Talking Philly With Esquire’s Food Critic

Steve Volk has been keeping busy ever since jumping ship from the Philadelphia Weekly to Philadelphia magazine. In his latest piece for Philly, he interviewed Esquire food critic John Mariani. Some interesting stuff here:


PM: Is Philadelphia a place where a chef can enjoy a whole career and earn appropriate recognition without going to New York?Mariani: That’s a good question. I think it can be done. You look at a chef like Jose Garces [of Amada], for instance. When guys like that put their personality on the line as much as their style, he’s certainly taken on national significance. Or Marc Vetri [of Vetri and Osteria]. They are an antidote to what Stephen Starr has been doing for the last seven years, in that they are chef-driven restaurants. All due credit should go to Starr for picking up ideas from other cities and putting them in Philadelphia. In the case of Starr, they start around a concept and they are not chef-oriented. More often than not the end result is quite a good restaurant. But the problem with Stephen Starr’s restaurants it that they are huge, and any time you go beyond 100 seats the food tends to suffer. Because the individuality that a chef and brigade of talented cooks tends to wane after that.

Steve Volk has been keeping busy ever since jumping ship from the Philadelphia Weekly to Philadelphia magazine. In his latest piece for Philly, he interviewed Esquire food critic John Mariani. Some interesting stuff here:

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Talking Philly With Esquire’s Food Critic