Alice Pizza and Restaurant (Locust Street)

"In some ways, Alice in the Italian Market follows the standard operating procedure of a seasonal American restaurant. Oysters get dressed up for prom on a marble bar. People eat dry-aged beef next to monstera plants. Produce-heavy dishes act like seasonal highlight reels from Old McDonald’s farm. What makes this place stand out from every other Philly small plates paradise is its charcoal oven. Follow the smoke when you're ordering and you’ll have a perfectly nice meal at a perfectly nice restaurant in a neighborhood people visit all the time. Even Alice's room feels familiar: dimly lit, with the mechanical chattiness of an office Christmas party. The quiet couple in the tan booth next to yours may break their silence to agree in unison that “the salad is good.” And they'll be right. The salad is good. As the night goes on and the oversized rum-cava cocktails flow, Alice's atmosphere usually loosens up. Dates and groups of friends stare at the action in the open kitchen, where pots gurgle with onion consomme and steaks flip and char. Alice’s best dishes touch the fire. There's a very good octopus coated in chiles and bits of preserved lemon. Coal-roasted beets with sunflower butter briefly stop time. A burger on a challah bun soaks up all the drip from a dry-aged patty and melty cheddar. No matter how simple a dish may sound, Alice attempts big flavors in everything it does. Sometimes that works, like with the mushrooms glazed in almond miso or the crunchy fried chicken with caraflex cabbage and homemade hot sauce—admittedly not a grilled dish but still one of our favorites here.   Other times, Alice’s flavor swings will leave you like Avril Lavigne, wondering why they had to go and make things complicated. For every herby chermoula adding some needed zip to grilled prawns, there’s a hazelnut vinaigrette doing nothing more for broccoli than readying it for picture day. And, with multiple cuisine nods on the menu, you're likely to get whiplash jumping from grilled naan to foie gras to fried chicken to wagyu beef. If you’re not sure what your dining mood is, it’s easy to get lost in Alice's 22-item menu. That variety and ambition might work if every dish hit, but not every dish does. Instead, come to Alice with a plan to eat smoky, grilled food (and the fried chicken and the salad). That way you'll be set for date night or a group dinner featuring more char than you typically get at home. " - Candis R. McLean