Restaurant notes: A major chef pairing
Chip Roman of Blackfish takes on a young, high-profile chef.
How's this for a culinary match:
Charles "Chip" Roman, chef/owner of Blackfish in Conshohocken, and Jason Cichonski, who recently left the executive chef's job at Lacroix at the Rittenhouse Hotel.
The Fishtown-raised Roman is planning to open a second restaurant, and he's brought in the Bucks County-raised Cichonski to work at Blackfish and then run the new kitchen. For its first few months, anyway. Then, according to plan, Roman will partner with Cichonski, and Cichonski will get his own place.
Roman, 31, is 100 percent serious when he told me that Cichonski, 26, "reminds me of me when I was his age."
Roman was 19 when he begged Marc Vetri for kitchen work, and two years later began a five-year employment for Georges Perrier at Le Bec-Fin.
As for the first new restaurant: The line is "liquor license, ultra fine dining. 30 seats, three-course menus for about $50."
Location? Just hang on.