You must forgive me, this will be my first "official" blog. I've written for other websites or magazines but they were more of an assignment and not just me typing away about whatever. I am the owner and chef of Christopher's 1776, An American Tavern. 1776 is a bit of a reincarnation of my already existing restaurant Christopher's New Global Cuisine, which has been in business for almost 7 years.
Two of my favorite things in life are cooking and American history, especially the American Revolution and the founding fathers. I'm not an expert in the history department (well probably not in the cooking department either, I am a chef, but you never stop learning) I just love colonial and revolutionary history. I always wanted to somehow combine the two.
Over a year ago, I was in Philadelphia with my father in law and two brothers in law for a Phillies game. I was extremely happy to be there because of the unbelievable amount of American history there, plus awesome restaurants in Philly. We had lunch one day at the City Tavern and I just loved the combination of the history and the food. Now colonial food is great, but it is not enough for me. America is too big and there is so much to explore. A year later my family and I were talking about ideas for the restaurant and I brought up this idea I had in the back of my mind for the past year about someday opening an all American tavern that showcased the founding fathers but also all the great foods and flavors of America. After some discussion we decided to just go ahead and do it, so Christopher's 1776 was born. We closed down for a couple of weeks to redecorate, make new signs, menus, websites, stationary, etc. We opened last week and I am looking forward to moving forward with this new concept. We have a lot of ideas and I can't wait to try them all!
I guess that is enough for now. I'm sure I'll be back real soon.
I am very glad fall is here, I love everything about the summer, including the heat, but I really enjoy fall. I love the crisp air, the leaves starting to change, the fair, Halloween, football and especially the foods of fall. I just spent the weekend at the beach catching up with some old chef friends and hanging out with my wife and daughter. First couple of days it was as hot as could be then on Saturday a cold front moved in and the temperature dropped 20 degrees. I knew it was now fall, and that gave me a lot of inspiration for the new fall menu. I'm still working on the new menu and we plan on starting it this weekend. I just love fall ingredients and flavors, squahes, pumpkins, apples, pears, sausages, game birds and braised meats. It's very enjoyable creating fall menus. We will be adding some new items such as duck, ribeye, lobster and much more to the menu. We're even changing the dessert menu with a couple of new desserts. I'm not going to tell you what they are, you'll have to come in and try them. But I will give you a couple of hints: Elvis and candied apples! I also want to remind everyone that we are serving lunch every Monday through Friday from 11:30-2:00. Our menu has a lot of great all American lunch items such as Coney Island style hot dogs, New England Lobster Roll, Shrimp & Grits and fried oyster po-boys to name a few. We even have live music every Friday lunch. I hope you will come by the restaurant and see us.
