What To Eat This Weekend

So here we are, another weekend looming before us, and while we all certainly have lots of other things on our minds, we all still have to eat. And that’s where we come in.

Below is a list of everything cool, new interesting or delicious that we’ve been looking at in the past week, offered as a reminder that even though the world might be going to hell, we can always still send it off with a slice, a cocktail and a grilled cheese sandwich.

Unusual pizzas at 24–The Garces Group’s newest restaurant, 24, opened at 2401 Walnut Street this week. It’s one of those places that leans heavily on wood-oven cooking, and while that means lots of roasted peppers, roasted beets and smoky pastas, it also means pizzas. And the new team running the kitchen there have two really good ones on the opening menu. The first is a clam pizza that goes heavy on the green vegetable notes with kale, scallions and garlic, but balances things out with a hot spike of Calabrian chile. The second is a potato pizza (which I really like, though have rarely found it done well) that pairs Rogue’s Smokey Blue cheese with melted onions to counteract the addition of starch to, well, starch.

Lobster Grilled Cheese Sandwich at Luke’s Lobster–You deserve it, right? It’s been a tough week for everyone. And it really doesn’t look like things are going to get any better soon. So before the world ends and we’re all using bullets and bottle caps as currency, spend some of that extra folding money on a luxurious and comforting lunch from the new winter menu at Luke’s.

Spicy pizzas from Beddia, Mulherin’s and elsewhere–Yesterday, we went off on this whole jag about spicy pizzas while hanging out at Foobooz World HQ. The result? Art put together a list of six of the best spicy pizzas in town. Any one of these will be perfect for taking the chill off as the nights start getting colder and things (in general) start getting darker.

Burgers and cheesesteak fries at Franklin Square–Is it too early to be talking about the Franklin Square Holiday Festival? It might be. But who knows. If hot donuts and 50,000 twinkle lights are your jam, the festival opened to the public this week.

A sausage roll and a banoffee tart from Stargazy–There’s nothing new here. Nothing groundbreaking. I’m just offering this as a suggestion for anybody who feels that they need a little something to comfort themselves with because, for me, there is almost nothing that makes me feel better about the world than taking a long walk to Stargazy, picking up one of the greatest desserts I have ever had, and then a warm sausage roll to eat on the way back to my car. It’s cheaper than therapy, better for you than sitting curled up in a ball weeping about the injustice of the world, and cheaper than moving to Canada. No, a banoffee tart and a sausage roll isn’t going to fix anything, but it may make you feel a little better about the things that are broken.

Extra Bonus Cocktail: the Dying Declaration at Harp & Crown–I don’t know why, but something about the name just feels appropriate right now. And the combination of bourbon, cinnamon and a whole lot of bitters makes it taste like the perfect drink for this particular moment in history.