LMNO’s Ex-Chef Frankie Ramirez Unveils Ambitious New Project: Amá

Image courtesy of Amá

Howdy, buckaroos! And welcome back to the weekly Foobooz food news round-up. We’ve just got a few quick things to get to this week, including (but not limited to) a chef’s table for Little Walter’s, a holiday pickle feast, even more new restaurant openings, and Le Virtù’s most historically accurate La Panarda ever. So let’s kick things off with …

New Details on Amá, Bringing Mexican Food to the Fishtown-Kensington Border

Okay, so stick with me for a second. This might get confusing.

Frankie Ramirez is a self-taught chef from Mexico City. He’s had a long career in Philly, starting as a dishwasher at Stephen Starr’s Washington Square (now Talula’s Garden) and then working his way up — as a line cook at Morimoto and Butcher & Singer, a sous-chef at Parc, then exec for Enoteca Tredici at the Refectory Grill in Villanova. After that, it was back to Starr Restaurants to open LMNO in Fishtown, which he ran for four years until he decided that it was time to open a restaurant of his own.

But Frankie wasn’t going to do it alone.

Frankie’s wife, Veronica, was working as a pastry chef at Bliss on South Broad when they first met. And actually, she didn’t meet Frankie so much as she was responsible for training him at his first line cook gig because she was the only one at Bliss who spoke Spanish, which is just the way these kinds of restaurant love stories go sometimes. The two of them worked in restaurants, fell in love in restaurants, and then got married. So, really, this whole opening a restaurant thing? It was a joint decision. They were going to do it together.

But, again, they weren’t going to do it alone.

Roberto Medina came to Philly from Puebla, alone, when he was 17 years old. He lived with a friend and found work as a dishwasher in a variety of Philly restaurants, and worked his way all the way up to a chef’s gig at Spasso Italian Grill in Old City. Roberto met his wife, Crisalida Mata, when she was tending bar at Spasso, and the two of them went on to open a new Spasso in Media, along with a partner, and then, six years later, opened Agave Mexican Cuisine out in Chadds Ford. In 2020, Roberto and Crisalida opened La Catrina in Media and, at this point, had become old hands at opening restaurants. They knew how the game was played.

The dream team behind Amá / Photograph by Mike Prince

So when Frankie and Veronica decided that they wanted to open a restaurant of their own, who do you think they went to? That’s right; they went to Roberto, Frankie’s friend of 15 years. Roberto knew that Frankie could cook. Frankie knew that Roberto knew how to open a restaurant. They shook hands, became partners, and now, all four of them are ready to announce that their new restaurant, Amá, is getting ready to open early in 2025.

And it’s a BIG one, too: 4,300 square feet with 120 seats, including 20 at the bar and another 12 at a chef’s table next to the kitchen. It’s a serious project, currently in the middle of build-out at the corner of Front and Oxford Street, right on the Fishtown-Kensington border.

Frankie is 37 now. He knows exactly what he wants this restaurant to be. “Elevated Mexican” is what he’s calling it: “Old flavors, new hands, timeless recipes, and new traditions.” He wants to show Philly what he thinks of when he thinks of Mexico — this open, welcoming experience, these delicious flavors.

The space will be all white plaster and exposed beams, a cement-topped bar, and an open kitchen, with big accordion doors along Front and Oxford so that, when the weather is nice, they can open the whole place up and make it feel like one big patio. There’ll be fresh tortillas on the comal and open flames under the coal and wood-fired grills, and the menu will take advantage of all of that, expressing both seasonality and the variety available from all six major culinary regions of Mexico — everything from Baja to the Gulf, whole grilled fish to coal-roasted octopus, carne asada, polla a la brasa, and prawns al carbon.

And Amá is getting close, too. Frankie says he can feel it — them inching toward the finish line. There’s no hard opening date yet, but you better believe I’ll be keeping an eye on the place.

You’ll know more as soon as I know more. I promise.

Now what’s next …

Dear Daphni Has an Opening Date

Last week, I ran through a looooong list of restaurants trying to sneak in an opening before the end of the year, but here’s a pretty big one that didn’t have an official date until …well, yesterday.

Michael Schulson’s restaurant group, the Schulson Collective, has been working on a brand new Mediterranean concept for quite a while now. Called Dear Daphni, it is opening at The Laurel in Rittenhouse, right there at 20th and Sansom, just a block off the Square.

It’s supposed to be a pretty easy, approachable place — lots of meat on sticks, whole grilled fish, share plates, mezze, pilaf, and pita. And it’ll be pretty large as well, with seating for around 150. It’s a big swing, but Schulson doesn’t really do small or medium swings. Big is the only size he really knows.

And even though the Schulson team has been playing this one a little bit close to the vest, it looks like we’re all going to be able to get a look at the place pretty soon. Dear Daphni now has an official opening date and will be throwing open the doors next week, on December 12th.

Finally, an Excuse to Eat Even MORE Pierogi (and Knuckles)

Little Walter’s Golonka Dinner / Photograph by Scott Sumsky

I realize that this weekly round-up has basically become a Little Walter’s fan column over the past few months. I understand that I talk about the place a LOT.

But seriously, if you’ve been there for dinner, you get it, right? It’s just one of those restaurants that you want to be at all the time. You want to live there — or maybe just close enough that you can walk over every night to hang out at the bar, eat pierogi, and drink Polish cocktails with names that no one but the bartenders and the regulars can pronounce.

Anyway, Little Walter’s was already a great place to go and eat dinner on pretty much any night it was open. But now, on Saturday nights, they’re doing something special.

Chef Michael Brenfleck and his crew have just launched what they’re calling “Golonka Dinner,” which makes me laugh every time I type it because, objectively speaking, golonka is just a very funny word.

In Polish, golonka means knuckle. In the kitchen, what it means is a classic Eastern European dish of pork shank over cabbage. In this particular kitchen, though, it means a special, family-style tasting menu experience curated and served by Brenfleck to two seatings at his plush, red velvet couch and chef’s table set right outside Little Walter’s open kitchen. There’s room for six, and the house is only doing two seatings every Saturday at $500 for the whole table — which sounds like a lot until you look at the menu and divide that $500 between you and five of your drinkiest, pierogiest, pork-lovingest friends.

Here’s what comes with dinner:

• Six cans of Żubr Polish lager
• A bottle of vodka plus accompaniments and mixers (the staff suggests asking to have Piłkarz pickle martinis made for you tableside)
• House-made rye with smalec and dill butter
• Surówka (a selection of seasonal salads and small plates, like Polish salatim or banchan)
• Pierogi, in three different varieties, with six pierogi per order. Meaning 18 pierogi, which, if they just happen to arrive while two of your friends are in the bathroom or outside having a smoke, means nine pierogi for you.
• Golonka served over bigos with roasted potatoes on a big-ass plate, served with kielbasa, gołabki, and chicken cutlet
• Dessert

So yeah, it’s a lot of food. It’s a lot of booze. It’s a LOT of pork products and pierogi, which means it’s a helluva party. Little Walter’s started doing these Golonka Dinners last weekend, but they’re already taking reservations for this Saturday’s two seatings: one at 5:30 p.m. (which can be booked here) and one at 8:30 p.m. (which can be booked here). If you’re interested, I’d be quick. Because remember: You’re booking the whole table, so you’ve only got two chances at this.

Unless you want to wait for next week.

Now who has room for some leftovers?

The Leftovers

Fishtown Pickle Project gears up for the “Feast of Seven Pickles.” / Photograph by Mike Prince

Speaking of pickles, what has seven courses and sold out the last three years running? Fishtown Pickle Project’s “Feast of the Seven Pickles,” that’s what. And it is back again for a fourth year, doing an “Italian Holidays Edition” on Tuesday, December 17th at Mural City Cellars.

This is one of those projects that just kinda blew up huge all on its own. In years past, it’s been a kind of massive collaboration with different restaurants and chefs involved. This year, it’s FPP’s Niki Toscani and Mike Sicinski teaming up with Ed Crochet and Justine MacNeil from Fiore Fine Foods to do a seven-course, pickle-centric dinner at Mural City featuring everything from Fishtown Pickle Project’s seasonal giardiniera with fermented rye crackers, local cheese, and salami to pickled endives and fermented winter fruit salad, pickled shrimp toast, sweet potato gnocchi with fermented cabbage and scallion, and torta Caprese al Limone with pickled cranberries and mascarpone for dessert. There’ll also be local farmers on hand, a local holiday market, and jars of FPP’s Aji Dulce Giardiniera — a collaboration with chef Eli Kulp that utilizes his home-grown peppers, with a portion of proceeds from sales of those jars (plus $10 from every ticket sold) going to the Share Food Program.

There’ll be three seatings this year, at 5 p.m., 6:45 p.m., and 8:30 p.m. Tickets are $95, and they’re being released today at noon. You can get yours right here.

Speaking of annual events, Le Virtù is already getting ready for this year’s epic, day-long, 40-course La Panarda feast scheduled for February 16th. Why such a long run-up? Because this year, owners Francis Cratil-Cretarola and Catherine Lee, along with chef Andrew Wood, have been invited to experience the OG La Panarda in Abruzzo’s Villavallelonga — a town of 900 people where the event (which goes on for 12 hours) has been held every year since 1657. So they’ll be attending that party, turning around, and coming home, then doing their own — no doubt heavily influenced by the trip — just a couple weeks later.

I’m also mentioning it because tickets for Le Virtù’s version will be going up for sale on December 4th. Yeah, tomorrow. They’re $500 per person (plus tax and tip), with a max of five people per party, and most years they have sold out within minutes, so you’re going to have to be quick. Keep an eye on Le Virtù’s Instagram for details.

Meanwhile, Teddy Sourias and his Craft Concepts Group have two big announcements this week. First, their annual pop-up Christmas theme bar, Tinsel, is back again this year at 116 South 12th Street in Midtown Village. It opened on Black Friday and features a classic Christmas comedy theme, an animatronic Santa, over-the-top cocktails, and all the drunken Christmas cheer anyone could ever want.

Inside Monda / Photograph by Society Hill Films

And right around the corner, Sourias and CCG are finally opening Mona after a three-year wait. The fancy-pants Mediterranean concept took over the space of the old Luxe Home store at 1308 Chestnut Street and built out a sprawling, multi-story, Greek-inspired bar and restaurant with full-grown olive trees inside, a bar and lounge on the ground floor, a proper dining room (and a second bar) upstairs, a custom cocktail program, chandeliers, and a massive mermaid mural. It’s a lot.

And Sourias isn’t even close to done. Mona opens this Friday with a menu full of hummus, souvlaki, kofta, gyros, whole roasted branzino with pommes purée, herb-crusted lamb chops — the works. The bar will be slinging baklava old-fashioneds and a house martini made with dill-infused gin. But that’s just the beginning, because Sourias and CCG hold the papers for two more entire floors, which they’ll be opening in the coming months to add space for more drinking, a dance club, and weekend brunches. In its final form, this place is going to be enormous.

Needless to say, Midtown Village is going to be jumping this weekend.

And finally, some late-breaking news to finish off this week’s round-up: Esquire magazine just released their list of the 50 Best New Restaurants in America this morning, and guess who notched two slots this year?

That’s right. Philly did. And they’re solid picks, too. Both Amy’s Pastilillos and Tyler Akin’s Bastia got the nod, and I totally get why the staff fell for both of these places. Amaryllis­ Rivera Nassar and her crew just kick all kinds of ass at her pink-on-pink shop in Fishtown that serves (among other things) some of the best sweet plantains in town, and Bastia? Well, Bastia is just a marvel. I was there a little while ago for dinner with my daughter, and I still can’t stop talking about the place.

So congrats to both teams. Y’all deserve all the love.

Also, now I want some plantains, so I’ll see everyone next week.