Restaurant notes: The Farm and Fisherman
Farm to table, on Pine Street.
Restaurant notes: The Farm and Fisherman
Michael Klein, Philly.com
Filed Under: TableTalk
Colleen Kelly and Josh Lawler in the dining room of their new BYOB on Pine Street, The Farm & Fisherman. (Photo: (MICHAEL BRYANT)
Chefs-spouses Josh Lawler and Colleen Kelly-Lawler are gearing up for Thursday, March 10's opening night of The Farm and Fisherman, their 30-seat, white-tablecloth BYOB at 1120 Pine St. (267-687-1555), in the former Paul.
Lawler, a Conshohocken native and Drexel grad most recently chef de cuisine at the farm-to-table mecca Blue Hill at Stone Barns in Upstate New York, plans to celebrate regional and sustainable produce, meat, and fish.
Kelly-Lawler, also a Drexel grad and a chef in her own right, will run the front of the house. ("I see more of her now than I ever did," Lawler said.)
In his tiny kitchen, working with one assistant, Lawler will bring in whole animals, changing the menu frequently to reflect the parts that he happens to be butchering. "With the space I'm given, I have to use everything up," he said.
Prices will range from $8 to $15 for small-to-medium-sized plates and $20 to $29 for entrees.
It will be open for dinner Tuesdays through Sundays.
Comments (9)
Yum!— 215cookin
This sounds like the dullest, most unispired menu I have ever read. Who cares if some of your ingredients are local? Your not doing anybody any favors buying lancaster chicken. I would wager you are not getting your guanciale locally, so what are you trying to prove. When I go out I want to try something new, not something I can buy at Shop Rite. I'm tired of all the hoopla when it comes to cooking anymore. Just cook good food at a decent price and don't tell me where you got it from, I don't care. Its not any more sustainable to buy food locally unless its all bought locally, which its not. there are still large trucks hauling your lancaster chicken to whatever food procurment company you are using. Enough already.- Mr. Carrot Sticks you are an idiot. The less you drive the less emissions that are expelled and the less gas that is used. So, getting food - no matter how little it is - from surrounding counties is better than getting it from half-way across the country. Stick to buying your peanut butter and jelly and your Swanson's TV Dinners at your ShopRite.— Lance4206
- Lance4206. Clever retort. It has nothing to do with sustainability. Is's a scam. unless this guy is going to the farm and killing his pigs and lambs etc, and driving them back himself in a hybred or electric car,he is not being sustainable. If only 18% of your menu is local, you are still getting deliveries from all over the country, and or planet. You are in the middle of a city, you are not catching your own fish, composting, raising your chickens. It is all processed and delivered to your door. Probably a seperate delivery from a company delivering you lancaster chicken, 90 miles away, when you can get identical chicken delivered to you right from Wells or Exceptional meat companies four miles away, and they are probably delivering to you anyway, so you actually cut down on a delivery. So call it what it is, marketing, a food trend, something that works easily on the Lemming mentality, that I just want to be hip persona, like yourself. How's Adsum Hipster? you gonna tell me it soooo good, because Matt Levin is the Chef, and thats what Philadelphia Magazine told you? Or can you form your own opinion and say it blows just like when he was at Lacroix, or his first restaurant Moonlight in New Hope? Eat food and learn to enjoy it for yourself, not because you are told to do so.
- Hey carrot sticks no need to be so rude and dismissive you pompous jerk. Local food trends are good for the environment and will make a difference over time as methodology improves and the practice becomes more widespread. This is only acheived through marketing and touting these practices as good for the planet which, on the whole, as part of a long term trend which so many are committed to for the right reasons, they are. No good and lasting changes and improvements are acheived overnight and it is often the trendy "lemmings" that pay for the rest of us to figure out how to do this in more efficient ways, while those with a more critical (or derisive in your case) eye point out the flaws in the present processes and improve them. Go choke on your guanciale... and your overblown ego.— Twocents
Comment removed.- I love buying local. It absolutely tastes better. Having been in the food industry I can't begin to tell you the chemicals that are used to preserve food while it travels. Chemically loaded Purdue or fresh unchemical Lancaster chicken? I'll take the Lancaster chicken.— BeenAround
- Regardless of how much is obtained locally, it's still better than getting nothing locally. Nobody is here to argue, but you're essentially saying that nothing purchased or eaten in the city is sustainable b/c we live in the city, and I'm sorry, but you're wrong. The chef doesn't have to do every part of the process or drive a Prius to pick up groceries. It's near impossible in today's world to be 100% local and sustainable, but whatever amount a restaurant, store, or family can do, I think is good. Last I checked, 18% (to use your number) is better than 0%. And if you really "don't care" where your food comes from, then buy strawberries in January (or anything when it's out of season locally), and tell me how much worse they taste and that you still don't care about your food being shipped across the country. I say this b/c part of sustainability is eating what's locally fresh and in-season, giving crops time to re-fuel and others time to be harvested. Again, I understand you can't do this 100% of the time, but it doesn't mean you can't do it part of the time. That is why I love restaurants that change their menu with the seasons. Yes, in the end, people should eat what tastes good to them and not just b/c a review says something is good or it's the new hip place. However, what's not to say that a review draws someone to a restaurant, but they still form their own opinion? I've disagreed with reviews before, but I also don't dismiss the restaurant simply b/c I disagree with what they're doing. As you said, we should form our OWN opinions. Either way, drink what you enjoy, eat what taste good TO YOU, and for those interested, I'll see you at Farm and Fisherman soon to form my own opinion.— aisaac
- Best of luck, but a little expensive for me..........— Rick W
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Michael Klein, the editor/producer of philly.com/Food, writes about the local restaurant scene in his Inquirer column "Table Talk." Have a question? Email it! See his Inquirer work here.
Reach Michael at mklein@philly.com.
Michael Klein
Philly.com
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