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Fall dining preview: Roman pie, and big names in burbs

A year ago, the discussion was all about big-name out-of-town chefs moving to Philly. The hot pizza style was Neapolitan. And the latest in a long line of promising tenants inside the handsome-but-troubled restaurant space at the Philadelphia Art Alliance was about to enter yet another slow death spiral.

Manager Stalin Bedon pulls three pizzas from the wood oven, ( Top clockwise ) an Arugula, Spicey Soppresseta and a Margherita pizza at Nomad Pizza, Friday September 13, 2013. ( DAVID SWANSON / Staff Photographer )
Manager Stalin Bedon pulls three pizzas from the wood oven, ( Top clockwise ) an Arugula, Spicey Soppresseta and a Margherita pizza at Nomad Pizza, Friday September 13, 2013. ( DAVID SWANSON / Staff Photographer )Read more

A year ago, the discussion was all about big-name out-of-town chefs moving to Philly. The hot pizza style was Neapolitan. And the latest in a long line of promising tenants inside the handsome-but-troubled restaurant space at the Philadelphia Art Alliance was about to enter yet another slow death spiral.

This fall, the talk is all about big-name Philly chefs setting up restaurants out of town. Our pizza cognoscenti will soon be waxing on about Roman pies. And the Art Alliance's short-lived Rittenhouse Tavern, slated to close at the end of September, will make way for one of the most exciting new projects of the year: a long-awaited second restaurant from the owners of four-bell Bibou.

To be called Le Chéri, Charlotte Calmels' pet name for her husband, chef Pierre, the 55-seater anticipated in early November will be less expensive and "a little less refined" than their tiny French BYO hit in South Philadelphia. It will have a liquor license and serve exclusively French wines.

"I'm not afraid to cook a classic recipe," says Pierre, the former Le Bec-Fin chef who's planning genuine bistro fare from his native Lyons, from pike quenelles to lamb pot au feu, cassoulet, and tripe. "I'm there to cook what I want the way I want it."

That's surely musique to the ears of Calmels' devoted fans. But is it enough to overcome the Italianate mansion's grand history of failed restaurants?

"Is it a cursed place? It is not," says Charlotte. "I don't believe in that."

Bibou will remain open. And while Calmels will remain completely involved with the menu, the kitchen will be run nightly by longtime sous-chef Ron Fougeray, who has worked with Calmels for a decade.

The Calmelses aren't alone in tempting old real estate taboos this fall. The suburbs, long a danger zone for city-based restaurateurs, are seeing an unprecedented influx of projects from Philly talent.

Bryn Mawr has a duo of intriguing new BYOs, a Roman-inspired called Fraschetta from the owners of Melograno, and Cerise, a "modern European" bistro from Elena and Ben Thomas, an alum of Lacroix at the Rittenhouse.

But South Jersey has enticed two of the region's biggest guns, Marc Vetri and Jose Garces, to Moorestown Mall. By mid-November, shoppers should be noshing on egg-topped Lombarda pizzas, chicken-liver rigatoni, and Francobolli ravioli stuffed with robiola at Osteria. They'll be able to dive into the freshly mashed guac and designer tacos of Garces' Nuevo Mex Distrito by early 2014.

Nearby on Route 70 in Cherry Hill, Philly's master of the seasonal BYO, Josh Lawler of the Farm and Fisherman, aims to prove "by early December" at Farm & Fisherman Tavern + Market that handmade, seasonal food can compete at a fair price with chain giants like the Cheesecake Factory and Seasons52.

"I'm going to be punching at Wegmans' shins," vows Lawler, a South Jersey resident, whose 120-seat Tavern will serve craft beer and house-made pastrami on house-baked rye, and also offer a take-out market.

If one thing isn't a gamble these days, it's the upscale-pizza biz. And the dough-slingers continue to grow in every direction, from Avero in Wayne, where the meaty "smashballs" are made with Kobe beef or foie gras, to much-anticipated Pizzeria Vetri, just opened on Callowhill Street, where the "rotolo" roll-ups look like mortadella-pistachio sticky buns.

Vetri is also making "pizza al taglio," a rectangular pie with daily inspirations that's an ode to Rome (a style also made at nearby Bufad). But the crew from Nomad will be featuring an entirely different kind of Roman pie - round, light, and crispy, covered edge-to-edge with toppings - at their second, still-unnamed Philly location at 1305 Locust, where the old Girasole brick oven is still in place.

"Neapolitan [pizza] has achieved gourmet status in the States. Roman has not," says owner and pizzaiolo Tom Grim, who studied Rome's unusual dowel-rolled dough technique on site. They'll be making their exceptional puffier-crusted Neapolitan pies as well, he said. "Both are delicious in different ways."

The new Nomad will just add more fire to a 13th Street corridor that is already glowing hot with the recent opening of Little Nonna's, the charming Italian red-gravy update that is the latest from the super duo of Marcie Turney and Valerie Safran.

The star power will be just as bright a block west in early December when Jose Garces finally opens Volvér, the high-concept tasting room and Champagne lounge that should inject much-needed culinary energy into the Kimmel Center's Spruce Street flank.

But he's hardly the only TV chef on the move. Top Chef winner Kevin Sbraga hopes to up Philly's Southern food quotient (not hard) with the Fat Ham, planned "November-ish" for the Left Bank space last occupied by Tria. Also in November, current Top Chef contestant Nicholas Elmi will make his chef-owner debut with Laurel, a 30-seat BYO in the good karma of Fond's former launching pad, on East Passyunk.

Elmi, coincidentally the opening chef at Rittenhouse Tavern, is also, like Calmels, a former Le Bec chef. Which of course leads by free association to perhaps one of fall's biggest question marks: Can the former Le Bec-Fin space rise again, renamed Avance under its new stewards, chef Justin Bogle and his partner Chris Scarduzio?

Scarduzio promises a "micro-seasonal" modern American menu and a new look: "earthy colors, woods, stones . . . nothing like Le Bec-Fin."

Jeez. It wasn't even a year ago that Le Bec was still charging hard to make a comeback under its first wave of post-Georges Perrier ownership. But then, as Philadelphia diners know well, a lot can change in a year.

What's new this fall

Avance, 1523 Walnut St.

Avero Craft Pizzeria, 821 W. Lancaster Ave., Wayne, 484-580-6455; averopizza.com.

Cerise, 1011 W. Lancaster Ave., Bryn Mawr, 610-527-4400; restaurantcerise.com.

Distrito at the Moorestown Mall, Moorestown.

The Farm & Fisherman Tavern + Market, 1442 Route 70 E., Cherry Hill.

The Fat Ham, 3131 Walnut St.

Fraschetta, 816 W. Lancaster Ave., Bryn Mawr, 610-525-1007.

Laurel, 1617 E. Passyunk Ave.

Le Chéri, Philadelphia Art Alliance, 251 S. 18th St.

Little Nonna's, 1234 Locust St., 215-546-2100; littlenonnas.com.

Nomad Pizza Co.'s still-to-be-named Roman-style pizzeria, 1305 Locust St.

Osteria at the Moorestown Mall, Route 38, Moorestown.

Pizzeria Vetri, 1939 Callowhill St., 215-600-2629; pizzeriavetri.com. 

Volvér at the Kimmel Center, 300 S. Broad St. (Spruce Street entrance).