Chef Peter Serpico leaves Stephen Starr’s Kpod as the Korean-inspired menu shifts toward Japanese cuisine

The “kinda-Korean” menu is morphing toward Japanese cuisine at Kpod, Stephen Starr’s revival of Pod in University City that opened in early 2022.

As part of the changes, chef Peter Serpico — who had been in Starr’s orbit since the 2013 opening of his acclaimed Serpico — has left the company. Starr and Serpico, reached Wednesday, described the split as amicable and declined further comment.

Starr has brought in chef Mark Hellyar, who previously oversaw Starr’s Buddakan in Old City, to revamp the menu. Hellyar, who spent time at Chicago’s Momotaro, recently introduced new dishes at Starr’s Morimoto and Continental Mid-town.

A Starr representative could not provide descriptions of Kpod’s new dishes, though the current counter where hand rolls are made will remain. Changes are expected to be introduced over the next few weeks, as the restaurant remains open. A name change, perhaps back to Pod, is being evaluated, Starr said.

A new executive chef has not been named.

Serpico, known for his modernist cooking, moved to Philadelphia from New York City in 2012 after serving as director of operations for David Chang, opening the vaunted Momofuku Ssäm Bar and Momofuku Ko.

Serpico’s eponymous restaurant dazzled in an open kitchen in a former shoe store at 604 South St. with such dishes as sliced raw diver scallops with poppy seeds in buttermilk, and dry-aged sirloin tataki. After it shut down in 2020 at the outset of the pandemic, Serpico and Starr operated ghost kitchens out of the space, including a Korean takeout called Pete’s Place.

Serpico, born in South Korea and adopted by Dennis and Sally Serpico, a white couple in a Maryland suburb, also took the time to delve into his native cuisine. Well before the pandemic, he and Starr had long considered opening a Korean restaurant on the site of Starr’s long-shuttered Il Pittore in Rittenhouse.

Meanwhile, Pod — Starr’s futuristic pan-Asian showpiece, a 200-seater that opened in 2000 at 3636 Sansom St. — had shut down during the pandemic. Starr brought in Richard Stokes to redesign the space, redubbed as Kpod, leaving the three signature dining pods intact.

Serpico delivered a menu that melded American inspirations from his childhood with Korean flavors. He called the style “kinda Korean,” with spins on bibimbap, Korean army stew, and pickled pepper ramyun that he described as both “fun and approachable” for people who “either know a lot about Korean food or know nothing about Korean food.” Inquirer critic Craig LaBan’s review was mostly positive.

Shortly after Kpod opened, Serpico released Learning Korean: Recipes for Home Cooking, a cookbook in which he wrote about his dual cultures, explaining that “food is what ultimately helped me unearth a part of myself that I didn’t know existed.”

He said he was unsure of his next move.