About the Food at A.Kitchen


It isn’t about the farm to table concept at a.kitchen, though there is some of that. It isn’t about the Rittenhouse scene, though there’s certainly some of that. It isn’t about the celebrity chef despite the open kitchen and the lauded Bryan Sikora at center stage. Trey Popp says a.kitchen is refreshingly about the food.

What it mainly wants (or seems to want) is for its food and drink to speak for themselves—though even there, with a voice as quiet as the restaurant is loud. Sikora’s cooking is skillful, from the minimalism of a scallop crudo simply dressed with a red-wine mustard, to more involved preparations like calamari stuffed with (if a bit overwhelmed by) house-made chorizo. Vegetables and fish outshone meat dishes in the summer, when Spain and Italy were the kitchen’s lodestars. The “forest-driven cuisines of Eastern Europe” are on Sikora’s agenda for the fall.

Two and a half Stars – Good to Excellent

Review: a.kitchen [Philadelphia Magazine]

a.kitchen
135 South 18th St
215-825-7030
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Photograp by Jason Varney