And Now, A Toast/Roast/Elegy For The Continental
BY JOEY SWEENEY | It has come to our attention that The Continental has closed, and may be closed forever, though it is likely that this could merely be craven press manipulation on the part of its owner.
To which we say: No matter. Will you raise your glasses please.
To The Continental! The Continental had no soul. But this was a good thing, for once. It never asked anything of you. It never asked you to treat its chef like some magical white boy who just discovered wasabi, or the noodle, and in fact, they made pretty damned sure you never knew who the chef was at all — the menu they had on the first day will strongly resemble the menu on the last day. It was remarkably consistent, and some of this had to be by design, part of its whole frozen-in-time concept.
To The Continental! The Continental which, in its initial years, was famous for insisting upon hiring only the most attractive servers the city had to offer! This might have been illegal! On the other hand, it was wild, theatrical, and not a little unsettling and a little funny at the same time! It was like Zoolander, but someone was bringing you (gag) a chocolate martini!
To The Continental! Where Philly’s jet set went to play! I knew a whole gang of girlfriends who fully stalked the Eric Lindros-era Flyers there regularly. I once saw Dikembe Mutombo squeezed into a booth there, his left leg hanging out into the aisle akimbo, his right leg probably astounded to get under the table at all. He was eating a pile of shoe string fries, and the image tickles me to this day. It’s weird, but I think of it often.
To The Continental! Which served EGGS for generations! I am probably one of just a few people to have eaten at both iterations of The Contential — the midcentury greasy spoon it unironically was for decades into the 20th Century, well into the mid-1990s, and the zhuzhed-up version Stephen Starr created that, at least in its initial decade, was intentionally ironic. Both featured… breakfast!
To The Continental! It was chic, sort of, but wholly unchallenging. It was a little silly, but it wanted to remind you that most self-conscious restaurants are. In its way, it was generous.
To The Continental!
