Table Talk | Restaurant-lounge for 12th and Locust
Knock on Wood? Here, literally, is Wood on Knock: Bill Wood, who spent nearly 30 years at the Center City landmark Woody's Bar before selling out late last year, is joining his brother Steve in a new venture a block away. It's called Knock.
Knock on Wood? Here, literally, is Wood on Knock:
Bill Wood, who spent nearly 30 years at the Center City landmark Woody's Bar before selling out late last year, is joining his brother Steve in a new venture a block away. It's called Knock.
Knock, whose name takes its inspiration from the Irish shrine, will occupy the northeast corner of 12th and Locust Streets, in the ground floor space that has housed a series of short-lived eateries (Lula, Sukothai, Pamplona, a branch of Dmitri's, and Cafe Cosmo). Bill Wood tells me it will be a global restaurant-lounge, not a dance club targeted at the gay community. Design is underway, and lots of construction has yet to begin.
Tinto
Jose Garces is trying for some semblance of sanity at his cozy, week-old Tinto (114 S. 20th St., 215-665-9150). Therefore, for now he's requesting reservations for seats at the bar; snagging a table for dinner has become a sport among Center City's new-restaurant bloodhounds.
Tinto is open nightly, dishing out Basque-inspired pintxos or tapas ($4 to $14), charcuterie, and cheeses plus more substantive entrees ($14 to $24). The 100-label cellar includes 40 Basque wines. A downstairs lounge will open shortly.
Garces' next Philly spot will be Chilango, a Mexican concept, in the forthcoming Hub complex at 40th and Chestnut Streets. Chilango will occupy 9,000 square feet; compare that with the 5,500 square feet of his first restaurant, Amada, in Old City.
Chilango won't open till late this year or early next, he says, as his next project will be a Spanish steak house in his hometown of Chicago. Down the road in Philly, he says he'd like to do a place fusing Latin American and Thai.
What's new
Misconduct Tavern
(1511 Locust St., 215-732-5797), shuttered since Memorial Day, should be back online Monday. New owners are Klehr, Harrison lawyer Chuck Ercole and Center City bartender Chris Markham (Doc Watson's, Copa Too!, Misconduct, Vesper Club). Kitchen under exec chef Christopher Lee (Pumpkin, L'Oca) will serve till 1:30 a.m. Numerous plasma TVs.
Northern Liberties' Soy Cafe has relocated two blocks south into the former site of the Pond (630 N. Second St., 215-922-1003). It's open early on weekdays.
The Diamantis family has finally relocated the Diamond Diner, which closed in Cherry Hill in June 2003. It's now the Diamond on Route 38 near Creek Road in Hainesport, Burlington County (609-267-0101). It's open from 7 a.m. to 11 p.m. weekdays, till midnight weekends.
What's coming
The next
Marathon Grill
, at the northeast corner of 10th and Walnut Streets, is two or three weeks away, says co-owner Cary Borish. The look here will be rustic, as workers exposed the lovely details (brick, iron and wood) of the 150-year-old building that last housed Yogi's. Details: lots of seating, bars upstairs and downstairs, a dedicated takeout space on the Walnut Street side.
"July" is the target for three Chickie's & Pete's outlets at Philadelphia International Airport in Terminals A West, C and E.
More next week on the region's first Legal Sea Foods, which has opened softly in the Court at King of Prussia (690 West Dekalb Pike, 610-265-5566). It's an upper-middle-class Boston-based seafooder known especially for its New England clam chowder.
Briefly noted
The Prime Rib
in the Warwick Hotel has gone BYOB every Sunday night with no corkage fee.
Meridith's in Berwyn now serves breakfast daily starting at 8 a.m.
Barclay Prime on Rittenhouse Square, Nineteen (a.k.a. XIX) in the Park Hyatt at the Bellevue, and Frederick's in South Philadelphia are first-time recipients of AAA Four-Diamond Awards.