Tucked inside an unassuming business park in Kennett Square is, in my opinion, one of the best menus in town.
I’ll be honest: I would not normally gravitate toward a restaurant sandwiched between an optometrist and a hair salon. But a lot of people in the local community kept telling me to go, and these are people whose taste in food and wine I respect. So I went. Sovana Bistro, if you’re reading this, I apologize for the business park skepticism.
The food is the main feature, and everything else is built around it.
We first visited a few months ago, and since then we’ve tried the dining room, both inside and out. We keep ending up at the bar. It’s a cozy spot to focus on the food, the drink, and the kind of conversation that only happens when you’re not shouting over anyone. The bartenders are attentive without being pushy, which is harder to pull off than it sounds. The cooking is creative, adaptive, and unmistakably southeastern Pennsylvania.
And, you guessed it, there are several mushroom dishes on the menu that I felt professionally obligated to sample.
The Mushroom Report
Fungo Epico flatbread. Roasted wild mushrooms, fontina, herbs, and a black truffle vinaigrette. A strong opening move.
Butternut squash gnocchi. Pancetta and oyster mushrooms. This was killer. I’m not going to dress that up with a better adjective.
Wood roasted local mushrooms. A side, technically. I’d already ordered two mushroom dishes, and the logical next step was a third. These were from my friends at Phillips Mushroom Farms, the same family I visited last month, which made the whole meal feel like a loop closing. I’d stood in their farmhouse talking about how these mushrooms get grown and picked by hand, and here they were on a plate a few miles away.
The Host Wanted to Talk Mushrooms
At some point the host found out I run this blog, and he wanted to chat about the mushroom community here. That was the best part of the night, honestly. I’ve spent months wondering whether anyone in the local food scene would care about a guy writing about Kennett Square mushrooms. It turns out at least some of them do, and they want to talk about it.
A Note to Local Restaurants
If you run a kitchen in the Kennett Square area and mushrooms are on your menu, I’d like to try them. Wild, local, roasted, stuffed, whatever you’re proud of.
I’ll be stopping by to sample, and if I love what you’re doing I’ll write about it here, the same way I did this one. If there’s a dish I should know about or a farm you’re sourcing from, let me know and I’ll come hungry.