The main dining room at Del Frisco’s

"Every Sunday year-round, we do something called the 'Power Couple'—an eight-ounce filet paired with our award-winning jumbo lump crab cake, served with a Cajun lobster sauce. It's our top-selling appetizer. Diners also get a choice of soup or salad, side dishes, and dessert. It's $99 for two people and will be offered every night this summer, Memorial Day through Labor Day."

1426 Chestnut St., 215-246-0533; delfriscos.com

It was love at first bite when Philadelphians sunk their teeth into the supremely fresh offerings at Little Fish, Mike Stollenwerk’s tiny Bella Vista BYOB, in 2007. Over the years, similar scenes of seafood lust have played out at the chef’s subsequent ventures: Fish, a fine-dining restaurant complete with a bar, on the cusp of Rittenhouse in 2009; Little Fish again, in early 2011, following a move to a nearly identical space a few blocks away; and Fathom, a casual bar concept in Fishtown that Stollenwerk has since bowed out of (as with the Little Fish reboot). With the recent reopening of Fish, in a new location on a prime corner in Midtown Village, it’s clear that Stollenwerk has found an ideal port in which to drop anchor and stay awhile. The windowfilled restaurant hints at a modern fish market, with its subway-tile and paneled gray walls, and is equally inviting for formal dining or a quick bite at the oyster bar. Fish’s signature dishes—skate wing with truffled spaetzle, monkfish bathed in curried mussel vinaigrette—round out starters like crudo-style tartare and smoky stems of grilled octopus blanketing a fried egg yolk. And the smart addition of pastry chef Monica Glass, best known for her tenure at 10 Arts by Eric Ripert, means that seafood isn’t the only thing worth swooning over here anymore. 1234 Locust St., 215-545-9600

PHOTOGRAPHY BY GABELLO STUDIOS

Start the day off right: a breakfast for champions

	Chef Sikora at work

Assembling a stellar dinner menu is challenging enough for any chef at the helm of a new restaurant. But orchestrating equally strong offerings for breakfast and lunch could be enough to hang up your kitchen whites. “Breakfast and lunch are not the black sheeps of the menu,” say a.kitchen chef Bryan Sikora. “They are just as important as dinner. It’s an impressionable time because people are typically alone and more inclined to just walk in. If they enjoy their experience, they’ll come back later.” It’s these meals that best reflect the restaurant’s mission to serve the neighborhood, like “a small country kitchen,” says Sikora. His penchant for seasonal ingredients influences these menus, too, but in more subtle ways. “We take simple steps to make things more interesting and incorporate house-made ingredients.” Fresh-from-thegriddle English muffins are the pillowy bases for country sausage and a fried egg, while smoked salmon and toasted bagels offer a morning riff on the Napoleon. Even the coffee experience here promises something altogether different thanks to single-origin pour overs (think a Frenchpress quality brew without the French press) from Counter Culture, a coffee company that works directly with farmers for hand-crafted beans.

PHOTOGRAPHY BY ANDREW KAHL

Chippendale tray in sterling silver, Tiffany & Co. “O” tumblers, Riedel

Since celebrating her heritage with Philadelphia by serving as the Grand Marshal of the Puerto Rican Day Parade this fall, it seems only natural for Food Network star and cookbook author Daisy Martinez to keep sharing with us the secrets—and the cuisine—of that little Caribbean island. For the holidays, Martinez is stirring up her beloved coquito, a festive, rum-laced Puerto Rican beverage similar to eggnog that she creates for every holiday party.

“I don’t remember a Christmas without coquito,” Martinez says. “When I was a little girl, spending Christmas in Puerto Rico, my grandmother would send us to the palm tree outside to collect coconuts.” Nowadays you can buy canned cream of coconut at your local grocer, but that CHEERS! Chippendale tray in sterling silver, Tiffany & Co. “O” tumblers, Riedel will not detract from the drink’s authenticity: It still tastes as delicious as when Martinez and her family would offer it to carolers during asalto navideño, a Puerto Rican tradition that literally translates to “Christmas assault.” On Christmas Eve, caravans of jovial musicians travel around with instruments, bang on doors, and “assault” families with loud choruses of holiday songs. In good cheer, the carolers are invited inside for a traditional Christmas meal of roast pork, rice with pigeon peas, meat-stuffed pasteles, and, as Martinez says, “lots and lots of coquito.”

“Because it is Puerto Rico, there is lots of rum involved,” she jokes of her homeland’s holiday traditions. We think Puerto Rico shows the right kind of holiday spirit.

Daisy Martinez’s Coquito

2 jumbo eggs
3 jumbo egg yolks
1 (14-oz.) can sweetened condensed milk
1 (15-oz.) can cream of coconut
1 (12-oz.) can evaporated milk
1 cup heavy cream
11⁄2 cups Brugal Ron Blanco Especial or Añejo dark rum
Ground cinnamon, for serving

Put the eggs and yolks in a blender jar. Blend at high speed until pale yellow and very light. With the motor running, add in, one at a time, the condensed milk, cream of coconut, and evaporated milk in a very thin stream. Blend for a minute or so, then add the heavy cream in a slow steady stream. Blend just until incorporated. Pour into the punch bowl, and stir in the rum. Chill for two to six hours. Sprinkle with cinnamon before serving.

Recipe adapted from Daisy’s Holiday Cooking: Delicious Latin Recipes for Effortless Entertaining

What sets Scarduzio’s raw bar apart?
CHRIS SCARDUZIO: Everything is cooked “a la minute.” We are slicing to order, shucking to order, cooking to order, and rolling to order.

What is your favorite offering at the raw bar?
CS: The lobster cocktail. 

Why the steakhouse and sushi combo?
CS: When you go to a steakhouse, you shouldn’t be intimidated, and you should get those staple dishes. We are thinking outside the box a little bit. 

801 Boardwalk, Atlantic City, 609-343-4330; showboatac.com

Gin or vodka?
MARC YANGA: Gin. Sorry, James Bond fans—007 had it wrong! My premiums are Bols Genever & Junípero.

Shaken or stirred?
MY: Stirred, so you don’t have ice chips.

Garnish:
MY: Either an olive or a lemon twist. Not an onion; that, my friends, is called a Gibson.

Presentation:
MY: It should be poured right in front of you.

Liberté Lounge at the Sofitel, 120 S. 17th St., 215-569-8300; libertelounge.com

Rittenhouse Row’s culinary heyday may have come and gone, but recapturing its thrills is as easy as returning to the place where it all began: Le Bec-Fin. This time, however, instead of awaiting entry into Georges Perrier’s storied dining room for gustatory indulgence of the highest order, make your way down the short flight of stairs to Tryst Le Bar.

A somewhat hush-hush transformation of the former Le Bar Lyonnais over the past several months has resulted in a stylish, subtly sexy hideaway for spirits and French-inspired small plates. Graphic wall coverings in jewel-tone hues soften the bar’s metallic palette, while all around Louis XV ghost chairs patiently flank tables for two.

Cocktails are worth savoring—celebrating, even—thanks to expert craftsmanship equally rooted in history (the no-frills old fashioned) and originality (a whiskeybased Peach Smash, anyone?). Perrier admits that Tryst’s sophisticated tricks are indeed meant to woo a younger generation of clientele—“The old customers think the bar is very ‘in,’” he says—but this new venture is not about winning over first-time visitors, nor about dispelling rampant rumors that the chef was shuttering 1523 Walnut Street for good.

For Perrier, it is about staying a few steps ahead of the competition. “I have always been a very avant-garde man,” he says. “I know if you want to do well in this industry, you have to be in advance of everyone else.”

There is not a bad seat in the house at Kennett, but when the temperature plummets and the wind rattles the Queen Village saloon’s old casement windows, the best is the table way in the back. The perch overlooks the heat-belching pizza oven, a domed inferno that spews forth some of the tastiest pies in town. Chef Brian Ricci also uses it to bake sourdough, roast asparagus and cook various meats—among them, these boneless Bell & Evans chicken thighs marinated overnight in local Pequea Valley yogurt, mint, cilantro, green chili, curry leaf, ginger and garlic. His green curry paste is as balanced and evocative as any Bangkok or Bombay granny’s; in the oven, it forms a crusty shell that locks in the chicken’s juices. When the dish debuted in the spring, a salad of farmer Tom Culton’s zippy watercress sat atop it, with cucumber relish and lime cashews. For the fall, seasonally sensitive Ricci has traded the greens for ribbons of raw Tuscan kale and candy-stripe beets. It makes for a plate that feels exotic, but is firmly rooted in Philadelphian soil. 848 S. Second St.

Brunchgoers want beautiful, simple food, and that is what we’re all about,” says Daniel Stern, proprietor of Daniel Stern Restaurants. “Brunch is a time for relaxing and being with family. At R2L, we have combined the elegance of fine dining with the comfort and style of an at-home meal.” Since its opening in 2010, patrons have flocked to Stern’s Center City restaurant for a singular night out, cozying into chic zebra-patterned upholstery for fashionable cocktails and sophisticated tastes while soaking in panoramic views of the city. Now guests can do the same while lingering over a leisurely Sunday brunch. 50 S. 16th St.; r2lrestaurant.com

Smoked Salmon & Caviar Pizza:
1 pizza crust
1⁄4 lb. smoked salmon
1⁄2 cup spicy greens
Caviar, to taste

Horseradish Cream:
1 cup crème fraîche
1⁄4 cup fresh horseradish, zested
Lemon zest
Tabasco sauce

For the horseradish cream, mix crème fraîche, horseradish, some lemon zest and a few dashes of Tabasco. Spread cream on the crust. Bake in the oven at 425 degrees for about five minutes. Remove from oven and top with smoked salmon, caviar and spicy greens. Slice the pizza and top with a dollop of caviar, if desired.

Denim Lounge quietly reopened as Whisper last fall, but the chatter surrounding Philly’s latest after-hours hangout, home to a laser-light-strewn dance floor and a private VIP lounge appropriately named Shhh, has been anything but tight-lipped. Whisper let us behind the velvet ropes to find out who’s partying here, what they’re sipping on and which songs get everyone moving.

Spotted in VIP: Actor Jason Statham, plus Philly athletes LeSean McCoy, Jeremy Maclin, King Dunlap and Trent Cole
Top-Selling Shot: Patrón
Best Table: The stage, also known as “the owner’s box,” overlooks the DJ booth and the dance floor, holds about 40 people and sells out every weekend.
Most Requested Song: “Stereo Love,” by Edward Maya featuring Vika Jigulina