Three Reasons To Go To Tapestry In Queen Village
Beer. Booze. Bites. That's the slogan at Tapestry — on the website, on the menu, even on the front door. We've been twice now and have to say, it's winning on all three points.
Tapestry replaced the beloved Adsum on the Queen Village corner of 5th and Bainbridge this past November. It was coined the latest gastropub in a series of openings around town, but feels less like the "pub" half of that label than most others.
Floor-to-ceiling windows on two sides open up the small-ish space and a slightly larger wine selection than many other gastropubs helps that cause. The menu, however, is a refreshing return to what we saw from gastropubs when the trend exploded a few years ago — upscale versions of staple items like burgers, fish n' chips and apps. We've been frustrated by some other well-established gastropubs fancying up their menus lately and taking off these traditional items. No matter what you call it, Tapestry is a safe bet for good food, drink and atmosphere.
Two enormous chalkboards provide the draft beer list and daily food specials. The beer selection is deep and rotates frequently. A third board lists 12+ traditional cocktails for $8 to $10 each. Bradd had a couple very well made Negronis during our first visit. Off the wine list, I'm a big fan of how easy a few glasses of the smooth Coppo Barbera L'Avvocata 07' go down after a long week.
I won't go into a ton of detail on each dish, but so far everything we've eaten at Tapestry was very good:
Bacon-wrapped dates and sweet potato fries — Both come with cranberry cherry apple cider chipotle marmalade. Commence drooling now.
Fried rock shrimp with sriracha mayo — Loved it. Not enough rock shrimp on menus these days.
Roasted peppers and stravecchio on house made bread — This is a decent-sized portion, good for sharing.
Mac & cheese — Served plain, a.k.a. three cheese, as a small plate but there is also usually a "mac n' cheese of the day" on the specials board. We had it with pancetta and peas and it was delicious. Don't worry when it comes out a little runny — it's still tasty and doesn't leave a gross heap of digested cheese sitting in your stomach all night.
Fish and chips – Tasty, and more like giant, lightly breaded fish sticks. No charge to substitute sweet potato fries for the automatic side of steak fries.
Fried chicken – Bradd is a sucker for fried chicken and is glad to see it appearing in more places (call it the Federal Donuts effect, I guess). This fried chicken was quite good. Juicy and crispy, just the way we like it.
Tapestry Burger – Another solid burger to add to the lexicon of Philly burgers. It's not up there with burger at Supper, Pub & Kitchen or Village Whiskey, but most of us would be more than pleased with it.
The staff at Tapestry was also very friendly and helpful with menu selections. They seemed happily accommodating to larger groups that walked in, shuffling around tables/chairs as best they could to seat everyone. The bar is easy to eat at, too, plus there's a little shelf for standing patrons to sit their beers on. It's the little things, you know?
We're still looking for one more go-to, solid little pub in our neighborhood on the other side of Broad St. For Queen Villagers, they've got it in Tapestry.