Iron Chef's Garces Trading Company, Philadelphia

Graces trading Co. is an all-in-one food experience. The restaurant is in the middle, one wall dedicated to cheese, cured meats, olive oil, anti pasto condiments and take-out sandwiches, another wall for coffee and pastries, the last wall is a wine cellar with a little bit of everything.

The bargain at Graces trading Co. is the BYOB policy and if you forget your wine, walk two steps and purchase a bottle with price points as low as $10.

Baby Artichokes

Because the space is a market with a full service restaurant we went a little crazy with the sourdough bread. After ordering, we browsed the rest of the place and discover white and black truffle olive oil and varieties of aged balasamic vinegar. We tasted so many olive oils and vinegar (which were all fantastic) and ate over a loaf of bread. If our server did not clear our plates we would have continued to eat until we exploded, literally.

Duck Lyonnaise Salad- duck confit, poached egg, bacon lardons, mustard vinaigrette

Everything we ordered was clean, comforting, substantial and flavorful. One of my dining companions, Tiff does not care for food. She is unique because she is the only one in my circle of friends who does not enjoy eating. Tiff prefers frozen Chimichanga and whatever is available and will make her hungry pangs go away.

With that, Tiff was raving about the food and I heard her "ooo and ahh" throughout the meal. This is a big deal because I am slowly trying to open her up to new food experiences. Side note- Tiff hates ALL seafood, offal and not adventurous.

Cubano Clasico - Roast Pork, ham, gruyere, mustard, pickle

The duck confit salad with poached egg was phenomenal, oozy custardy egg dripping over the big pieces of duck confit. There was big pieces of lardon and potatoes, basically an elevated lardon salad.

All the other dishes were in line with the salad, evenly salted which brought out the flavor of each ingredient.

Hopefully, next time when I am in Philadelphia I have a chance to dine at Jose Graces other restaurant, Amada.

*After lunch we walked over to Franklin Fountain for dessert and take in the view of the Benjamin Franklin Suspension Bridge.

Benjamin Franklin Suspension Bridge - the bridge twinkles at night

Garces Trading Co.
1111 Locust St
Philadelphia, PA 19107
215-574-1099