No Diner Food At The Silk

no Silk City isn’t really a diner anymore. And for a foodie, that’s a good thing.

In the kitchen, chef Peter Dunmire was scraping the bottom of a big stove-top pan, sizzling backs and wings with rough-chunked carrots, onions, and celery for the rosemary chicken gravy he’d be serving with the roasted chicken (with mashed potatoes and sage stuffing, $16) that evening.

He was building flavor the classic way: In went the homemade chicken stock, and syncopated glugs of Chateau Luzerne, the jug wine, coincidentally, that they used to serve by the glass at Eden, the Chestnut Street eatery where Dunmire first worked in his teens.

He’d reduce the stock for four hours or more.

So, no, he’s not turning out your usual diner fare; none of that yellow, bagged gravy-glop here. And no mushy frozen fries (they’re hand cut), or store-bought flatbread for the Mediterranean special tonight. Dunmire patted a mound of sticky dough rising in a bowl like a baby’s tummy. Later, it would be flattened and grilled, topped with the plum tomatoes roasting in the oven, some grilled onion, and curried lamb tenderloin.

The new Silk City: No diner, but better [Philadelphia Inquirer]
Silk City [MySpace]