He rolled in before noon, having overseen an intimate League dinner the night before - "for big shots" - giving them a taste of things to come, like, for instance, "a soup without any roux in it."

That would be? It was pureed celery root with shredded duck confit. He followed it to the dining room, showed the staff exactly how he wanted it in the bowl: "I stayed with it."

Had he tried, on this morning after, to come to work though the club's Broad Street doors, it might have caused a commotion. He was a walking violation of the letter and certainly the spirit of the club's rather starchy dress code - ribbed, zip-up sweater (non!), jeans (non!), hip black tennis shoes (non!).

But not to worry. He came through the more forgiving brass door on Sansom Street, clomped down a few steps and, in an instant, was in the vast kitchen, the steerage below decks.

His first impression when he saw it a few weeks ago was, "Whoa! It's old. It's big!"

The wooden cooler doors were as thick as a dungeon's, the butcher-block tables as worn as a South Philly rowhouse step. The club goes back 146 years (to 1862); the ring-burner in the pastry kitchen looks like it.

Hamann's hair is a steely stubble, his build is a linebacker's, his background, a baker's son from Morton ("like the salt"), Delaware County. He had no earthly idea what the Union League would be like. Never in his 50 years had he set foot in the place.

He spent his first days cleaning up the toll-booth-sized chef's office, repainting it with the help of a steward.

As a point of reference, he said, its kitchen could swallow up four of the Four Seasons' kitchens. There were 12 walk-ins here. There were only four at the hotel where he was mentored by the legendary Jean Marie Lacroix ("my 'dad' ") before succeeding him as head chef in 2001.

At the hotel they could put out 450 meals a night, French service, which means a waiter serves the starch, vegetables and meat from a silver tray, as a second comes behind him, saucing the food. At the club, next week alone - with banquets for groups such as the Development Corp. of Israel and the Parkinson's Council - the kitchen would need to deliver 500 and 600 meals a night, already plated.

It will take a while for Hamann to get the battleship turned. And of course, it is a member's club, so no shocking flights of fancy are on tap: The love affair with filet and prime rib is unlikely to be interrupted. The iconic chicken salad and fried oysters that Hector Lopez has lovingly cooked for 37 years will likely continue.

But Hamann is looking to tweak tradition. The snapper soup broth could lighten up, and be studded with turtle ravioletti. The plates might not have broccoli as routinely as the vegetable du jour.

Then again it will likely take a year for the $6 million makeover of the stodgy members' dining rooms upstairs, a signature of which will be a windowed kitchen showcasing the culinary exertions of Hamann and his team. (The working title? "We're toying with '1862 by Martin Hamann.' ")

So it will be a two-way learning curve, he said - the chef learning the folkways of the Union League, the kitchen learning the French-ish style of the chef.

What were his plans for the rest of the afternoon? "I'm putting a cutting board down" chopping with the prep cooks, he said, getting started on building relationships.

Correction. In a column on the Italian Market last week, I referred to Agnes Viso as the widow of butcher A. Bonuomo. In fact, she is his daughter. She is the widow of Liborio "Buddy" Viso, who had a meat market at Ninth and Washington.