Historic Philadelphia

CITY TAVERN
✧
Above: The impressive front vestibule at
City Tavern.
Top, right: A frontal view of City Tavern.
Below: City Tavern’s Long Room, where the
first Fourth of July celebration was held.
Perhaps no other eating establishment in
Philadelphia captures the sights and sounds
of the glorious days of the Revolution like
City Tavern. This remarkable recreation of
one of Old City’s most important and historic
taverns has captured the imagination of thousands
of guests from all over the world.
Here, in this authentically detailed establishment,
they are transported to the time of
the American Revolution and the founding of
the New Republic, when weighty matters
were debated and resolved in great meeting
places such as City Tavern. With its charming
and elegant eighteenth century interior—precise
to the pewter and china service, the
Colonial era furnishings and accessories, and
waitstaff costumed in eighteenth century
dress, guests will feel that they are meeting
and dining in the midst of those great days.
One can almost imagine Benjamin Franklin,
John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James
Madison, or George Washington among the
many guests, dining, conversing, and deciding
the course that history would follow.
This spectacular City Tavern is the culmination
of the efforts of many who love history and
Philadelphia. It was in this precise spot that the
original City Tavern, first built in 1773, stood
and served its guests for decades before being
felled by fire in 1854. Shortly after its inception
in 1948, the National Park Service gathered a
group of artisans to research the eighteenth century
and later painstakingly reconstruct City
Tavern, brick by handmade brick, with the help
of surviving architectural plans and insurance
documents. City Tavern was finally rebuilt on the
same spot in 1975, its construction completed
just in time for the Bicentennial Fourth of July
celebration. The timing could not have been
more appropriate, as the very first Fourth of July
celebration was held in City Tavern’s Long Room.
It took until 1994, when restaurateur extraordinaire
Walter Staib brought the precise
balance of history and modern service to make
City Tavern the renowned establishment it is
today. Praised in The New York Times, The
Washington Post, The Times of London, USA
Today, The Chicago Tribune, Travel & Leisure,
The Frankfurter Allgemeine, and The Philadelphia
Inquirer, City Tavern is one of Philadelphia’s
most admired and celebrated restaurants.
Staib’s attention to detail at City Tavern has
earned him and City Tavern many awards,
including Esquire’s Best New Restaurant in
America, Restaurants & Institutions’ 1999
Restaurateur of Distinction Ivy Award, the
Restaurant Hospitality 2000 Best Kids Menu in
America Grand Award and the Philadelphia
Delaware Valley Restaurant Association’s 1999
Restaurateur of the Year Award.
One of the main reasons City Tavern has
continuously won award after award is the
delightful cuisine and attentive service. Walter
Staib has fashioned a fabulous selection of dishes
that are inspired by the cooking of the eighteenth
century, but that reflect today’s freshest
and finest ingredients. The menu is a pleasantly
surprising testimony to the culinary prowess
and sophistication of eighteenth century chefs.
The Dinner Menu offers the kind of dishes
that one might enjoy in the late eighteenth century
with the modern advantages of storage,
HISTORIC PHILADELPHIA
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