Recipe Philly — the City’s New Reality-Show Restaurant — Sets Its Opening Date
But the project, which had local home cooks competing on camera to get their family recipes on the menu, will open with no air date for the docuseries about its creation.
The Recipe Philly team (Clockwise from top: Josh Randall, Clara Park, Jen Carroll, and Josh Moore.) / Photography courtesy of Braithwaite Communications
A while back, I told you all about Recipe — an actual brick-and-mortar restaurant based on a reality show, based on a recipe contest, based on family recipes sent in by “everyday Philadelphians” who signed on for the chance to battle it out and see whose dishes would be included on the restaurant’s opening menu.
Well, guess what? That plan, as bonkers as it might sound, actually worked. The company behind Recipe (Homebred Hospitality, led by longtime business executive, founder of the consulting group SolomonEdwards, and dedicated Philly booster Ed Baumstein) got more than 1,000 people to show up for the public casting call last November. Filming for the docuseries/reality show began immediately, covering every phase of the process — from the auditions and the build-out of the space, straight through to the final reveal. Of the thousand-some potential contestants, dozens were chosen to “share the recipes, family stories and neighborhood flavors that will be judged episode by episode as the menu takes shape.”
Filming for the competition portions of the series began on July 15th inside the restaurant’s already fitted-out space at Broad and Arch streets. It included 60 local home cooks and bartenders. According to the PR company handling Recipe’s roll-out, the contestants “reflect the depth and range of the region’s food community, from passionate home cooks and family recipe keepers to experienced food creators and chefs” — which, to me, seems a little strange. Including pros alongside amateurs? That just seems unfair. But then again, this was from a press release, and words, as we all know, tend to mean different things when used in that format. Experienced food creators and chefs says, to me, recipe YouTubers and line cooks, someone who runs the kitchen at a local haunt, or food influencers brought in for clout. So, who knows?
The reality-competition portion of the show was a winnowing process — getting things down from the original 60 competitors and their dishes (and, presumably, drinks, since bartenders were invited) to whatever number the producers had determined would make it onto the final menu. Contestants presented their dishes, did challenges, and those who advanced through the process had the chance to win prize money along the way. Plus, anyone who ends up with a dish on the final menu gets to eat at Recipe for free for as long as their dish stays.
Veteran producer Josh Randall (who has been involved in American Idol, Building the Band, and other similar projects) is hosting the show. Local judges include Josh Moore (who was our “Food Influencer of the Year” a couple years back), Clara Park (former Chopped champion, and founder of Eat Cetera Philly), and Jen Carroll (chef and Top Chef veteran).
In the background, Baumstein and Homebred have some serious professionals keeping watch on things. He’s partnered with Andy Revella, who has developed menus for everyone from Bennigan’s to Harrah’s Casinos. Jonn Baudoin (ex of the Schulson Collective) and Jarrett O’Hara (most recently culinary director for Federal Donuts) have management and oversight roles. And while that’s some fairly heavy (and corporate) culinary firepower to have on staff, the whole hook here is that no one will know what the final menu looks like until the dust has settled and the competition is done. But after that, Recipe will transform into a fairly standard restaurant — which means an entire team will be required to actually cook and serve these dishes.
“Recipe Philly was created to celebrate the recipes that live in Philadelphia homes,” according to Baumstein. “The dishes passed down, perfected, reinvented, and shared around family tables for generations. Now that filming is underway and the restaurant is nearing its opening, we’re seeing this idea become real: a menu built by the people of Philadelphia, for Philadelphia.”
Blank menu board at Recipe Philly
Which, of course, is the rosiest possible spin to put on it. Do I love the idea of the industry to which I have devoted the vast majority of my working life being turned into fodder for a reality show? I absolutely do not. But credit where it’s due: While most cooking competition shows glorify the individual talent and genius of chefs, this one is digging into the power of recipes, which is a nice twist.
Plus, anyone who has ever watched a season of Top Chef knows that the best episode is always “Restaurant Wars” (where two teams have to assemble, staff, and run an entire restaurant for a night), and this whole thing Baumstein has going is basically one enormous version of that, spread out over an entire season. And at the end, that restaurant has to keep on operating. It has to transition from being a TV set into being a functioning restaurant, with all the complications that entails. Someone has to remember to order the cutlets and wrap all the silverware. Someone has to know whom to call when the ice machine breaks down mid-service and what to do when L&I shows up. And that, to me, is where it gets interesting.
Because Recipe isn’t some small, neighborhood spot. When it opens, it will seat 175 people. It is a large, complicated undertaking that will likely get a massive boost in visibility if the series detailing its creation ever airs, but right now that’s not a sure thing. Production wrapped on July 27th. The series is currently in editing. And while the partners are in talks with networks and streamers, there’s no finalized air date yet. So when it opens here, it will do so without all the hype of a TV series behind it. And even if the hype of a potential TV show gets people in the door once, Recipe will have to convince people that it’s worth coming back to on its own merits. It will have to prove the viability of its initial concept every day — just like any other restaurant in town.
If all goes well, Baumstein hopes to be able to repeat this process in cities all across the country: every version of Recipe based on the flavors of its region, every one of them different. And if it doesn’t? Well, that’s just the truth of the industry that has existed this whole time in the background of what he and his producers set out to document. Not everything works. Not every gimmick pans out.
Our very own Recipe Philly is set to open to the public on August 13th at 1401 Arch Street. No matter what happens, its menu will be an archive — a document detailing, in this moment, what Philly tastes like. Honed by competition, chosen by committee, it will be a record of what we love and what we don’t.
And I am really kind of looking forward to seeing what the place can do.
