Philadelphia Chefs Cook at James Beard House

The City of Brotherly Love has been getting a lot of love lately from the gourmet food world. It’s not yet another Food Network special on cheesesteaks, or guest hosts “discovering” tomato pie.

Philadelphia and its surrounding neighborhoods are getting attention for upscale eateries and star chefs.

Magazines, such as “Food and Wine” are looking to the city for great restaurants. Its June beer-focused issue recommends Kitchen Cabinet on Walnut Street as a great place to drink an ale.

Many attribute the attention to a small food thinktank in the East – The James Beard Foundation. The foundation has skipped over many DC and New York-based chefs to land in Philadelphia for Mid-Atlantic recognition. This year, Chef Michael Solomonov, was awarded Best MidAtlantic Chef. Solomonov is the chef-owner of Zahav in Old City, Percy Street Barbecue on South Street, Xochitl in the Head House district, and allegedly has more projects in the making.

The James Beard House is a legendary foodie mecca in New York City. It’s the original home of epicurean, food writer, friend to famous chef and cook James Beard.

“Anointed the “dean of American cookery” by the New York Times in 1954, James Beard laid the groundwork for the food revolution that has put America at the forefront of global gastronomy,” according to www.jamesbeard.org.

Beyond the city taking home the big award this year, many chefs from Philadelphia have been invited to cook at the James Beard House, which is an honor bestowed to just a few hundred chefs each year.

Cooking at The Beard House, as its known, is a new set of limitations because it was the epicurean’s home, which means chefs don’t have the commercial kitchen they are accustomed to working in. Instead, the kitchen at The Beard House is a small kitchen with several ovens, very little cook space, and a small staff to help.

Each night, a different chef is invited to cook, and there is a strict guideline to how the evening must proceed. Chefs invited to cook there must bring all their own ingredients and wine. They are required to pay for the food to feed up to 85 people in a five course dinner with a passed appetizer reception, as well as a wine pairing for each course.

Menus at The Beard House are extravagant examples of a chef’s repertoire meant to impress the members and diners, who pay at least  $185 per person for an evening’s dinner.

Chef Joe Cicia of Le Virtu on Passyunk Avenue cooked at The Beard House in April. Owner Francis Cratil Cretarola called it “America’s unofficial culinary equivalent to St. Peter’s in Rome,” in her blog, and said the dinner went exceedingly well.

Manager Fred Cratil Cretarola said that since the dinner, the dining rooms have been full.

“We’re turning away guests now. Reservations are booked well in advance. I don’t know if that’s because of the Beard dinner or Craig LaBan’s 3-bell review,” he said.

While many chefs flock to the Beard House because it’s an honor to cook there, brings attention and business to a restaurant, and it’s a career goal for many, others say it’s too demanding and an over-inflated experience.

Chef and author Anthony Bourdain describes an experience helping a friend cook at The Beard House as an exhausting waste of time where the Beard House expects a chef to spend thousands of dollars on food and staff, fly it all to New York, provide the wine, spend hours in the kitchen and get very little thanks.

Bourdain recently tweeted, “Beard House = Graceland of food,” on his twitter account.

Whether it’s a thankless cooking experience that chefs want to do for the notch on their belt, or an honor worth having, The Bead House has taken note of Philadelphia’s chefs, and that’s brought notoriety to many of their establishments.