Inside Philly’s Most Disappointing New Restaurant

The bar at Percy / Photograph by Mike Prince

I get what they’re trying to do at Percy. I step inside the new restaurant from the Forîn crew, and I know exactly the vibe they’re trying to create. It is a fantasyland of groovy class; a Kinks-inspired vision of swinging ’70s swank with a horseshoe bar, a top-of-the-line hi-fi, a place for neighbors to hang out in a “sound lounge” and listen to vinyl while someone walks around with plates of deviled eggs spiked with blue cheese and stripped-down daiquiris in matching teardrop coupes. Percy does all of that really, really well.

But the shine on this place is an inch deep. It’s all vibe, with little else worth saying about it. I’ve had servers here who didn’t know what was on the menu, who forgot checkbacks on simple questions (example: Is the kitchen actually serving the Spanish omelet for brunch today, or no?) and entire dishes.

The menu is unbalanced and seems to be trying to be both daring and safe in the same breath, doing mash-up Italo-Asian-French-Mediterranean fusion alongside strip steaks with béarnaise and uninspired breakfast sandwiches with all the texture of lightly toasted air and a smell like feet. And almost miraculously, nearly all of it seems completely divorced from the room it’s served in. If the mood you’re aiming for is mid-century modern cocktail party, then those Buffalo chicken deviled eggs are a good start. Even the “Parisian gnocchi” (quotes mine) with carrot purée feels like something someone’s weird hippie aunt pulled out of an old back issue of Gourmet. But if you’re aiming for bohemian chic, keep the caviar off the crab croquettes and leave the whole dorade in coconut curry at home.

The cocktail list is solid. There are smart deconstructions of overdone classics (like a rote espresso martini turned into a short cocktail served on the rocks with a strong black coffee kick), so Percy is, if nothing else, a nice place to get a drink. And with the exception of some absolutely terrible brunch beignets that tasted like fried white bread dipped in dulce de leche with an aftertaste like burnt diner coffee, the biggest problem at Percy wasn’t that the food was bad, but that it all felt so disjointed. Pretty, sure, but … unmemorable. The kind of food you forget about while you’re still chewing it, which may be an even worse sin. Because no matter how carefully you’ve curated the vibe (or the playlist), I think Philly still remembers what restaurants are for. And with the competition in the city right now, mediocrity at the table is never going to fill the dining room.

1 Star — Come if there are no other options

Rating Key
0 stars: stay away
★: come if there are no other options
★★: come if you’re in the neighborhood
★★★: come from anywhere in Philly
★★★★: come from anywhere in America

Published as “Style Over Substance” in the October 2025 issue of Philadelphia magazine.