We’re normally loath to talk up a situation without reliable snitches to fall back on, but since all of creation is so hot to take a shot at the Stephen Simons/Dave Frank (Royal Tavern/Cantinas North & South) takeover of The Khyber, we thought we might as well stoke the flames of righteous anger/shivering anticipation with some loosely verified internet rumors. Blogger Beer Lass, apparent lady-in-charge of In Pursuit of Ale (I.P.A., natch), a ladies-only consortium of Philly area women who drink beer and lots of it, stated on her blog yesterday that The Khyber’s new izakaya persona is set to make its debut in “just two weeks.” Reportedly on the roster: Tim Campbell (Standard Tap, Cantina los Caballitos) as General Manager, Mark McKinney (Royal Tavern, Cantina los Caballitos) as Executive Chef, and Chef Todd Dae Kulper (Rozu) as bringer of sushi know-how. Twenty taps and two handpumps will (allegedly) be responsible for the exponential increase in bloat factor that always – ALWAYS – comes from the beer + rice-oriented food combo, so we might recommend keeping an eye out for sake offerings. A couple of our food blog colleagues seem to be corroborating parts of this story, but we’d enjoy some solid confirmation on this stuff if you, dear readers, are able to provide it. Please contribute truthiness in the comments.
Update: To clarify, if we may, we realize that Beer Lass does say that “Todd Dae Kulper formerly of Rozu…will be putting his sushi skills to task at another location,” but philly.com’s The Insider, linked above in this post yesterday, says “The Khyber will be coming back at the end of September as an izakaya…Chef will be Todd Dae Kulper, who won great notices at the opening of Ro-Zu….” We apologize for any confusion/rage we may have generated if we were not clear on that.
I think you might want to head back over to the Beer Lass article you linked to and give the whole “reading comprehension” thing another whack.
Read closer,
Suzanne’s story reads that Kulper will be at another Simons place (not the Khyber).
see below:
Stephen Simons has secured an awesome chef, Todd Dae Kulper formerly of Rozu -and will be putting his sushi skills to task at another location-yet to be determined.
@Dude @Someone who can read competently:
The following link, offered in this post, DOES say “Chef will be Todd Dae Kulper, who won great notices at the opening of Ro-Zu…” Hence the reason Phoodie’s beloved and eager-to-help readers have been asked to kindly verify if they have any solid intel as to what’s going down.
http://www.philly.com/philly/blogs/the-insider/Restaurant_notes_Khyber_turning_Japanese_chef_for_Starrs_pub.html
the philly.com link is not contemporary.
It is from 03Sep2010. In the last few weeks, things have changed. Thus, the beera\lass article.