Where a MICHELIN-Starred Philly Chef Actually Eats With His Four-Year-Old

We go to Picnic almost weekly. It’s the perfect restaurant. We order oysters, roasted chicken, French fries. My son doesn’t like the oysters, but we do.

Eli Collins is hands down the best chef in Philly, and he has the innate ability to make everything delicious. It’s approachable. We have to order the things our son will actually eat. Of course we get the roasted chicken. It’s always perfectly seasoned and roasted and always flavorful. I eat the skin; my son doesn’t.

My Loup has that approachability but also things on the menu that are more geared toward people like me who like some things raw. Alex Kemp always has sweetbreads, and I’ll always get them. They’re to me what roast chicken is to my son.

My son loves pizza. We always get the Plain Jane and a good salad. Always a good salad. It’s the benchmark of a good restaurant. Beddia’s salads are always light, well dressed, and simple.

Yong Hwa Roo is in Northeast Philly, above Olney. It’s a Korean Chinese restaurant where we get jjamppong seafood noodles, black bean noodles, zha jiang mien. We go there and get the same three things every time. It’s in the middle of a strip mall, the type of place that only Koreans go to. We love their stir-fried crispy pork with a corn syrup–based dipping sauce. It’s very nostalgic for my wife, who grew up in Seoul. In Korea, we go to the same type of Korean Chinese places, but this place is better. We’ve been going there for eight years. She discovered it.

We go to Saloon because my son likes pasta, and they can give him just plain pasta. But no butter ever. Just tomato sauce. He does not like plain noodles. I’ll get the veal Oscar, the veal chop with crabmeat on top. It’s an indulgence. I’ll have a glass of red wine with it.