At Emmett, the Mediterranean is a flavorful point of departure for a chef’s culinary journey

Evan Snyder grew up in Newtown loving his Israeli grandmother’s stuffed cabbage, an Ashkenazi-style comfort classic rolled around beef and rice in sweet and sour tomato sauce.

The cabbage rolls he’s cooking at Emmett have come a long way from that childhood memory in style, context, and luxury ambition. Filled with ground duck and foie gras and glazed with red cabbage juice, biting into the richness of one of these cigar-shaped “malfouf” bundles is like the bonus prize on a sharing platter of dry-aged duck that’s already a spectacle of delights. The gorgeously crisp breast, encrusted with pink and green peppercorns, is served over a rich duck jus tanged with the fruity sweetness of roasted pear and topped with caramelized fennel bulbs, plump dates, and silky golden scoops of saffron-fennel purée.

“I have an affection for traditional things, but I’ve always liked to take them and flip them in nontraditional ways,” says Snyder, 32.

As one of the large-format dishes that anchor the menu at Emmett, it’s a highlight that exemplifies the kind of skill Snyder has for artfully layering multiple components into a dish that eats like a journey — one that may take sparks of inspiration from here or there, but ultimately follows the landscape of the chef’s own imagination.

With creative input from Snyder’s business partner, Julian van der Tak, 33, a former chef born in Marseille to a French family with roots in Algeria, the dishes here take cues from the Mediterranean at large, but their flavor profiles glow primarily with spice market blends from North Africa and the Levant, the cluster of Middle Eastern countries that stretch from the sea’s eastern edge into Eurasia.

There is soft butter infused with the fragrant smoked cinnamon of a house ras el hanout to accompany warm madeleines encrusted with toasted sesame seeds and a rhubarb jam dip. The Yemenite spice blend of hawaij infuses a creamy sauce for cold-smoked cobia layered with surf clams beneath a cover of torn herbs, all over zesty muhammara made with puréed chiles, pomegranate molasses, and roasted peanuts instead of the usual walnuts. Za’atar-dusted crackers topped with smoked Jonah crab salad are reminiscent of a smoked whitefish, among Snyder’s many references to his love for Jewish deli classics.

Another example not to be missed are the crispy rye tartlets filled with American Wagyu tartare and smoked grain mustard dusted with a nose-tingling garnish of grated horseradish. At $10 à la carte, it’s a compact but flavor-packed starter, or a satisfying first bite in the four-course tasting option for $105.

Emmett, which is named for Snyder’s 2-year-old son, offers an intriguing case study in timing, focus, and real estate. Snyder’s creative skills were clearly on display when I reviewed his work at Redcrest Kitchen nearly two years ago. But the upscale plates from a chef who previously worked at Bresca in Washington, Balise in New Orleans, and FISH by José Andrés in Oxon Hill, Md., were often overly ambitious for a Queen Village corner better suited to being a more accessible, neighborhood destination. (Redcrest, which initially started elsewhere as a fried chicken restaurant, indeed began to lower prices before Snyder left in 2023, and has continued to evolve in that direction.)

Van der Tak, who’d left a career in the kitchen (Talula’s Garden, Vernick Fish, Jean-Georges) to sell fish to chefs for Samuels Seafood Co., first noticed Snyder’s talent at Redcrest, and the two quickly bonded “theologically” over food and realized they wanted to collaborate.

Fewer than two years later, they’ve created a place that is channeling Snyder’s vision in a more focused, holistic way. Even as he roams far and wide for ideas, these dishes feel coherent and pop an originality at a moment when Mediterranean cooking in Philadelphia has never been more popular (and sometimes also redundant).

There isn’t much variation between what’s offered on the two menus, but the pacing, portions, and range of the tasting menu does justice to Emmett’s ambitions, and it brings a special-occasion aura back to this South Kensington corner. It has, in many ways, rekindled the boundary-pushing modern American vibes of Cadence, the celebrated BYOB that gained national notice but ultimately closed during the pandemic, making way for Mark McKinney’s more casual vegan project, Primary Plant Based, which sadly closed this fall.

Van der Tak has done a fine job sprucing up the 38-seat room with a fresh coat of deep forest green, some art from his personal collection, and an antique credenza for the service station. It is the overall experience itself, though, that gives Emmett its destination dining energy, with well-informed and friendly service coordinated by manager Marissa Chirico, a River Twice alum whose Hedley & Bennett apron-clad team admirably navigates Snyder’s nearly daily menu tweaks.

The reinstallation of a live-edged bar to this space — recreating Cadence’s chef counter, but this time with alcohol — could prove crucial to the financial sustainability of this project, which has relatively few seats. (Although 16 more are expected outside in warm weather.)

There’s a smart drink program built exclusively around Pennsylvania products by bar manager Petra Manchina, who has deftly synced her cocktails to savory ingredients from the kitchen, from her take on a dirty martini made with feta brine-washed vodka and leek-infused vermouth to the smoke of clarified eggplant essence for a sparkling lime mocktail and the unusual Mary’s Lamb, which uses a lamb fat-washed rye with absinthe and nocino. (It’s a cocktail that’s so much better than it sounds — barnyard boozy in a good way.) The Mary’s Lamb is even better when you sip it before diving into the platter of meltingly tender lamb belly and smoked harissa loin over rice and lentil mujadara.

Snyder is making the most of the great seasonal produce available to him. The earthy sweetness of salt-roasted badger flame beets sits between the aromatic crackle of a toasted pistachio dukkah spice and a tangy matbucha puree that’s flavored with coriander-scented tomatoes on the bottom of the plate. An appetizer of grilled halloumi cheese is contrasted by the bittersweet crunch of Castelfranco leaves dressed in a yogurt-based green goddess spiked with green chile heat.

Turkey has been a point of departure for some of Snyder’s most compelling plates, such as the carrots cooked mangal-style directly over the coals glazed with vinegar-tanged carrot juice over burnt eggplant puree and harissa yogurt. I’m also obsessed with his cappelletti dumplings filled with sujuk sausage, a cuminy ground Wagyu beef filling whipped with tangy sumac and fermented ramp miso, then arrayed over a romesco sauce made with crushed red chiles and smoked walnuts — one of the most exciting pastas in the city this year.

A refreshing quince-infused Ploughman cider or a bottle from the growing roster of urban wineries in and around Fishtown, Pray Tell or Mural City, are a fine accompaniment to this meal. But I’d lean on the lighter side (Yes to Galen Glen’s grüner from the Lehigh Valley!) for some of the seafood dishes where Snyder shows his lighter touch, as with the buttermilk-dredged chicken-fried oysters with “ranch tzatziki” to start, or an arctic char entree with a ras el hanout broth that’s lightly creamed with coconut milk — an admittedly non-Mediterranean ingredient, but a versatile way to add nondairy richness. (That char has since been replaced by a halibut with harissa butter, yet another sign of this chef’s restless curiosity to keep evolving his dishes.)

One experiment I’m glad he’s already moved on from is the Wagyu strip loin, which was just too fatty to enjoy. Although I hope he finds a way to repurpose the bonus prizes on that rambling sharing platter — a broccoli rabe chermoula tribute to South Philly and a wonderful terrine of smoked oxtail, hazelnuts, and sweetbreads that could be a small plate on its own.

Sometimes, it doesn’t have to be complicated to be memorable. Snyder’s all-time favorite dessert is a classic sticky toffee pudding. At Emmett, he takes that traditional date cake, adds cardamom, then drenches it in a wading pool of dark caramel buzzing with Turkish coffee. Topped with a fistful of crushed pistachios to finish, it risks being just a little too much. But no: It’s so moist, so crunchy, so magnetically bittersweet, it is actually just right.

For this talented young chef bursting with ideas — admittedly sometimes still too many for a single dish — it’s a fortunate situation that he now has a place of his own to continue crystalizing his vision and that we all get to savor the results.

161 W. Girard Ave., Philadelphia, Pa. 19122, 215-207-0161; emmettphilly.com

Dinner Tuesday through Saturday, 5-10 p.m.

A la carte early course plates, $10-$24, entree platters for sharing, $55-$85, four-course tasting menu, $105.

About half of the menu is typically gluten-free, and the kitchen takes care to avoid cross contamination.

Entrance is wheelchair accessible with a portable ramp.