Reinventing the Revolution: Carolyn’s Modern Vietnamese Brings Her Roots to Walnut Street
After ten years of Revolution Taco at 2015 Walnut, Carolyn Nguyen is bringing Rittenhouse the Vietnamese-Cajun food she grew up on in Louisiana.
The awning at 2015 Walnut that used to be black is mint green now.
For nearly ten years that address was Revolution Taco, and Carolyn Nguyen was the chef-owner behind it. She closed it in January, spent the summer reworking the room behind a set of sheer curtains, and on Wednesday the doors open again, only this time under her own name.
Carolyn’s Modern Vietnamese soft opens on Wednesday, September 2nd, and the card in the front window sums the whole idea up in seven words: Vietnamese Heritage. Louisiana Roots. French Café Spirit.
Mint Condition
Up the steps, through the arch, across the black-and-white checkerboard to the left, and you’re in a space you’ll half recognize: it’s the same narrow storefront that ran back from the windows for a decade. The counter you used to order tacos at is gone, though, and the whole front has been reconfigured for table service.
There are 35 seats in the dining room, with 5 more at the bar plus standing room in the back if you’re just there for a drink. It’s intimate and designed for the neighborhood, i.e., you’ll recognize the person at the next table by your third visit.
Two things reward a slow look, with the first being the pair of framed panels on the back wall. Beautiful preserved moss in six or seven greens, a bare branch down the center of each, dried flowers in coral and mustard and violet packed around it. We caught ourselves staring at it because while it photographs well, it looks even better in person.
Preserved moss, bare branches, and dried flowers in matching pine frames.
If you’re the type who picks a seat before you sit down: the two-top in the front window, under the trio of plant boxes, gets the afternoon light and a straight view out at Walnut for glorious people (and dog!) watching.
The front nook looks out at Walnut and has the best afternoon light in the room.
Two Homes, One Menu
It’s worth remembering that this block has offered fusion food for years. After all, Revolution Taco was a taco shop running Peking duck and Korean BBQ beef and chorizo off the same menu. The neighborhood has gotten comfortable with chefs who cook across more than one tradition at a time. Carolyn’s is the same instinct, aimed at the two major forces in her life: her childhood and the city she calls home.
What’s genuinely new for the neighborhood is the Vietnamese side of it. Carolyn pointed out to us that Rittenhouse proper doesn’t have many Vietnamese options, and that gap was part of why she wanted to do this here rather than take the concept somewhere else in the city.
Amelia, Louisiana, on a Rittenhouse Table
Here’s what she’s bringing to the block. Carolyn was born and raised in Amelia, a small town in southern Louisiana — she told the Inquirer’s Kiki Aranita that when she was growing up there, around a third of the town’s roughly 2,000 residents were Vietnamese. Her parents both came from Vietnam and met after arriving in the States.
“Growing up, we always had seafood boils when crabs and crawfish were in season. They were a major part of my childhood. We ate boudin — a stuffed rice sausage with pork — lots of curries, and a lot of chicken. My family had a little chicken farm just for our relatives, with around 20 to 30 chickens,” said Nguyen. “As a child I had so much curry chicken, but I’ll modify it a little [for the new restaurant], along with thịt kho, a braised pork with egg that I’ll use pork belly for. And there will be slow-cooked grits.”
Carolyn landed in Philadelphia in 2007 on what was supposed to be a stopover at her sister’s on the way to New York. She never got to New York. Culinary school at the Art Institute instead, then Susanna Foo, then Nectar and Maia, then Fork in 2013 and 2014 alongside Andrew Wood, now the chef at Le Virtù. Now it’s her turn.
Four Drinks, One Family Tree
We got a sneak peek at the cocktail list, and it’s where the family history stops being backstory and becomes something you can order.
- Memories of Amelia is named for her hometown and built on guava and kumquat, both of which grew on trees at her childhood house.
- My Thai is a pun on her mother’s name, Mai.
- There’s a drink named for her father, and it has a great origin story: a couple of years back he went shrimping with her uncle, a commercial shrimper, brought the catch home, barreled it, and has been fermenting his own fish sauce ever since.
- Bayou Ember is the Louisiana nod, made with chicory bitters, a wink at New Orleans coffee.
Built For The Neighborhood
We love how everything about the restaurant is intentional for the neighborhood. Dinner only to start, Wednesday through Saturday, 5 to 9 midweek and 5 to 10 on the weekend. Some of the Revolution Taco crew stayed on, so there’ll be faces you know behind it. And down the line Nguyen wants to add lunch or brunch, more casual, with more traditional Vietnamese dishes, which we know will be a hit. This neighborhood loves a good brunch!
The strongest signal, though, is the lease. Carolyn re-signed at 2015 Walnut for three more years, and then set about reinventing what happens inside it. She walks the Square daily and has called it her stress relief, so when it came time to build something new, she built it on the block where she already knows everybody. And while she had hoped to open in the Spring, Carolyn took the time to make sure everything is just right.
Since the awning went up back plenty of us have been walking past ever since, wondering what was taking shape behind the curtains. And, come Wednesday, we’ll now have the chance to try a style of Vietnamese cuisine that’s been shaped by a talented chef’s roots.
