Philadelphia. Day 1. Friday. Our 60th Floor Beach Vacation.
Well, it’s only been about a week since we got back from our last trip, so it’s time to go on our next one!
As a little bit of background, we’re supposed to be in Charleston, SC this weekend. We had flights, hotels and restaurants all booked and were really looking forward to a four night babymoon, just the two of us. We really wanted a beach vacation, but chose Charleston because we didn’t want to leave the country. And then last Thursday my doctor told me I shouldn’t be flying or going too far away anymore. So Tzvi quickly sprung into action cancelling the whole Charleston trip and looking for somewhere else to go that's no more than 2 hours away. After a little online research, he decided Philadelphia was the right place to go instead.
You’re probably thinking that Philly doesn’t sound like the replacement for a romantic and relaxing weekend away, and it’s certainly no beach vacation. Well, read on.
We got in the road around noon and drove straight to Philadelphia without stopping. The ride was only about 2 hours and pretty easy.
Our first stop was for a late lunch at Pizzeria Vetri in the center of the city. Amazingly we found parking easily only a block from the restaurant. The restaurant is one of a few around Philly, and owned by a chef who also has a well known Italian restaurant in Philly that Tzvi wanted to eat at except the only menu option was a $165/pp tasting menu that we weren’t up for. So we settled for trying his pizza. It was late, so the place was mostly deserted. We shared a margarita pizza pie that Tzvi got with half eggplant. The pizza was great. Good crust. We also shared an order of fried Brussels sprouts that were served on top of a delicious mustard sauce.
After lunch we walked on Walnut Street for about a half hour, picking up coffees at a place called Elixr Coffee, and then buying ties at the Tie Bar, a store that has NYC locations, except Tzvi only seems to shop there when we’re in other cities.
From there we drove a few blocks to our hotel and checked in. We’re staying at the new (only about a year old) Four Seasons Philadelphia, located inside the Comcast Center, the tallest building in the city. We were led into a small lobby and into an elevator, and then made the 45 second ride up to the 60th floor lobby!
I don’t know what to say except that the hotel is stunning. Every aspect of the hotel has been meticulously designed. We checked in and were led to our 55th floor (!) room. The room was gorgeous with huge windows looking north. They had also left us a plate of “fruit sushi”, which was really cute.
Shabbos was about to start so we changed into bathing suits and went up to the indoor pool on the 57th floor, where we watched the sun set and then sat reading and relaxing and for a couple of hours.
Around 730 we went back to our room and got dressed for dinner, then headed up to the 60th floor for dinner at Jean Georges (the hotel restaurant). It’s quite unfortunate that it was shabbos because the restaurant and every aspect of our dinner was stunning, and we have no photos of it. We even got a great table in a secluded corner that was facing out a window. It was really gorgeous.
Here are a couple of photos that we took before shabbos though:
For our meal we ordered a bunch of the dishes on the vegetarian menu and shared things. Our courses were as follows:
CARAFLEX CABBAGE, celeriac dashi glaze, white truffle
BUTTERNUT SQUASH SOUP, wild mushrooms, chive
CRISPY FRIED BABY ARTICHOKES, remoulade sauce, blood organge, mint
HONEYNUT SQUASH AGNOLOTTI, amaretti, crumble, balsamic vinegar, Parmesan cheese
ROASTED SALMON, spices, fennel, coconut lime infusion, herbs
ORCHARD caramelized apple, whipped crème fraîche, green apple sorbet
CITRUS Layers of cake and cream, hazelnut chocolate on the side, in a sugar orange shell
Everything was delicious. It was so nice to sit and enjoy the view and just talk without phones or any distractions.
After dinner we went back to our room and passed out, exhausted.
Great day.