Marcello De Feo grew up in a South Philly Italian household. His mother, Santa Bianca, came to America from Abruzzo when she was a teenager. “I’m first-generation Italian,” De Feo says. “My Nonna lived with us from when I was born.” Looking back, she looms large in his food memories. Each day, Nonna Paola would pack his school lunches. “I didn’t realize how spoiled I was. I’d go to school and my lunch was this amazing roll with things like […]

Categories: food & drink

Given the state of the Philly restaurant scene, it’s not easy to convince folks to cross the bridge for food. Lately, though, there are plenty of delicious reasons to hop on the Speedline to Collingswood, New Jersey. It’s not just for Joey Baldino’s Zeppoli, a draw for nine years running. (Though let’s be real: That’s reason enough to visit). A new guard of restaurants delivers both style and range, making this South Jersey suburb a destination in its own right. Read […]

Categories: food & drink

Style With a bright-blue interior, cheery with sunshine-yellow chairs, this casual South American spot opened in December in the former home of a Rocket Fizz franchise.  The scoop With Que Ricas (“how rich”), Sahar Soleymani pays soulful tribute to her mother’s Venezuelan roots. Her broad smile is always on display in the open kitchen.  Read more… Published in the February 2020 issue

Categories: food & drink

Owners Dory and Christine Chamoun opened Dory’s—an ode to chef Dory’s Lebanese roots—last summer. Nearly 80 percent of the ingredients are imported from Lebanon, including spices, tahini and pickled turnips. The menu is large and offers many tempting choices. Where to begin? Read more… Published in the January 2020 issue

Categories: food & drink

At a time when restaurant design has neared aesthetic ubiquity—we’re looking at you, Edison bulbs—it is refreshing when a space bucks the trend. To enter Shana’s Wild Fig in Blackwood (which opened in November) is to encounter a different take on American hospitality. Eye-popping pink accents abound, feminine down to the feather-stuffed bud vases. Velvet ropes set off tables in the front room, where an upright piano is perched beneath a beaded chandelier. A rehabbed Louis XV couch offers front-row […]

Categories: food & drink

Peering at the oversized pair of cow-shaped benches that flank the entrance to Funky Cow in Hammonton, one could be forgiven the assumption that ice cream is on the menu. This is not entirely incorrect. Behind the counter of this laid-back, ultra-friendly cafe, ice cream machines stand at attention below a menu divided into two categories. They are framed as delicious imperatives: “Graze Savory” and “Graze Healthy and Sweet.” Yet the hook here isn’t dairy. Not entirely. The defining characteristic […]

Categories: food & drink