September 26, 2024
Provided image/Suzannah Zee
Caletta, the new cocktail lounge and piano bar inside Hotel Anna & Bel, will open Thursday, Oct. 3.
The forthcoming cocktail lounge at Hotel Anna & Bel won't just invite professional musicians to entertain. Guests can also take its piano for a spin.
Caletta is the latest venture from chef Tyler Akin. His Mediterranean sister restaurant, Bastia, opened in the Fishtown hotel in August. The menu at Caletta takes similar cues from Italian cuisine, offering bites like saffron arancini and Sturgeon caviar with pane carasau, a Sardinian flatbread. The bar will serve a custom Caletta spritz — with white port and quince cordial, among other fall ingredients — when it opens Thursday, Oct. 3.
But Caletta is also a piano bar. The 24-seat lounge will host local and visiting musicians, while extending an "open invitation" to hotel guests to play some evenings, according to a news release. Its instrument is a gleaming black upright Yahama.
The recently renovated Hotel Anna & Bel opened up its 50 rooms for reservations this summer. The historic building at 1401 E. Susquehanna Ave. was most recently a retirement home, but it also functioned as an insane asylum for women in the 18th century. Akin lent the property significant buzz thanks to early raves about Bastia, which Bon Appétit included in its list "must-visit" restaurants for 2024.
Caletta will welcome walk-ins Thursday through Sunday from 4-11 p.m. Benjamin Kirk, previously of Wm. Mulherin's Sons, will manage the beverage program.
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