278: Ellen Yin

0:28This episode is brought to you by Resi and American Express. I have no relationship with it, to be quite honest. I don't remember the last time I had a cheesesteak, but people don't realize how much the real Philly sandwich is the roast pork. John's, there are a couple. Denix is really good in the Reading Terminal. Roast pork, yeah, all the way. This is Taste. I'm your host, Matt Rodbard.

0:59Ellen Yin is the founder and co-owner of High Street Hospitality Group and behind some of the best restaurants not just in Philadelphia, but the entire country. These include Fork, High Street on Market, and High Street Provisions. On this episode, we speak with Ellen about her journey to hospitality, the specialist of the Philadelphia restaurant scene, and what it was like to win a James Beard Award for America's Top Restaurateur. It's so great catching up with Ellen, and I hope you enjoy this conversation.

1:39Ellen Yen, this is Taste. Hi, Matt. How are you? I'm great, and thank you for riding the train up from Philly through Jersey, where you're from. I mean, I want to just like jump right into it. Philadelphia is one of our country's greatest food cities, hands down. Thank you for saying is because I've heard so many times over the past decade or so that Philadelphia is becoming or is a rising star or something like that. And I, you know, of course, I'm very proud to be Philadelphian, although I'm originally from New Jersey. But I'm very proud. I've lived there for close to, I don't even want to admit it, but over 30 years.

2:24And I just love the city. I'm super passionate about it. And I'm passionate about the food scene because I do think, you know, having traveled around the country and internationally, it is a great food scene. Fully formed. There is no future tense. This is happening now. And, of course, if you subscribe to the James Beard Award as being anything, which we do here, you've won a big award. And Philly won many awards this year in the national categories. So, like, by your peers, you're being recognized. That said, I just want to, for our listeners, Philly isn't, like, on that natural tourism route, especially if you, like, live in the West Coast or if you live in the Midwest.

3:02You're not necessarily going through there. We'll talk about your restaurants, but why should we visit Philly in general? Well, I think that that is increasingly becoming untrue. But Philadelphia has definitely gotten a lot of recognition for the livability, walkability, green spaces, cultural scene. I mean, you can't beat it because if you want to go to the Barnes Foundation, for example, world class museum, you don't need to wait months to get in. You can just buy a ticket and you can get into a museum. And the Barnes is just like absolutely one of like the top five in the world. Absolutely.

3:47I'm not going to rank anything. It's amazing. But right next door is the Rodin Museum, the Philadelphia Museum of Art. I mean, the music scene is incredible. The Philadelphia Orchestra is phenomenal. You can get in. The Curtis Music Center is free. I mean, there is so much for so many people to do. And like I said, now it's even more walkable than ever and bikeable and the parks are phenomenal. Lovely city to visit. It's very nice to walk around. I've done that many times. So let me ask you then, if we're booking a ticket from L.A. or Chicago or somewhere else, how do you visit for the food? How do you, like, take us through some spots, and of course we'll talk about your own, but you have a lot of pride and you know a lot of the community.

4:31How do you navigate the city for food? Well, I think that making Center City your home base is always a great move because then you have access to all the neighborhoods. And Philadelphia is a city of neighborhoods, and you can go from neighborhood to neighborhood by bike, by walking. however you want to do it. That is one difference between Philadelphia and other cities. Sometimes when I go travel to another city and I have all these restaurants on my list that I want to go to, my Uber bill is ridiculous because I have to take the highway to get to this place, or I need to rent a bike for the day or something.

5:07And Philly is a mix. And so it's very easy to get around. So I would definitely make Center City one of my base. Then I would say that focusing on different neighborhoods because they each have their own character. Obviously, Fishtown right now is super hot. But South Philly has a lot of not only Italian, but Southeast Asian. There's this amazing Southeast Asian, for lack of a better word, fair or food festival on Sundays where you You can go to FDR Park and just eat all day. You can go to the Italian market and see purveyors if you want to. And have like the best tacos on the East Coast. Amazing tacos, you know.

5:55And if you really want to get experimental, you could go to Korean barbecue in Olney or you could go to Portuguese in Northeast Philly. There's so much to choose from besides the restaurants that are downtown. Yeah. And you talk about the multicultural elements of Philly and thank you for being like a tour guide. This wasn't like a visit Philly like sponsored. You did such a nice job and summarizing where to stay, Center City, fully agree. I have to bring up the possibly cursed, possibly questionable cheesesteak. Do you have like a good, a bad, a complicated relationship with it? I have no relationship with it, to be quite honest.

6:36I don't remember the last time I had a cheesesteak, but people don't realize how much the real Philly sandwich is the roast pork. John's, baby. John's. There are a couple. Denix is really good in the Reading Terminal. The Reading Terminal is an incredible market, by the way, and a must visit if you're into food. But roast pork, yeah, all the way. It's a roast pork town. I fully agree. And that's actually I've been on the show. I have no relationship with the steak either. And the roast pork is amazing. But also, obviously, the Southeast Asian cuisine, the Mexican cuisine, everything in this city, everything you would imagine is in L.A.

7:17or New York is in Philly. It's just such a diverse city. Yeah. And actually, like I said, just much more user friendly. Absolutely. So let's talk about your restaurants. You've got High Street and we've got Fork. I'd like to just hear a little bit about, for our listeners who aren't familiar with them, and many are, what are these two restaurants? You know, one has been around for over 25 years. Wow. Tell me about both of them. Well, Fork opened at a time when there was barely any internet. Yeah. 25 years ago, 26 years ago to be completely exact. And it was a time when the restaurant scene was just starting to ignite.

7:59And I think, you know, coming through the recessionary period of the late 80s and early 90s, the one thing about Philadelphia that is unique is that it is a city that is very supportive, believe it or not, of entrepreneurship because the barrier to entry is low. So to start a restaurant, to buy a liquor license, to enter the market, it is not as challenging as other cities. And so in 1997, we decided that Old City was going to be one of the last areas of Center City to be developed. Wrong. Yeah, much more was developed after that. Right, exactly. And I love this space. It's a warehouse space. It's double wide.

8:47It has really tall ceilings. And I just fell in love with that particular location. I lived on the east side of Broad Street, relatively close to the location of Fork. And while I was in college, I actually wrote a business plan for a restaurant in Old City. And that was kind of what encouraged me to keep going. And so we opened Fork in 1997. Like I said, my first chef was Anne-Marie Lasher. And I, during my college years, had worked at a restaurant called La Taras, which was owned by Judy Wicks. And Judy is like the Alice Waters of the East Coast. And I learned a lot about what she was doing in terms of community building, but also her chef at that time, Kevin von Klaus, was very passionate about local farms and the importance of local agriculture to developing a community.

9:42Which is the story of new American cuisine in the late 90s. Definitely following along the lines of Danny Meyer at Chiramacy Tavern, et cetera, et cetera. Exactly. So we started out with using local farm produce, and that just evolved over 25 years into a restaurant that kind of pivoted and changed over that period of time. You know, we survived 9-11, then the 2008 recession from Anne-Marie. I had a Vietnamese chef named Tian Yeo who was extremely creative and then Terrence Fury who came from New York City. I know who that is. And hometown boy with me from Monmouth County. And then also after that, Eli Culp, of course, and then after Eli, John Patterson and now George Madowski.

10:32Wow. So let me ask you, the name Fork, it feels like very late 90s. I love it. Like a single name, like a little quirky. I just feel like, what was the energy like when you're opening in the late 90s? Was it scrappy? What was on the menu of your opening menu? Do you remember some of the things? Oh, absolutely. There were these Greek lamb chops, loin lamb chops, that she marinated in anchovy and herbs and olive oil and then grilled them. That was probably one of my all-time favorite dishes. But, you know, it was a time when it was protein side side, protein, carb, veg. And the idea behind her cuisine was kind of bistro-esque in the sense that it was hot off the pan and onto your plate.

11:21And the restaurant was very busy at the time. There was really nothing between City Hall and Delaware River. Continental by Stephen Starr. We opened around the same time. Yeah, you and Stephen, like, running that town. 25 years is his anniversary of Budokan this year. Wow. Yeah. And same with Vetri. Vetri and Budokan both opened in 1998. And it was packed. I mean, we served dinner until 1130 at night. And then we had a late night menu after that. Now, post-pandemic, we close. Yeah. Last seating on the weekdays is at 9 o 'clock and 10 o 'clock on the weekends. What's your relationship like with Stephen Starr?

12:03I love Stephen. Stephen is a tremendous supporter, mentor, somebody I greatly admire and won the award in 2018 or 17, I believe. And the award you won this year. So it's an important award and he's enigmatic. He kind of dodges the press a lot. I've always wanted to talk to him on the show. He's funny. Yeah, definitely. With press, he's really funny. I think he's had like an up and down relationship. We'll get into the James Beard Awards. I saw I was in the room in Chicago when you gave your acceptance speech for the best restaurateur of the year. Huge award. But I want to hear a little bit about High Street, another restaurant, which used to be called High Street on Market.

12:41Now it's called High Street. Right. So in 2004, we actually expanded to the building next to us. And we decided to call it Fork, et cetera, because it was a takeout bakery. We started our own bakery at that point. And it had prepared foods and it was kind of a little market. It had a big table in the middle of the room, which we use for these weekly dinners, which were, you know, a set price. But you didn't know what you were going to eat until 12 o 'clock that day. And that space was an incredibly fun space. Lots of memories of special dinners and guests. But it never picked up a dinner traffic.

13:22And so when Eli came to Philadelphia, I think his experience at Teresi having had Parm be the daytime component of Teresi, he thought, oh, well, maybe we can convert this space into one where we have a daytime program followed by a separate nighttime program. And so he really chefed up the sandwich scene in Philadelphia with the High Street menu. And some of these sandwiches were amazing. Egg sandwiches for breakfast. It was really our common love for carbohydrates of bread and pasta. I think you kind of buried the lead a little bit. The baking too is later at High Street in Hudson in New York City, the baking was such a prominent component of these restaurants.

14:09Well, we had gone out to San Francisco just to do some R &D and we saw Josie the baker at – I can't remember the name of the coffee shop. But the oven was right smack in the back of the space. And we thought, what would it be like if a restaurant had their bread program be the front-facing component? And that's why we had the oven in the dining room at High Street on Hudson. But when we created High Street on Market, we already had the bakery component. And that was when Alex Bois, now of Lost Bread, joined us. And Eli was just blown away by what Alex was doing with bread. Yeah. I mean, his breads have been acclaimed.

14:53I mean, I feel like forever. I mean, in a sense, Lost Bread is like, that's a legendary name. It is a legendary name. And when Alex was with us at High Street, he really helped brand a lot of what we were doing with the bread program. And that has progressed and evolved and continued. And now our bread is, you know, much more than just bread in the restaurant. It's available in the farmer's market and all that. So but anyway, High Street. Yeah. So when we started High Street, we had an incredible team of High Street hospitality group being Eli, Alex Bois, of course, John Nodler, who ultimately he and his wife started Cadence and also were part of the original High Street and Hudson team.

15:42John also was our chef at A Kitchen. So when we took over operating a kitchen and bar in Rittenhouse Square, he was the chef there. And that restaurant has an incredible wine program. But, you know, all our restaurants all depend on High Street for the bread. Yeah. Let's talk about New York. Let's talk about High Street and Hudson, which I was mentioning this to a friend last night when I was prepping for this interview. And she used to work in the meatpacking district. And she was like, man, I miss that place. I love that place. So, listener, we're speaking to you in the past tense. You ran this remarkable restaurant.

16:17I was a fan. I went many times. Loved your daytime program. I think I went to that the most. But between 2015 and 2022, you ran this restaurant. Let's hear about it. It was like a great run. How are you feeling now that it's a little bit less than a year of closing it? Well, to be quite honest, when the pandemic hit and all our restaurants were shut down, I just knew that we did not have the bandwidth to completely reopen High Street because, you know, honestly, all we lost so many of our team members at that time. In fact, our chef who was from Philadelphia came back to Philadelphia and is living in Philadelphia and really didn't have any intention of going back to New York.

16:57And so just having to start everything from ground up again, it's like opening a brand new restaurant. So I knew that we couldn't do it. So I kind of at that point knew that it wasn't going to continue. And both Eli and I love that restaurant. It has so much meaning to us. You know, the restaurant happened when, you know, obviously most people in the industry know about Eli's accident. He was on his way to New York and when the Amtrak train derailed and changed his life, that restaurant was for him to run and for him to be showcasing what he does in New York City. And everybody rallied, the whole Philadelphia culinary community and New York City culinary community all rallied behind us to help support Eli through this incredibly difficult situation.

17:57And for that reason, you know, I feel sad because we developed so many friendships with the community and it was very, very challenging for us to operate. In retrospect, the restaurant was probably too small for the ambition that lived in that restaurant. Yeah, the bread program alone. I mean, you walk into the case and having sliced breads and having, you know, laminated dough croissants and et cetera, et cetera. Just so beautiful to walk in there and have so many different types of breads. Yeah. We missed understanding that component of the restaurant. Yeah. But it was a great run and I loved it.

18:40I miss it too. So you mentioned Eli Kulp, and I just wanted to clarify for our audience, Eli is a chef and your partner, he was tragically paralyzed in an accident on Amtrak, and I got to know him probably a few months before his accident. I profiled him when he was opening High Street, and I don't think I've ever spoken to him since, but I knew him at Teresi as well. Just such a talented chef. Incredibly talented. And is a talented chef. And really, we did rally around that. We wanted, I think as an industry, I say we as like the industry in New York wanted that restaurant to succeed so badly for Eli and you personally.

19:15Eli Kulp is an incredibly resilient person. He has two podcasts, in fact, one called Chef Radio Podcast. And it's been great for me to see Eli really embrace this part of his career, which, you know, he's doing tons of community work, his Delicious City podcast with Marissa Mignotta. has been an incredible success. In fact, I was just on that. Yeah, making the rounds. Making the rounds. And it's just great to see him succeeding and being really happy at what he's doing. And that feels really good. Absolutely. I want to talk about your cookbook career. You've written a cookbook in 2007. But first, let's talk about cookbooks and convos.

20:01You're in the fall, you're going to launch this program that is featuring female cookbook authors in Philly. what is I would love to link to this info in the show notes and anyone in Philly can can attend these events yeah absolutely so one of my all-time favorite events in Philadelphia that had like a 23-year run was called the book and the cook and Judy Fay was a producer of that and she did an incredible job of bringing authors from all over the world to Philadelphia and with everybody trying to bring people back into urban cities, I just felt that was something missing. And so Sisterly Love Collective, which is one of my pet projects with Jill Weber from Sojourn Hospitality, Jen Carroll and Sophia DeLeon, we thought, wouldn't it be great to bring it back in a different format where we have women authors, which there are so many in the cookbook industry has evolved so much since the last book in the cook was 2008.

21:04And women entrepreneurs and restaurateurs and male allies who want to support and be part of it. So from September 22nd until October 25th, roughly, we have over 24 authors coming to Philadelphia. That's amazing. Yes, it is amazing. That's ambitious. It is ambitious. Oh, we're going to do it like monthly and we'll have a few. But like you said, 24? 24, all coming during the month of September to October, celebrating Philadelphia and what's happening in the food scene in Philadelphia. And it's very exciting because we can have many different formats of events. Some of them are collaborative dinners.

21:43Some of them are in the afternoon. For example, we're working right now. This is something that may or may not come together. But Christina Tosi, we hope, will pair up with Vernick Coffee Bar and host several other pastry chefs from Philadelphia. So we are trying to be as creative as possible. And there'll be book signings throughout the Philadelphia area and all these different facts. Yeah, name some other names that you have confirmed or maybe confirmed. Yeah. So Natasha Pickowitz from New York City is going to be at Machine Shop with Emily Riddle, I believe, October 8th. Nassim Alakhani is coming to Fork October 1st.

22:29We are working with Clancy Miller of The Culture, and she's from Philly, so we're very excited. And she was actually an extern at Fork. Oh, cool. Back in the day, yeah. Back in the day, 1998. Wow. Opening crew. Yep, opening crew. We are hosting Karen Akunowicz, Tanya Holland, Adrienne Cheatham. You have amazing taste and you're just picking just amazing authors, like so many familiar faces. Yeah, yeah. Anna Hesel from Brooklyn. Yeah, former co-host of the show. Oh, I didn't put that one together. Yeah, I know. She was at, yeah, from, yeah, 18 to 20. Well, her book, Tender Table, is going to be at Bloomsday.

23:14Great. Right. We're also hosting Leah Koenig, who wrote Portico with Bridget Foy and Crybaby Pasta. Let's see who else. Maya Feller, who's a dietician and nutritionist from New York City, will be at Hail and True with Angie Branca. Reem Asil and Reem Cassis, both are going to be part of the festival. Wow, both Reams have been on the show. And I really, that's cool to bring both Reams together. Yeah, they won't be together for the same event. One will be with Apricot Stone and one will be with Nook Santorinon with Kalaya. Ah, right, right. So, yeah, there's so many. I'm sure I'm forgetting a few that are really great.

24:02You just ripped up probably like 10 previous guests on our show and many of our own authors. And, again, 24 authors. I'm going to link to it in the show notes. There's got to be a landing page that will— Yeah, it's going to be cookbooksandconvos.com and follow our Instagram, cookbooksandconvos. That's being sponsored by Open Table, Philadelphia Magazine. Visit Philly and discover Philadelphia. You got the branding down. You got the sponsor shout-outs. You're like ready to hit the stage. And Sherry Bayer is actually doing our press announcement on Monday. Good. Well, Sherry, so by the time this is out, the announcement will be out there.

24:45So all to say, you must, you love cookbooks. Clearly, you've committed all this time. So tell me about your first book and only book. My first and only book, at this point at least, Fork Lore, Recipes and Tales from an American Bistro, is more a memoir. And, you know, because Fork is a seasonal restaurant and because I'm not a chef, I'm a restaurateur, the book really tells a story of how we have kind of evolved Fork over, at that time, 10 years. I guess there could be a forthcoming revision or sequel to Fork Lore, but I didn't really plan that yet. Yeah, yeah. And the book talks about different inspirations for the menu, travels, people who have been huge in my life and who have helped evolve the menu.

25:40You know, that includes many different characters in my life. So, yeah. So there's that book. So maybe if you haven't really thought about a sequel, what's the future book plan for you? Do you have a proposal? No, I don't have that. around? See, I'm like thinking like you had something in your pocket. No, I don't have anything in my pocket. I am so busy reopening High Street. So we are in about a month and a half opening a new dining room for High Street at 9th and Chestnut. And we are also helping to open another A kitchen in Washington, D.C. and just trying to focus on making our group the best that it can be right now.

26:24Right. So books are in the sideline, but you're doing this big ambitious festival, 25 authors. So you're in the book's land, but you're not maybe doing your own quite yet. Not yet. Okay. But you'll be the first person to call. I call. Yeah, no, I think we should talk. We should collab. I think there's definitely a need for, just going to throw this out there. Maybe there's like a Philadelphia cookbook. You're part of the community. Maybe there's a way to represent the city in some way that you as a spokesperson person and somebody who loves your city's culinary scene, maybe there's a way to write about it.

26:57I don't know. You never know. You never know. And on This Is Taste, we ask guests about their discerning taste. So to close this interview, here's a little rapid fire, fast and furious taste check for you. Are you ready? Ready. Let's do it. Okay. Your favorite Philadelphia only food. Well, that's a tough one because pretty much you can have a lot of, Philadelphia has everything, But I'm going to say that there is only one Philadelphia food that is unique to Philadelphia, and that's water ice. Oh, yeah. And you said it the way that everyone— Water ice. Water ice. Although I'm from the Jersey part that says water ice.

27:31Yeah, water. Yeah. No, definitely. The water, though, it's the best word, especially spoken by a Philly. Rez. The best AM pastry with coffee? Croissant. Sorry, almond croissant. Oh, almond, not pan de chocolat. Okay. I like that. The best dessert period? Best dessert period. That one's a tough one, but I'm going to say pistachio ice cream. Oh, okay. Oh, man. And it's hard to find good pistachio ice cream. Got to go to Italy. Totally agree. The best bread? Best bread? I would say my personal favorite is rye. What makes a good rye? I just love that caraway flavor. And then, of course, it has to have a really good crust on it.

28:13And a thin but really toothsome crust. I agree. The most underrated piece of kitchen equipment? Underrated piece of kitchen equipment? Because I'm a home cook, it would be a toaster oven. Yeah. Oh, cool. What do you do in the toaster that maybe others aren't thinking? I do everything. I live in a small apartment, so everything can go in a toaster oven. Us New Yorkers know that for real. We know that for real. The most overrated piece of kitchen equipment? Thermocirculator from a restaurateur perspective, of course. Yeah. No one wants to play around with those things anymore. Sure. That's for the boys from the early 2000s to play around with.

28:47Your favorite New York City restaurant right now? Well, of course, I love all my former alumni. So I'm going to say the most recent great meal I had was Golden Diner. I love that because all the food was reminiscent of, you know, things that are very familiar, but with a slightly different taste. And it was great to see David Lieberman there. Also, I just want to shout out to, of course, Mary Atiyah. She does a great job at Roth's. I can't wait to eat there. I have not eaten there. So love to see her successful. It's great, too. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Your favorite Philly restaurant that isn't your own?