Plus, why he decided to set up shop in Kensington.
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Chefs Meri Medoway and Greg Vernick making pasta. / Photograph by Liz Barclay
It has been a long time since Greg Vernick opened a new restaurant.
It was 2019 when he first unlocked the doors at Vernick Fish. That was six years and a whole different world ago. Before that, it was the original Vernick Food & Drink, which opened in 2012 and helped to rewrite this city’s culinary DNA with grill-fired sourdough toasts topped with fromage blanc and pickled cherries.
It’s funny, looking back on the review Philly Mag’s critic, Trey Popp, wrote back in August of 2012, because the very first line is a quote from Greg himself, talking about opening new restaurants.
“Opening a restaurant is kind of like getting a tattoo,” he says. “Once you have one, all you can think about is getting the next one.”
And now, that’s exactly what he’s doing. After two years of planning, and months of build-out, menu testing, and research trips to Italy, he is finally almost ready to open his third restaurant — a mid-sized, Italian-focused spot at 2406 Frankford Avenue in Kensington called Emilia — with longtime chef de cuisine Meri Medoway
“Emilia will have the energy and everydayness of a neighborhood destination and the spirit of a trattoria,” Greg says. A pasta-forward concept, minimalist design, complimentary bread service with homemade focaccia, and lounge seating held aside for walk-ins and neighbors. There’s a wood-fired grill (because it wouldn’t really be a Vernick restaurant without one) and a collaborative menu that’s based on the collected dining memories of Vernick and Medoway’s lifetimes spent around Italian food.
And the location? That’s interesting to me because for such a long time, that kind of Kensington/Fishtown corridor was a place where young, small restaurateurs went to open their first restaurants. It’s where Philly worked out what it meant to be Philly, in a dining sense. But Vernick is a big name. And Emilia is neither small nor particularly risky — at least no more risky than any other new restaurant opening. So why Kensington?
Experience, Greg says. “After years of frequenting the area with my wife, Julie, the chance to introduce our new concept in this distinct pocket of the city felt like our right next step.” The area has always reminded him of his time in the East Village, early on in his career. There’s a vitality there. A sense of things being built. Of things happening. Plus, the building near the corner of Frankford and York? Its owners have been regulars at Vernick Food & Drink since the early days. So both parties knew exactly what they were getting into.
Emilia isn’t huge. Eighty seats, with 60 on the main floor, and an additional 20 in the bar and lounge area. Those are the ones that are going to be held aside for walk-ins — a trend that appears to be ramping up in Philly lately. Pine Street Grill, the new restaurant from Amanda Shulman and Alex Kemp, is doing the exact same thing.
The menu is still being worked on, but it looks like it’ll settle out around 18 dishes — six small plates, six large ones, and six pastas. There’ll be a tortellini in brodo that Medoway based on a handwritten recipe she got while traveling in Emilia Romagna, a chicken ragú bianco that she and Greg tasted as a staff meal at the American Academy in Rome while on a research trip, rabbit cacciatore from the grill, and rotating specials to make the place feel fresh and alive. Medoway has spent years cooking with Vernick. She started as an intern at Vernick Food & Drink, bounced around, did her own thing, came back to help open Vernick Fish, and went back to Food & Drink in 2021. At Emilia, she’ll be in charge of the day-to-day.
And we’ll all get to see for ourselves what Emilia can do very soon. The opening is officially being scheduled for “early 2026,” and while there’s no official hard date yet, the team is hoping to have things ready in late January — post-holidays, which is smart, but just a few short weeks from now.
Here’s hoping they can hit that date. Because after all these years of waiting, I know Greg must be anxious for that third tattoo.