Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Forward 50 2015

Yehuda Sichel

Michael Solomonov gets the (well-deserved) glory for the mini empire of CookNSolo Philadelphia eateries (Zahav, Dizengoff, etc.) that he runs with partner Steven Cook. But outside the spotlight, the Solomonov acolyte Yehuda Sichel is turning out foods of the Jewish Diaspora at Abe Fisher, which CookNSolo opened in September 2014.

Sichel, who went to culinary school in Israel, was sous-chef at Zahav and ran the kitchen at Citron & Rose, a kosher spot the group is no longer affiliated with.

It didn’t take long for Philadelphia Inquirer restaurant critic Craig LaBan to rave that executive chef Sichel “wields schmaltz here like liquid gold.”

In January, Travel + Leisure put the restaurant on its Best New Restaurants list, saying, “Yehuda Sichel spins deliciously irreverent riffs on the foods of the Jewish Diaspora.”

Philadelphia magazine called Abe Fisher “Best Restaurant to Show Off to Your NYC Friends,” writing, “Anyone who thinks America’s best Ashkenazi and Sephardic foods are locked up in some Lower East Side deli simply hasn’t tasted the matzo brei and pastrami-style short ribs at this Rittenhouse newbie.”

In June, the Baltimore-born Sichel, 29, cooked at the James Beard House, which dubbed his meal “Sexy New Jewish Cooking.” In July, Eater named Abe Fisher one of the 21 Best New Restaurants in America; in March, Sichel was named a semifinalist for the James Beard Award for Best New Restaurant.

2015 was also the year Sichel proposed to his girlfriend. He’ll be married in 2016, a year we suspect will find him lit up by his very own spotlight.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

With your support, we’ll be ready for whatever 2025 brings.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.