On any given night, one can find executive chef Yun Fuentes cooking and concocting new dishes in the kitchen of Society Hill Society, a newly opened corner tavern and restaurant located in the former home of The Artful Dodger on 2nd and Pine in Old City.
Fuentes, a Garces-trained chef who previously helmed the kitchen at Cuban diner Rosa Blanca, collaborates with local artist and entrepreneur Reed Barrow and former Farmers’ Cabinet bartender Paul MacDonald on a nightly basis to create food and cocktail menus full of classic Pennsylvania flavors.
I recently tested out Society Hill Society’s “Supper” tasting menu, which is updated weekly with unique, innovative dishes, and spoke with chef Fuentes about his latest venture.
PA Eats: Tell me about the inspiration behind Society Hill Society. Where did the idea for a Philadelphia tavern come from?
Yun Fuentes: When I was doing some research I stumbled across a few books and articles that described Philadelphia’s food from the past, and a lot of it was taverns. The books always talked about taverns. All of a sudden we realized, “Oh, it’s going to be a tavern! Perfect. Oh my god, this is great.” So that came about through my research, as well as a few recipes and a few dishes. I’m not originally from here so I’m always excited to find something new about Philadelphia. And, I love the simplicity of the comfort food…. It makes it so much better.
You mentioned that you are not originally from Philadelphia, but wanted to use the city’s classic flavors on the menu. How did you achieve this?
We decided to stand out by blending in. There is this huge food culture [in Philadelphia] that I wanted to honor, and I thought it made sense with the space. I asked friends and other people from Philadelphia and they would tell me where to find different classic foods in the city. They would tell me, “You can go here to get this dish, and here to get this dish.”
I love the idea of standing out while blending in. Where did this notion come from?
We stumbled across a bunch of quotes. One of the ones that stood out was, “Doing the common uncommonly well.” That quote is actually by the gentleman that created Heinz ketchup. When I read that I thought it was the best quote ever, you know? Everyone knows ketchup, everyone loves it—but he did it the best. When you think of ketchup, you think of that bottle, that brand. What a good thing to live by, just doing the common uncommonly well. And he’s from Pennsylvania so it was perfect! We were like, “Oh my god, everything is coming together.”
Tell me more about the menu. You mentioned that you often use ingredients from Old City’s famed Headhouse Farmers’ Market.
On Sundays, we take a walk to Headhouse Farmers’ Market and find different ways in our menu to display ingredients from there. We want to develop those relationships with the farmers, but there is a limit that they can provide to us and the amount of days that they can come to the city. One thing that I love doing is make an omelet using ingredients from the market for our Sunday brunch. I do what I do here, leave my potatoes in the oven, and sneak out to see what they have. [Last Sunday] we did squash—I brought several different types and put them inside the omelet—and aged cheddar and some red scallions. The scallions were beautiful; I knew we had to get those. We grilled those and put them on top of the omelet.
What about the Supper tasting menu? Is that updated based on the market’s offering?
We also use market ingredients in the Supper tasting menu. The Supper menu will change almost every week, but it is a little more organic. We’ve tried to standardize it and make a change every week to challenge ourselves—but sometimes something sells so well and people love something that we don’t change it. That creates an avenue for our regular menu—if something on the Supper menu does well we can use it on the main menu. I also go to the Italian market a lot. I ride my bike through there in the morning when I come to work and see what everyone has in their stands and get an idea of what I can do with my menu.
You can catch Yun Fuentes in the kitchen of Society Hill Society at 400 S. 2nd Street in Philadelphia.
- Photography: Laura Hibbs McKenzie
