A Starr Is (Re)Born

Just back from LA, Stephen is expanding his reign.

by A.D. Amorosi

There are many names to consider when discussing Philly's fast-approaching food year. New York's Eric Ripert, opening an eatery in the Ritz-Carlton rotunda. Georges Perrier and Chris Scarduzio's Table 31 in the Comcast Center. Amada and Tinto's Jose Garces, working on Chilango at 40th and Chestnut.

But wait.

Just back from Los Angeles — eyeballing the famous, the privileged and what they eat — Stephen Starr is expanding his reign over East Coast gastronomic esprit. And, for the first time in a while, it's not just NYC that the restaurateur's taking on.

Where Atlantic City is concerned, Starr's shore-located Buddakan and Continental acquisitions will find new friends with several spaces inside the up-and-coming Chelsea Hotel. Not to be confused with the Beat spot where Sid killed Nancy, the boutique project — courtesy of Cape May project developer Curtis Bashaw and Cape Advisors — will bring together the Holiday Inn and Howard Johnson's at Chelsea and Pacific avenues for a multimillion-dollar location that Starr's in-house team will help design to take on the feel of the Standard Hotel in downtown Los Angeles.

Along with a management agreement that gives Starr a piece of the Chelsea's food and beverage concessions, there'll be his "groovy coffee shop" — Teplitzky's — on the first floor. It's a reference to the space's original name, when it "was a kosher hotel in the '40s and '50s," says Starr, who'll give a nod to that era with yet another location within — a 1940s-themed steak house called Chelsea Prime. "There'll be a lounge/bar aspect to the steak house, as well as making a scene poolside," he adds, which should make it perfect for its intended Memorial Day 2008 opening.

But before Starr debuts the Chelsea down the shore, there's a little matter of Philadelphia — his open-air Francophile Parc Bistro at the Parc Rittenhouse in April; a possible new feel and food for Striped Bass around the same time; something Mexican in University City for autumn '08; and something as of yet undefined at Washington Square.

Then there's 706 Chestnut. While he's not prepared to discuss the name of his redux of the address that's housed both L'Ange Bleu and Angelina, Starr reveals it will be designed by New York's Taavo Somer, who did the tony brunch-and-munch Freeman's Alley on the Lower East Side. "Very, very intimate, not overly designed and organically cool," says Starr of the new design scheme. The food? American gastropub, with an emphasis on classic cocktails — handmade with shaved ice and such, elements that were a part of Starr's Old City Continental before the dawn of the specialty drink.

"I'm really looking after this address," adds Starr, who'll turn the top floors into a four-suite hotel with big rooms above the restaurant space. "This will be small, warm and easy — very cozy."

There's one word you wouldn't normally associate with Stephen Starr.

(a_amorosi@citypaper.net)