The Drama Behind Stephen Starr’s New Restaurant

After divorcing chef and partner Bryan Sikora last year, successful restaurateur Aimee Olexy—of reservation-impossible Talula’s Table—is poised to make a fresh start with Talula’s Garden. This time, she’s got Stephen Starr by her side

THE FOLLOWING YEAR she met Bryan Sikora at the Hotel Boulderado. He ran the kitchen; she ran the show. They soon married, and worked everywhere from Denver to San Francisco before settling in Philly and signing on with Starr. While Olexy managed Starr’s empire, Sikora presided over the galley at Moroccan-themed Tangerine. “I was bursting at the seams to start my own restaurant,” she says. “I believed I had the experience and wanted to give it a try.”

In 2001, with a government loan of $45,000 and little more than mountain bikes for collateral, the couple opened Django. The culinary gem was always packed, but without a liquor license profits were slim. By 2005, Sikora, a native of western Pennsylvania, had tired of the city and Django’s flour box of a kitchen. Seeking a more rustic setting in which to raise their infant daughter, Annalee Talula Rae Sikora, they sold Django and moved to Unionville, in the Brandywine Valley. “In Philly, we were the biggest smallest game in town,” Sikora says. “We thought, ‘How can we make it smaller?’”

They bought and gutted a vacant shoe store in nearby Kennett Square. To help pay the bills, he worked as a line cook at Sovana Bistro; she applied for work at grocery stores. To her great amusement, she was turned down for an assistant’s job behind the cheese counter at the Whole Foods in Devon. “The teenager who interviewed me had never even worked in cheese,” she remembers. “She’d just come over from fish.”

Talula’s Table opened in 2007 and was an instant and unexpected success — a vibrant market by day that, at night, turned into a cozy dinner party offering a single seating and a fixed, hyper-seasonal menu. Prospective diners from as far off as the Rockies lined up outside at dawn hoping to beat the 7 a.m. opening of the operation’s phone-reservation line.

Eager to capitalize on their reputation and reach a broader audience, Olexy and Sikora both started looking for a location for a sister restaurant. After a few false starts, they accepted Starr’s offer to remake the Blue Angel space. By December 2009, Starr was putting out bids for construction.

Then, shortly after New Year’s, Sikora told Olexy he wanted out. “Aimee phoned me and said, ‘Stephen, we have a problem,’” says Starr. “I was floored.” As was Olexy. A week later, she says, she found evidence — text messages — that Sikora had a lover. Through the divorce settlement, Olexy became the sole owner of Talula’s Table. She promoted sous-chef Matthew Moon to replace Sikora in the kitchen; Sikora bounced around galleys from Allentown to the Delaware shore. He now has a new wife, a new daughter (born in early February) and a new job as chef of the A-Kitchen, a boutique restaurant set to open in Rittenhouse Square this spring. “I hope Aimee’s new place is a huge success,” he says.

For a while, Olexy could only think furiously of how she’d been deceived. The Talula’s staff rallied behind her. By summer, Olexy decided it was best to move on. “I made up my mind to love every day of my life,” she says. “I wouldn’t let the breakup set me back.” She convinced Starr to stage a “pop-up” restaurant in the vacant space he’d been renting in the Ayer Building since the 2007 close of his restaurant Washington Square. All 450 seats at the three-night pop-up were booked within two hours; the event was a sensation. Accolades bordered on delirious. Maybe most importantly, the venture allowed Olexy to dip her toe back into the city dining scene before taking the plunge. Now, “I’m keener than ever to work,” she says. “I love people, I love food, and I love the city. Collaborating with Stephen puts me smack in the center of it all.”