kalkut, and Jake Loeffler of Paffuto as he plotted the creation of Emmett in south Kensington with partner Julian van der Tak.

Emmett, named after Snyder’s almost-2-year-old son, opens this week — its 30 seats are booked for the first week or so, but eight bar seats are devoted to walk-ins — at 161 W. Girard Ave., which was last Primary Plant Based. It’s open from 5 p.m. Tuesday to Saturday.

Also on board is Eli Silins, owner of Northeast Philadelphia’s Camuna Cellars. Its limited-winery license allows Emmett to serve Pennsylvania wines and spirits, overcoming the space’s previous BYOB limitation from its days as such destinations as Cadence and Modo Mio.

Snyder and crew gone for a clean, midcentury look, with date-night-appropriate mood lighting.

Emmett’s menu is Levantine-inspired — in that Snyder works with such ingredients as harissa, sumac, and hawaj and cooks over wood. “It’s not traditional,” said Snyder, 33, who grew up in Bucks County. “We’re pulling flavor from the region and creating our own take on these dishes.”

Because the kitchen is small, Snyder and chef de cuisine Antonio Pizzo are offering a four-course $95 tasting menu and a small a la carte selection.

“We want the tasting menu to have value,” Snyder said. “A lot of tasting menus, you leave hungry and you’re like, ‘What did I just pay for?’ Here, I want you to be able to eat a lot of the menu and leave satisfied.”

Based on a pre-opening meal, you will. The tasting menu starts with four snacks, segues into a choice of four slightly larger plates (such as coal-roasted beets and barbecue lamb neck dolma) and then offers grilled rockfish with curry, maitake, and spinach, or lamb loin with mujaddara, sumac carrot, and labneh. Desserts are a date cake with Turkish coffee caramel and pistachio, or butternut curd with fennel soft-serve, candied fennel, and an amaretto cookie.

There’s a $35 supplement for the charcoal-grilled duck, which is also available at $70 per person a la carte. The duck, aged 14 to 21 days, gets a lacquer of seven-peppercorn spice and black vinegar, and is cooked down with honey. There’s a sunchoke puree, and duck merguez made of duck fat, fatback, and foie gras.

All of this is served on plates from ceramic artists Lauren Rider and Megan Stover in the Bok Building in South Philadelphia.

Snyder went to Le Cordon Bleu College of Culinary Arts in Orlando then worked all over New Orleans and the Washington, D.C., area before returning to Philadelphia to become executive chef of Redcrest Kitchen in Queen Village, the polished restaurant at Sixth and Bainbridge Streets bearing the name of owner Adam Volk’s former fried chicken shop in East Passyunk.

Snyder’s cooking was praised but underappreciated. With business flagging, Volk revived the fried chicken. Snyder said it was time to leave. “I either had to do something on my own or stop cooking,” he said.

When Snyder got home after quitting, he said he told his wife, Jessica, “‘I quit my job. I’m going to open a restaurant.’ And she said, ‘Give it some time and think about it.’ I said, ‘No. I quit my job. I’m going to open a restaurant.’”

Their son, Emmett, was a month old.

“Now we’re two years later and she’s supported me the whole way, but I did not think it was going to take this long,” Snyder said.

Snyder met van der Tak, then a sales representative for Samuels & Sons Seafood, through van der Tak’s wife, Victoria, who handled Redcrest’s social media. As Snyder mentioned his plans for his own restaurant, “she said, ‘You know, my husband might be into that.’”

Marissa Chirico, who was front-of-house and beverage manager for River Twice, joined as general manager (while overseeing the wine), and Petra Manchina, who has managed at Philadelphia Distilling and Manatawny Stillworks, is the bar manager handling spirits.

The Pennsylvania-only restriction “honestly works out perfectly for us, because the ethos of the food is local sourcing and I would like to do the same with the wine program anyway,” Chirico said. “Everything that I’ll ever bring into the restaurant is farmed intentionally.” Emmett also pours Pray Tell Wines from Oregon, as it has an arrangement with the state.

Cocktails will be seasonal, in that Manchina’s drinks will use the same produce as the kitchen, such as leeks in a vodka martini and carrots in one of the nonalcoholic drinks. “As the menu changes in the kitchen, the menu changes at the bar,” Snyder said. “They have to go together.”