Elwood Restaurant

Outdoor reservations are now open for our dinner on Thursday, October 17. Link in the bio for booking.
Our second course will be Shnitz und Knepp and paired with a single Varietal Harrison.
Shnitz und Knepp is a PA Dutch stew made with dried apples, ham, and dumplings. Ham will be from from pigs they raised.

Mount Penn Wine House Lunch
Join us as we learn about the fascinating history of the Mount Penn wine houses of Reading, which served sumptuous German-inspired fare and local wines to thousands of tourists each weekend in the late 1800s and early 1900s.
We’ll be joined by local food & wine writer Mike Madaio, author of the book Lost Mount Penn: Wineries, Railroads and Resorts of Reading (which will be available for purchase, $20 cash or venmo).
We’ll be preparing a four course lunch, including two glasses of local wine from Stony Run Winery.
(BYOB also permitted; we’d recommend a Riesling from PA or Germany
https://www.exploretock.com/elwood/experience/497720/mt-penn-lunch?date=2024-08-31&size=2&time=12%3A001st
Cream of tomato soup
2nd
Hasenpfeffer
3rd
PA German picnic plate: ham, cheese, potato salad, pickles, olives, etc.
4th
Peach pie with vanilla ice cream
$50/pp

Thank you for mentioning us as a great place to do group dinners. Our family-style entrees are all about friends and families coming together over good food. We are back from Summer vacation starting tomorrow. See you soon!

We are excited to bring back last year's popular event the Gilded Age Luncheon with Author Becky Diamond! We will be doing 5 courses along with Becky Diamond discussing topics from her cookbook - The Gilded Age Cookbook.
Event details:
July 27th at 1pm
$55pp plus tax
Link in the bio to reserve

We are closed this week for a little Summer vacation. We will see you next week, Happy Fourth of July!

Smoked Eel
Green Goddess Sauce
Potato Chips
Caviar
And also, accompanied by speaking on the fish of our native waterways tonight.
Room is full, but you never know when we will do it again

Saturday, July 20 we are teaming up with .rwineservices to do a 5-course French wine and Seafood pairing
Link is in the bio to book a reservation
$110 tax and tip included

We are pleased to share that we will be doing a special dinner with Teagan Schweitzer, PHD on the historic waterways of the region. We will be doing a 5 course dinner with Teagan talking about the local history of our native seafood. We will be featuring catfish, eel, turtles, and striped bass.
June 22 6pm.
$68pp.
https://www.exploretock.com/elwood/experience/487234/historical-waterways-dinner?date=2024-06-22&size=2&time=12%3A00

Had a great conversation with for Amuse News podcast on ! Thanks for having me on! Check out the link in the bio to listen.

Turtle soup is back! Or as I call it on the menu -
Kensington Snapper Soup, which is the title of the recipe in the Memorial Hall Cookbook from 1911. Quite perfect because Fishtown was and is the Kensington neighborhood and turtle soup is a true dish of Philadelphia. Served with hard boiled egg and pepper Sherry.

Softshell Crab!
Dredged in cornmeal with pepper hash and lemon aioli.
Like says in her Field Guide to Seafood, the scientific name for blue crabs- Callinectes sapidus means tasty beautiful swimmer and these are truly tasty crabs!

graduate Jamie got her salmon and is excited to show off her culinary skills on Monday at the fundraiser event!! She will be making an hors d'oeuvre for the reception. Thank you for the donation and supporting ! There are still a few tickets left so it's not too late to attend.

Beautiful Walleye for this weekend.

Sunchoke Soup
dug up some beautiful sunchokes after the winter frost.

Va La Wine Dinner
Sunday, April 21 6pm, Elwood will be doing a wine dinner with and .rwineservices
Va La Vineyards is a family farm that produces small batch table wines in the old world style. One of the most awarded wineries in the state of Pennsylvania.
We are doing a 5-course dinner paired with VA La Vineyards wines
Price is $120 per person tax and tip included.
Link for the reservation is in the bio.

Shad Roe
A true early Spring treat, which at one time was highly sought out, even more so than the Shad itself. Cooked gently to keep the eggs from popping too excessively, it's a rich and flavorful roe and contrasts wonderfully with a sq**rt of lemon juice.

In my top 5 favorite cookbooks of all time- The L.L. Bean Game and Fish Cookbook, the author asks a friend of his to give a recipe for shad roe, his friend is reluctant, saying it's too easy to need a recipe and I, of course agree- keep it simple with simple accompanying flavors. We serve our Shad Roe with a frisee salad that has the classic pairings of bacon, lemon and butter.

Thank you for naming us one of the best BYOBs in Philly. We love showing our pride in Pennsylvania's Foodways.

Easter is 4 weeks away! If you are looking for a place to dine- Elwood will be running our dinner menu from 3pm-8:30pm.
Of course, we will have Easter ham from . Hams made from pigs that were raised by my brother in Northeastern, PA. Link in the bio to reserve on

It's Shad Season! A true regional delicacy and one that was highly anticipated, although it since has fallen out of favor from the seasonality- and the bones. Shad have hundreds of bones that can make eating it tedious.
The fish of Fishtown-the Native Americans were eating shad cooked on planks over a fire for thousands of years before the colonists came. One of many fish in the region they depended on in an annual cycle. The colonists imitated the idea, but tacked bacon over the fish.
The Shad is a delicious fish that is super seasonal and is a true American Classic Foodway. I love serving the whole fillets cooked on cedar planks, served with bacon fat and lemons.

I had a great time yesterday as a guest speaker for class, talking about PA Dutch foods and Philadelphia culinary history. They tasted shad, turtle soup, scrapple, and catfish and waffles. Thanks to my apprentice Jamie for helping.

Thank you for featuring Elwood!!

The Cask of Amontillado
Apple Tart, caramel, sherry ice cream
Dessert course for Edgar Allan Poe dinner

Everyone knows that Edgar Allan Poe lived in Philadelphia, but did you know that in the 1840s he penned an ode to one of our scenic waterways?
The dinner is still sold out, but the
second course for the upcoming Edgar Allan Poe dinner- trout, spruce, cedar broth -will be inspired by an essay he wrote called -

MORNING ON THE WISSAHICCON

River scenery has, unquestionably, within itself, all the main elements of beauty, and, time out of mind, has been the favourite theme of the poet. But much of this fame is attributable to the predominance of travel in fluvial over that in mountainous districts. In the same way, large rivers, because usually highways, have, in all countries, absorbed an undue share of admiration. They are more observed, and, consequently, made more the subject of discourse, than less important, but often more interesting streams.

A singular exemplification of my remarks upon this head may be found in the Wissahiccon, a brook, (for more it can scarcely be called,) which empties itself into the Schuylkill, about six miles westward of Philadelphia. Now the Wissahiccon is of so remarkable a loveliness that, were it flowing in England, it would be the theme of every bard, and the common topic of every tongue, if, indeed, its banks were not parcelled off in lots, at an exorbitant price, as building-sites for the villas of the opulent. Yet it is only within a very few years that any one has more than heard of the Wissahiccon, while the broader and more navigable water into which it flows, has been long celebrated as one of the finest specimens of American river scenery. The Schuylkill, whose beauties have been much exaggerated, and whose banks, at least in the neighbourhood of Philadelphia, are marshy like those of the Delaware, is not at all comparable, as an object of picturesque interest, with the more humble and less notorious rivulet of which we speak.
Thank you .w.ko for the menu design

 

In celebration of Edgar Allan Poe's birthday, Elwood will be teaming up with local Fishtown bookstore to do an intimate 5-course dinner inspired by Poe's works. Sunday, January 21st, 6pm
will be cooking courses inspired by his love of Edgar Allan Poe and Linda and Claire from will be doing readings in between. Each guest will leave with a cloth-bound Penguin Classic featuring 7 of Poe's short stories.
$80pp tax and tip included
https://www.exploretock.com/elwood/experience/453514/edgar-allan-poe-dinner?date=2024-01-21&size=2&time=12%3A00

Last weekend I was on the Bridging Philly podcast hosted by Racquel Williams. Along with , we talked about holiday traditions, food history, and cultural folklore. If you missed the KYW radio show, click the link in the bio to listen on the website. Thanks for having us, it was a great conversation.
https://www.audacy.com/podcast/bridging-philly-d2cd1/episodes/philly-holiday-food-traditions-black-brown-owned-small-biz-shopping-01caf

Christmas is tomorrow! We have a cancellation at the 6:30pm time so if you still haven't made plans there is an opening. Reserve now on with the link in the bio. Christmas hams by will be on the menu along with this chestnut cake.

Elwood will be open on Christmas Day, 3pm-8:30pm. Make your reservation on with the link in the bio. Yes, we will have ham!

Elwood will be closed all day tomorrow (Sunday) so we can relax with our families after a busy Thanksgiving. We will be back Thursday, November 30.

On November 16 , join us for a unique collaboration with
Where we will be doing a dinner inspired by their conservation minded whiskeys for their new whiskey- Saison de Frais. We will be serving:
Venison Scrapple, served with The Deerslayer Venison Whiskey
Green Crab Soup made with invasive green crabs, served with Crab Trapper Whiskey.
Trout with brown butter and pumpkin - served with the yet-to-be-announced smoked trout brandy
Beaver Stew, served with Eau De Musc castoreum-flavored whiskey
Apple tart with caramel ice cream, served with Tamworth Garden VSOP Apple Brandy.
6:15pm link below to make reservation
$75pp plus tax and tip
https://www.exploretock.com/elwood/search?date=2023-11-16&size=2&time=18%3A15