Alice
By: Blake Montalto
In Philadelphia’s Italian Market, Alice is a restaurant providing seasonal American delicacies centered round charcoal oven–ready dishes. The restaurant is called after Chef and Proprietor Dave Conn’s mom. Since opening in June 2023, Chef Conn has thoughtfully developed the menu to showcase one of the best of every season’s substances.
The menu isn’t the one ingredient that modifications all year long. Alice gives indoor desk seating for 36 company and bar seating for 10, and when the climate permits, it practically doubles its capability with out of doors seating.
Alice’s menu unfolds as a considerate exploration of taste and approach, providing small plates designed for sharing, refined particular person entrées, beneficiant entrées for 2, and a fastidiously curated tasting menu that showcases the kitchen’s vary and precision. Every dish displays a assured steadiness of restraint and boldness.
The char-roasted oysters, bathed in garlic lager butter and a aspect of house-made sizzling sauce, arrive effervescent and fragrant, their briny sweetness deepened by the flame. Equally compelling are the pristine Barnegat Bay oysters, served uncooked with cucumber and avocado, a brilliant and chic composition that highlights their clear, oceanic character.
The bluefin tuna crudo with leeks and charred lemon is as visually hanging as it’s flavorful. The coal-roasted octopus with inexperienced chile and preserved lemon is expertly ready in a perforated metal pan, permitting the tentacles to kiss the recent coals. The consequence is an ideal distinction of textures: delicately crisped edges giving strategy to tender, succulent flesh infused with smoke and citrus.
The grilled hamachi collar with parsley and lemon is a standout, celebrated for the outstanding manner the pores and skin blisters and crisps over the hearth whereas defending the wealthy, juicy meat beneath. It’s a dish that feels each rustic and refined in presentation and taste.
Collectively, the menu reads as each beneficiant and complicated, a seamless marriage of coastal freshness, live-fire approach, and considerate composition that evolves with the rhythms of the seasons. Whereas walk-ins are welcome, reservations are strongly inspired, notably as every seasonal shift brings new dishes and renewed anticipation to the desk.
