![]() ![]() The executive staff said “crushable bar snacks” would be a major focus at the Dapper Goose and the opening week menu is set to feature many fantastic-sounding small plates: fried cauliflower with green goddess dressing, roasted oysters and a tuna ceviche in a coconut broth. The beverage program is set up with the things that we love.” ![]() It’s how he feels like cooking and how he likes to eat. “Our personality is the most important thing,” Raimondi said. Sitting down to talk with Raimondi, his partner John Beane and bar manager Tim Leary, I learned personal tastes will be the driving force behind the Dapper Goose. The look, the food and the service are all meant to be an extension of personalities of the restaurant’s executive staff. The only noticeable sign we were in the 21 st century was the touchpad point-of-sale system behind the bar. Everything about the décor was in keeping with the space’s original pressed tin ceiling. Dubbed “classic French cottage” by the staff and executed by general manager Peggy Wong, the décor featured new wallpaper with a vintage pattern against one wall, as well as a palette of slate grey, robin egg teal, and lightly-stained wood. The first thing you notice upon walking into The Dapper Goose is its Turn of the Century supper club feel. “Nobody else is doing something like that, you know?” “The other day we went to Toutant and that guy is doing awesome food his way,” he said. Raimondi said he’s starting to see the same pattern emerge right here in the Nickel City. “That’s what you started to see more of in Philadelphia,” he added. We’re going to take all the things everyone else did, but we’re going to make it about the real experience.’” It’s all going to be food driven, chef driven and hospitality driven. “I worked for Jose Graces at Amada,” Raimondi said, “which to me was the first restaurant that kind of said to the whole world, ‘Fuck you! We’re going to do it this way and it’s going to be awesome. ![]() Lacking local celebrities, like a New York or a Los Angeles, these emerging Philly chefs found there was space in the local zeitgeist to make a name for themselves. The Olean native said the big shift in Philly was the emergence of chef-driven restaurants, with chefs that had been around for a while opening up bold personality-driven eateries. Pork terrine with dried cherries and almond / Photo x Colin Gordon The food was a semi-afterthought, I think, but they were cool.” “His were all mostly focused on how they looked and how they felt. “And then you had Steven Star who had a bunch of restaurants,” he added. I took the chance to sit down with Raimondi partly as an opportunity to pick is his brain about Philadelphia, and to compare what’s going on there to Buffalo’s current food scene boom.īefore its food resurgence, Raimondi said, Philadelphia’s food scene was dominated by a handful of “upper echelon” restaurants: the Four Seasons, Le-Bec Fin, and Lacroix. “Why did Karlos Williams think it was okay to eat like 100 cheeseburgers this off season?” he asked at one point in our conversation, shaking his head. But upon sitting down with him, it turned out Raimondi is just a dude from the Southern Tier who’ll talk your ear off about everything from great hospitality to how local taxes are spent to Rex Ryan being too lenient with his players. Originally from Olean, Raimondi has spent the last decade working at the some of the buzziest restaurants in Philadelphia’s booming restaurant scene. ![]() I’ll admit: I was a bit intimidated to meet Keith Raimondi, co-owner of Black Rock’s newest restaurant, The Dapper Goose. ![]()
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