Stephen Starr, who has spent the last several years opening restaurants in New York, Washington, and Nashville, will come home in August to open Borromini, a 200-plus-seat Italian restaurant in the former Barnes & Noble store on Rittenhouse Square.
Borromini, about two years in the making, will be Starr’s first truly new Philadelphia restaurant since LMNO bowed in Fishtown in 2021.
Borromini, named after the 17th-century Italian architect Francesco Borromini, also will be Starr’s eighth restaurant in the Rittenhouse area and his first since the Love opened around the corner in 2017 in a partnership with restaurateur Aimee Olexy.
Starr said he considers Borromini to be a complement to his French restaurant Parc on the other side of the square, as it will occupy a large footprint — two floors of the three-story building — and will have a large sidewalk dining area.
Starr, who also owns the steakhouse Barclay Prime on one corner of the square, has a ninth Rittenhouse restaurant in development for the former Devon Seafood Grill next to Parc.
In recent years, Starr has turned his attention to other cities, notably Washington, where in the last several years he has opened El Presidente, a branch of Pastis (with Keith McNally), a rebirth of the Occidental, and Osteria Mozza (with Nancy Silverton). In Washington, he is fending off accusations that he has thwarted efforts to unionize.
To create Borromini, Starr tapped into his deep network. McNally, his partner in the Pastis restaurants, and designer Ian McPheely of Paisley Design put together the design.
Julian Baker, who last was executive chef at Starr’s posh brasserie Le Zoo in Miami, is Borromini’s executive chef. Chef Mark Ladner, who won four stars from the New York Times for his work a decade ago at Del Posto — one of just seven restaurants in the city to hold the distinction at the time, and the first Italian restaurant to do so in more than three decades, helped to develop the menu. Ladner’s signature dish — 100-layer lasagna — will be on the menu. (By the way, it’s not actually 100 layers — the idea is that while you’re trying to count them, you’ll give up and just eat.)
Ladner is executive chef at the luxe Babbo in New York, which Starr is purchasing from Joe Bastianich, along with its more casual sibling, Lupa. Both had been jewels in the restaurant empire Bastianich built with the disgraced chef Mario Batali. This move will bring Ladner full circle, as he was on Babbo’s opening team in 1998.
Starr’s last Philadelphia debut was 2023’s reopening of Pod in University City; it closed earlier this year. The original Pod opened in 2000 but was rebranded from 2022 to 2023 as a Korean-inspired variant called Kpod under chef Peter Serpico.
Borromini will be open for dinner Sunday to Wednesday from 5 to 10 p.m. and Thursday to Saturday from 5 to 11 p.m., with lunch and brunch scheduled to begin later this year.
Starr Restaurants has not indicated when reservations might be available on OpenTable, though the restaurant’s Instagram is being updated more routinely.
Dining and Cooking