September 19, 2017
StreetView/Google Maps
This screen capture shows the former Serafina Restaurant at 18th and Sansom streets as it looked in 2014. Restauranteurs Stephen Starr and Aimee Olexy are collaborating on a new dining spot at that location called The Love.
Stephen Starr, one of Philadelphia’s most prolific restaurateurs with no fewer than a dozen concepts in the city, is adding another to his list.
Starr will be collaborating with Aimee Olexy, the owner of Talula’s Garden and Talula’s Table, to bring the new project, The Love, to the space that once held the now-shuttered Serafina just north of Rittenhouse Square Park.
The Love will be a bi-level restaurant featuring 100 seats, which will be split between a main dining room, outdoor seating and an upper-level loft. The loft area will offer a 20-person communal table.
The menu will center on American cuisine and emulate the concept of a neighborhood cafe. Executive chef Joshua Tomaszewski, a native of Pennsylvania, joins The Love after working in several New York kitchens, including as chef de cuisine at Italian restaurant A Voce. You can also expect seasonal updates to the menu as Tomaszewski uses locally sourced ingredients.
The restaurant is expected to open later this fall, and job applications are being accepted to fill roles at the front and back of the house.
Starr and Olexy attempted to collaborate in 2014 for a Fishtown restaurant that eventually fell through -- the new Suraya is now in that space instead.
If nothing else, you can expect the space to be pretty: Roman and Williams, responsible for the aesthetic of some gorgeous restaurants in New York, Paris and elsewhere, took over design reins.
