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AKIRA SUWA / Inquirer Staff Photographer
Owners Tom Baker and wife Peggy Zwerver at their new restaurant still under construction, Earth Bread + Brewery in Mount Airy. Carpenter Barry Homiak, right, works on the bar.
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Table Talk: They love brews, bread, and now Mt. Airy
Beer geeks grumbled in 2006 when Tom Baker and his wife, Peggy Zwerver, closed Heavyweight Brewing, which they had run for six years in Ocean Township, N.J.
Contact columnist Michael Klein at 215-854-5514 or mklein@phillynews.com. See his recent work at http://go.philly.com/michaelklein.
On their way out, Baker and Zwerver let on that they wanted to get into brewpubs. One of their longtime beer customers was P.J. McMenamin at McMenamin's Tavern on Germantown Avenue in Mount Airy.
When a nuisance corner bar near McMenamin's was shut down, Baker and Zwerver set out to build their dream and moved to Philly. "I've always been fascinated by brewpubs and American flatbreads," Baker says.
That will be the focus at Earth Bread + Brewery (7136 Germantown Ave.), which is in its final days of construction as Baker and Zwerver await their licensing.
Baker will serve four of his own beers on tap, plus eight craft beers, as well as 25 wines by the glass. The menu will be simple - a focus on salads and flatbread pizzas from his hand-built wood-burning oven. (No one so far has pointed out that his last name is well-suited to this new line of work.)
Playing into the couple's love of recycling, the first-floor bar was salvaged from a Manhattan tap called Collins, and the pine flooring was taken from a demolished building in Maine. The second-floor bar was found locally. The tables and chairs came from Victory Brewing in Downingtown, which changed its furnishings in its recent renovation.
What's coming
Fishtown is three months or so from Pickled Heron, a 50-seat white-tablecloth bistro at 2218 Frankford Ave. (between Susquehanna and Dauphin). Chefs-owners Todd Braley and Daniela D'Ambrosio met in the kitchen at the Ritz-Carlton. He was the opening chef de cuisine at Northern Liberties' Copper Bistro. D'Ambrosio says they'll work with local ingredients, bake their own breads, and do their own charcuterie. They're trying for a liquor license. Right now, the space is a "big white box," D'Ambrosio says, adding that they're aiming for a November opening.
Briefly noted
Old City's GiGi Restaurant + Lounge has changed its guard. New owners Sean Glynn and Philipp and Stephenie LaGrossa have the services of chef Adrian Jeronimo, a veteran of Continental and Continental Mid-town who was sous chef under previous management. Specialties on his new-American dinner menu (entrees in the $20s) include coriander-crusted diver sea scallops and coffee-rubbed rib eye.Chad Wilkoff, a Johnson & Wales alum with kitchen stops at El Vez, Susanna Foo and the Marshalton Inn, has landed at bistro M, attached to the Murray's Deli in Berwyn. Besides standards (steak frites, organic Scottish salmon), there are baby back ribs with Korean barbecue sauce and a grouper taco; most dinner entrees are in the $20s.
Capogiro, the gelateria with locations at 13th and Sansom Streets and 20th and Sansom Streets, is poised for a third location, in February, at the Radian building at 39th and Walnut Streets on Penn's campus.
David Grasso is not a backer of the forthcoming Del Frisco's Double Eagle Steak House, as I wrote last week. His stake in the project is that his Grasso Holdings is the landlord.
Contact columnist Michael Klein at 215-854-5514 or mklein@phillynews.com. See his recent work at http://go.philly.com/michaelklein.