Kensington Quarters Is Closing, Marking the End of an Era

Surf ‘n’ turf / Photograph by James Lewis Photography

Howdy, buckaroos! And welcome back to the Foobooz food news round-up. There’s just a couple quick things for us to talk about this week, plus a few deep dives on some big, nostalgic moves in the local scene. So I’ll keep things brief and start things off with the week’s bad news.

Kensington Quarters Says Goodbye For Good

After a decade of service, it looks like Kensington Quarters is packing it in. The fast-approaching closure (last day is March 16th) was announced on Instagram, and though they did say they’d be discussing “future plans for the space,” no details were given — either about the reasons for closing or what exactly these “future plans” might be.

Regardless, the news here is that Kensington Quarters is done. And this one hurts, I think, because for a lot of people in Philly, KQ represented a particular moment in time. Ten years? That feels like a different era entirely. It was near the beginning of the city’s last big restaurant boom. It was the age of Aldine, of Pizzeria Beddia. Also, 2014 was the year Juniper Commons, chef Kevin Sbraga’s ’80s nostalgia restaurant, opened … and the year before Juniper Commons closed.

KQ opened two years before Vogue (yeah, that Vogue) named Fishtown Philly’s hottest neighborhood and America’s new Williamsburg. And Kensington Quarters was absolutely part of the vibe that made that kind of insulting (and reductive) analogy a little bit true. It was a butcher shop that served the most remarkable vegetables, a hybrid bar/sit-down restaurant/butchers counter that was serious about whole-animal butchery, then a full-on restaurant that leaned away from its animal origins, a French-ish wine bar, a Southern-inflected American restaurant with house-smoked country hams — and then, thanks to the pandemic, nothing. It closed when everything else closed. Then it stayed closed when a lot of other places were re-opening for outdoor dining. Then, finally, it re-opened — though this time as a completely remade seafood restaurant focusing on “coastal cuisine,” but doing so under the same KQ brand.

It’s a complicated history, to be sure. And KQ has always been something of a chameleon — changing its colors with the mood and the season. But it has always been there. Even when it was closed during the pandemic, it was still a kind of physical and temporal landmark. Y’all remember when we had dinner at Kensington Quarters? Yeah, well, Laser Wolf/Mulherin’s/Frankford Hall/Middle Child is right near there …

The double-decker space is too good to let go. So I’m sure owners Mike and Jeniphur Pasquarello really do have some future plans in mind for it. After all, it’s not like this will be the first time KQ has reinvented itself. And as soon as I know more, you’ll know more.

Keep watching this space.

In Other Nostalgia News …

Philadelphia chef George Sabatino, who just replaced Elijah Milligan at Delco hot spot Rosemary in Ridley / Photograph by Cheryl Betances Photography, courtesy of Rosemary

So this is weird. Thinking about Kensington Quarters got me feeling a little bit nostalgic for that moment in Philly’s edible history that I was talking about above. Not for Juniper Commons, necessarily (though Sbraga certainly made my job easy for the few tumultuous months that it existed), but for some of the other names mentioned.

Like Aldine, for example, whose chef/owner George Sabatino was up there among the biggest names there were in Philly a decade ago. Dude did his time at Fork, Monk’s, and Ansill and spent years working under Marcie Turney on 13th Street. He was also the exec at Stateside on East Passyunk, back before East Passyunk was anything like East Passyunk is now. We named him the best chef in Philly in 2012’s Best of Philly issue and ran that photo of him all tatted up, skinny as a greyhound, and hauling meat. Aldine came after all that — his own place, his own show. That was October of 2014.

Most recently, Sabatino was back with Turney and Val Safran, working as one of their culinary directors. But now, as Victor Fiorillo reported late last week, he’s taking over the kitchen at Rosemary in Ridley Park from another big name from back in the day: Elijah Milligan — who, it should be noted, worked the line at Le Bec-Fin, Laurel, Vernick, and, once upon a time, took over the exec’s gig at Stateside from a young George Sabatino when George bailed on it to work a summer gig at Morgan’s Pier.

Small world.

Anyway, Milligan was at Rosemary for less than a year, but he says he has some other things cooking. Sabatino, meanwhile, is already settling into his new spot in the ‘burbs. All the details are in Victor’s piece, which you can check out right here.

Moving on …

A Long-Awaited Expansion

A rendering of Mulherin’s / Image provided by Method Co.

Like Kensington Quarters, Wm. Mulherin’s Sons is another one of those joints that made Fishtown Fishtown back in the day. It brought bodies to Front Street, had that brickwork-and-Clover-Clubs vibe that everyone wanted, and it smelled amazing.

Years ago, the good folks at Method Co. (the “vertically integrated real estate management, development and design company rooted in hospitality” that owns Mulherin’s) floated the idea of a second location outside of Fishtown. Originally looking at an early ’22 opening, the project got pushed back and pushed back. And now here we are, in 2024, and only now does it FINALLY look like the new place is getting a final polish.

Called just Mulherin’s, it’ll be opening (possibly in April) at 1175 Ludlow Street — on the ground floor of the Girard Building, already home to Method’s Roost (an extended-stay hotel concept).

Basically, we’re talking 12th between Market and Chestnut. Sean McPaul (ex of Parc, Talula’s Garden, High Street on Hudson and elsewhere) will be in charge of the new Mulherin’s kitchen, and the menu is looking like a pared-down version of what the crew at Wm. Mulherin’s Sons has been doing for years: wood-fired pizzas as a focus, small plates to fill out the board, hand-made pastas and seasonal specials. The one interesting thing I found in the new location’s listing on the Method Co. site? The phrase “appropriate for all meal periods” is used to describe the menu — which leads me to believe that they’re leaning into an all-day cafe sort of thing. Which makes sense, considering they’ve already got the hotel right there.

Big News From Ange Branca, Forîn and More

A few items from Kampar’s a la carte menu / Photograph by Neal Santos

The last few days have had a LOT of big industry news — the kind of things we just couldn’t save for the regular weekly round-up. I already told you about Victor talking to George Sabatino, but that’s just the beginning.

Late last week, we found out that Forîn is getting a new head chef, moving Ariel Tobing from his post at Forîn’s other location, Forîn Cafe, and hiring him to run the kitchen here. Ex of Poi Dog and Musi, Tobing is already putting his stamp on things, launching an all-new menu with East Asian and Southeast Asian influences in the next couple days.

Kae Lani has all the details right here. And yes, I know that I just told you all about Liz Grothe and her extended dinner residency at Forîn, but don’t sweat it: She’s still doing her Thursday, Friday and Saturday night thing at Forîn, as planned.

Meanwhile, I promised that I’d come back with all the details on Ange Branca’s new Bella Vista restaurant-slash-incubator project, Kampar, just as soon as Branca had worked out said details for herself. And guess what? Now she has.

March 22nd — that’s the big day for Kampar. Or for half of Kampar, anyway. The upstairs, a la carte and cocktail bar part of the experience, with Branca in the kitchen and her Hakka-Malaysian influences on the menu.

I wrote about it all right here, but these are the most important takeaways:

1) Branca will be rolling out the downstairs kopitiam-style collab menus and residency program once she’s sure everything is working smoothly upstairs.

2) She has a liquor license now, so just take a minute and imagine what the original Saté Kampar would’ve been like with a bar.

3) She’s got something on the menu called chili pan mee that sounds like one of the greatest edible ideas I’ve ever heard of. Seriously.

Okay, that covers most of the big news for the week. Now who wants some leftovers?

The Leftovers

From left: Chef/Owner Tuan Phung of Banh Mi & Bottles; Chef/Owner Chris D’Ambro of Southwark. / Photographs by Caean Couto and Neal Santos

Last week, I told you about Korea Taqueria celebrating its one-year anniversary as a restaurant without wheels. As part of that, the kitchen was promising specials. And man, did they deliver.

Already deserving of the Nobel Prize for their bulgogi beef birria tacos, the KT crew is now slinging bulgogi beef birria burritos. These monsters are basically the house bulgogi wrapped up with guac, rice, beans and mozzarella, with MORE mozzarella on the outside which, after a quick press on the flat grill, gives the burrito its chewy outer shell. Add a cup of kimchi consommé and some house salsa, and you’re good.

Unless, of course, you also want some dessert? Because they’re also running a churro cheesecake special. You know, if you’re into that kind of thing …

Also, on Monday, March 18th, Banh Mi and Bottles and Southwark are doing a collaboration dinner, and they’re calling it an exploration of “Viet-alian” cuisine — which I kinda love. Basically, we’re talking about Tuan Phung and Chris D’Ambro in the same kitchen, knocking out four fusion courses like nothing you’ve ever seen before. And the menu looks SOLID. Dig it:

First Course
Cacio e Pepe Wings with Colatura Vinaigrette x Bun Bo Hue Beef Carpaccio
Second Course
Vitello Tonnato Banh Mi x Tortellini in Brodo with Pho Spiced Mushrooms
Third Course
Lemongrass Sate Porcetta
Fourth Course
Coconut Pandan Cannoli

That’s some kind of genius right there. Plus, there’ll be a custom cocktail for the event, an optional wine pairing, and if you’re down (which you should be), you can score a seat right here. I’d hurry, though. I think this one is going to sell out quickly.

Editor’s note: We updated this article to reflect that Sean McPaul will be in charge of the new Mulherin’s kitchen.