Reservations for Fleur’s, Philly’s New French Spot, Are Open … Now!

Dishes from Fleur’s / Photograph by Mike Prince

Howdy, buckaroos! And welcome back to the weekly Foobooz food news round-up. Just a few quick things to get through this week — including (but not limited to) George Sabatino’s return to the Philly scene, big news from Michelin headquarters, a hoagie throwdown, an opening date for Sao, and a Polish-Italian collab dinner for the ages. So let’s get right into it, shall we? We’ll kick things off this week with …

Steak Frites at the Furniture Store

It was back in mid-April that we first got news about Fleur’s — the multi-level, multi-concept French restaurant, raw bar, and boutique hotel coming to the former Fluehr’s Furniture Store at 2205 North Front Street in East Kensington.

It was a project that contained multitudes: a full-on French restaurant, raw bar, event spaces, rooftop bar, and a hotel. The original plan was to have the restaurant part open by the end of spring, but even back in April, that seemed unlikely to me. So here we are now, just past the unofficial end of summer, and word has come down that the first phase of Fleur’s (the restaurant and raw bar) will be opening to the public on Friday, September 12th, at 5 p.m.

And reservations are open starting … now. No, like literally right now. I wasn’t allowed to say anything about the place until noon today because noon today (Tuesday, September 2nd) is when reservations go live.

The project is a partnership between three industry veterans coming from three very different places. Graham Gernsheimer is a Vetri alum, a dishwasher-turned-bartender-turned-manager who has worked his way up through the industry over years. Josh Mann did 16 years with Starr and has a résumé dating all the way back to Tangerine. Most recently, he’s been working as management for Defined Hospitality, leading teams at Condesa, El Techo, Suraya, and Kalaya. And George Sabatino is a chef who has been pretty much everywhere, learned French cooking from David Ansill back in the day, opened his own restaurant (Aldine), worked for Marcie Turney and Val Safran’s restaurant group, and, most recently, was in the kitchen at Rosemary out in Ridley Park when I reviewed it. So doing French food in East Kensington? That’s kind of like a return home for him. And one that I’m really hoping goes well.

The menu looks interesting, with highlights like an uni custard tartlet with caviar, onion tarte Tatin, roasted half-chickens with Jimmy Nardello piperade, and steak frites au poivre with beef tallow fries and a very nouvelle Thai chile sauce vierge. At the raw bar they’re doing oysters with a watermelon mignonette, dry-aged yellowfin tuna with koshō, and clams with a cornichon cocktail sauce. “A French backbone and a Philly edge” is how they’re describing the menu to the press. And Sabatino says, “Every dish has something you can point to and say, ‘That’s French’ — but never fussy.”

Inside Fleur’s / Photograph by Mike Prince

Meanwhile, the bar is operating as an extension of the kitchen, using French spirits as a base and the pantry for inspiration. There are duck-fat Old Fashioneds; Provençal Daiquiris (with peach, tomato, and basil), and a zero-proof squash sour with burnt honey.

It sounds … daring? Certainly experimental. And interesting, which is, I think, the important thing here. I’d rather the crew take a big swing and see what happens than try to play it safe; and this definitely seems like a situation where they’re seeing how far they can push a concept to make the bar program feel wedded to the work being done on the hot line. I’m curious to see how that plays out.

So to recap: Reservations for Fleur’s are open now. The first night of service will be September 12th. Brunch and happy hour programming will launch soon — once the restaurant gets settled into its new space — with the planned rooftop bar and boutique hotel operations planned for 2026. As always, you’ll know more as soon as I know more.

Now what else is happening this week?

Michelin’s Big Philly Announcement

The first Michelin Guide was published in 1900 / Photograph by Apic/Getty Images

Look, if you’re reading this column, you already know that the Michelin Guide recently announced that it would be adding Philly to its Northeast Cities guide this year.

It’s a very big deal. No matter how you feel about the Guide itself, or what effect its coming may (or may not) have on our local scene, the fact that Philly is now part of that conversation is a paradigm-shifting change that we’ll be dealing with for a long time.

But the new news in all of this is that not only is Philly being included in this year’s guide, but, as Michelin and the Philly Convention and Visitors Bureau announced last week, the announcement itself — the big, fancy-pants ceremony where stars and other distinctions will be revealed for restaurants in Philly, Boston, Chicago, Washington D.C., and New York City — will be held here.

Yes, here. On November 18th at the Kimmel Center.

“We are excited to honor and celebrate the talented culinary community of the Northeast Cities in the iconic city of Philadelphia, which is a shining example of hospitality,” said Gwendal Poullennec, international director of the Michelin Guide. “These five cities are home to a rich foundation of culinary history and culture that makes each city stand out for its unique talent and local flavors. Our anonymous inspectors look forward to sharing their discoveries with the world, including spotlighting eateries in Boston and Philadelphia for the very first time.”

So now this whole thing is a double big deal. Which is cool, because I’m totally in favor of Philly getting all the attention. But I still have my own issues with the entire Michelin thing and the tyranny of expectation that comes with it, so I’m torn.

Anyway, access to the ceremony is by invite only so there’s nothing really to plan for. But if you care at all about restaurants in this town (which, again, if you’re reading this, you already do), be ready for an absolute tsunami of praise, rage, snark, congratulations, and resentment to hit the feed immediately following the event.

This being Philly’s first year of Michelin consideration, I’m honestly not expecting a huge haul of stars or anything like that, but it would be super weird if they agreed to have the ceremony here and then left our city completely out in the cold, right? So I’m anticipating that we’ll all definitely have something to talk about the next day.

Mecha Noodle Bar Sets an Opening Date

Photograph courtesy of Mecha Noodle Bar

I first told you about this place back in January, in a wrap-up of interesting openings scheduled for the coming year. But now, the first Philly location of this regional chain of Asian noodle restaurants is getting ready to open at 1700 Front Street in Fishtown, in one of the retail spaces attached to the Urby apartment building (also home to Percy).

Mecha (which is Vietnamese for “mom and pop” in the sense of a small, neighborhood cafe or restaurant) is based out of Fairfield, Connecticut. Founded by two childhood friends, Tony Pham and Rich Reyes, it is an Asian comfort food concept, taking the greatest hits from Vietnamese, Japanese, and Chinese street food and mixing them up with some noodles, spiked boba, sake bombs, bao, and hand rolls.

I don’t know yet exactly how the menu at the Fishtown outpost will shape up, but I know there’ll be pho and ramen, Sichuan hot wings, chile oil dumplings, and some exclusive, Philly-only dishes like a curry mazemen with red curry noodles, fried shrimp bánh mì, and crispy rice cakes with pork chili and mustard greens.

Mecha will open on Saturday, September 6th, at 4 p.m. It’s a no-reservations, first-come, first-served kind of situation, and the first 100 people through the door will score a $100 Mecha gift card to use on future visits — a nice bonus, to be sure.

You can find out more about the place here.

Now who has room for some leftovers?

The Leftovers

The team in front of Sao / Photograph by Kae Lani Palmisano

Speaking of new openings, it looks like Sao — the new Southeast Asian oyster bar from Phila and Rachel Lorn of Mawn — will officially open to the public on September 10th at 1710 East Passyunk.

They went through a couple nights of friends-and-family and limited preview dinners last week, all of which went very well according to Rachel. She told me, “It felt like we were … open, you know? Just open.” And everyone felt good enough about the experience that they decided they were ready for the real thing.

Next, I’ve got not one, but two pieces of hoagie news for you this week. First, Eli Kulp’s Delicious City podcast is pairing hoagies, beer, and professional wrestling in their first-ever “Hoagie Throwdown” on Sunday, September 7th, at Other Half Brewing on Canal Street in Fishtown.

From noon to 5 p.m., they’ll be bringing together more than a dozen of the city’s top hoagie artists (Angelo’s Pizzeria, Farina Di Vita, Breezy’s Deli, Càphê Roasters, and more) for a day of sandwiches and live pro wrestling in a full-size ring. There’ll be local vendors, live entertainment, lots of wrestling, and an Iron Chef-style celebrity hoagie-making competition inside the ring, judged by local hoagie aficionados. At the end of the day, everyone in attendance will get to vote on their favorite local hoagie maker, and whoever gets the most votes will be crowned Delicious City’s Hoagie Champion for 2025, taking home a custom championship belt.

There are only 500 tickets available for the event, total. And they’re already on sale. So if you’re looking to be a part of this truly unique (and truly weird) one-day-only combination of wrestling, beer, and sandwiches, I’d be quick about it. All the information you need can be found right here.

Second, if you’re super into hoagies but don’t care much for professional wrestling, there’s this: Local food tour company Tiny Table Tours is doing a one-off Fishtown Hoagie Tour, hosted by Liberty Kitchen’s Matt Budenstein and Beau Neidhart. On the tour, you’ll visit six restaurants to explore Philly’s hoagie culture. These include Liberty Kitchen (for their kale chicken Caesar cutlet hoagie), Middle Child Clubhouse for a sandwich and a cocktail, Gilda for a detour into Portuguese sandwiches (and egg tarts), Castellino’s for a classic Italian hoagie, Amy’s for a different take on hand-held snacking, and then to Circles & Squares for a cheesesteak. Along the way, debate whether a cheesesteak counts as a hoagie.

Tickets for this one are $250 and very limited. But if you’re down (and want your best shot at snagging a slot), reservations will be released to Tiny Tables newsletter subscribers on September 4th at noon. You can sign up here. Otherwise, take your chances on Instagram when tickets go on sale on September 6th.

Finally this week, we have spent a lot of time here talking about both Michael Brenfleck’s perfect Polish comfort food restaurant, Little Walter’s, as well as The Bakery, Rocco Weiss’s combination doughnut shop, restaurant, bakery, cafe, and pop-up pizza joint.

Now, they — Brenfleck and Weiss — are joining forces for a one-night-only collaboration dinner in South Philly that’ll see the two chefs doing a six-course blind tasting dinner at The Bakery, fusing Italian specialties with traditional Polish cuisine.

No, we don’t know what the menu looks like. That’s what a blind tasting means. But we do know that they’re only doing a single seating, for just 20 guests, starting at 6:30 p.m. sharp. (BYO encouraged.)

Tickets for the dinner are $125, so if you’re into it (and you absolutely should be into it), you need to be watching The Bakery’s Instagram feed tomorrow, September 3rd, at 6 p.m. That’s where the link to get tickets will be published. With only 20 seats available, I’m guessing the whole thing will be over very quickly. But that’s why I’m telling you about it now. So you can plan ahead.

May the odds be ever in your favor.