A Breakfast Stay-cation
Locals rarely choose hotel restaurants for breakfast, but Urban Farmer in Center City’s Logan Hotel features a surprising number of local purveyors on the menu. So many, in fact, the spot has become a sleeper favorite of Philly locavores.
Local, seasonal produce and eggs take center stage in a robust vegetable frittata. If you make it to weekend brunch, don’t miss the old-school cheese cart, stocked with favorites from area creameries, including Calkins Creamery and Cherry Grove.
The chefs at this hotel chain (there are locations in three other cities) worked closely with Kitchen Table Consultants to help them get to know the growers of our region. Before the restaurant opened, they visited Zone 7, Lancaster Farm Fresh and Stryker Farm.
Now they serve breakfast, lunch and dinner daily (plus brunch on the weekend), while providing food for banquets, events and room service.
An operation this size has an impact on our local food economy. “We have a lot of buying power,” chef Eric Schlicht says. Each week, the kitchen uses two whole hogs from the Razorbacks and Barbed Wire farm in Lancaster County and about 100 pounds of Castle Valley’s Bloody Butcher Cornmeal, a lavender-tinged heirloom variety, which you can taste in the housemade scrapple (it’s a good use for the pork scraps, too).
As for the expansive shelf of jars near the entrance, they aren’t just part of the décor. They hold overflow from peak season: pickled carrots and asparagus for your brunch Bloody Mary, berry jams and preserved peaches to be served on buttermilk pancakes.
Urban Farmer
1850 Benjamin Franklin Parkway,
215.963.2788
urbanfarmerphiladelphia.com
