I Endured Philly’s Worst New Bar So You Don’t Have to

From left: inside the Newsroom; the Diet 7Up door next to the host stand / Photographs by Cody Aldrich Photography and Kae Lani Palmisano

I should have known, given the Diet 7Up vending machine door, that an evening at the Newsroom, Philly’s much-anticipated New York City-based bar/restaurant/speakeasy, would be full of cringe-worthy gimmicks designed for Instagram. But I try not to judge a place by its entrance. I have been to great bars that feel like a Meow Wolf experience. Behind a freezer in an unassuming laundromat/bodega in Williamsburg is Mezcaleria La Milagrosa, an intimate mezcal speakeasy that doubles as a listening room where DJs spin vinyl tracks and drop mad beats. And in Mexico City, through a Modelo cooler in a taco stand awaits Hanky Panky, which, despite the silly name, serves up some serious experimental cocktails. I was really hoping that this would be Philly’s version of those whimsical-yet-cool bars, but the Newsroom is far from it.

You’ve likely heard about the Newsroom. The Inquirer listed it as one of five new Japanese restaurants readers should watch. Instagram has been flooded with influencers having a blast over interesting cocktails and seemingly appetizing izakaya-inspired bites. Even Philly Mag’s restaurant critic Jason Sheehan wrote about it in his weekly Foobooz news column.

Sheehan explained that the executive chef of the Newsroom is Nobuhiro Hamazaki, who is known for his work as the executive sushi chef at Koi, which has locations in Los Angeles, New York, Abu Dhabi, and St. Kitts. He also worked at Shaab in L.A., Suntory Restaurant in Milan, and Kisoji in Tokyo. Hamazaki obviously has a lot of experience in Japanese fusion, and, considering the Newsroom’s menu — sushi, tuna crispy rice, and miso-marinated churrasco — it all sounded pretty good. “It’s the potential of the kitchen that I’m most interested in,” Sheehan wrote. So, I went this past Friday to see for myself if it was living up to the hype.

The illusion of the Diet 7Up vending machine being the secret passageway into a hip, underground speakeasy was shattered when I had to confirm my reservation at the host stand next to the door. After I established that I was supposed to be there, I was ushered through the vending machine and led down a stuffy hallway into a dark, cramped bar with booming club music where my dining companion was waiting for me.

The Interview cocktail / Photographs by Kae Lani Palmisano

The unnecessary theatrics began when our drinks arrived. I started with the Interview, a mezcal cocktail made with coconut milk, orange blossom water, and chocolate bitters presented in a dome of smoke. When the server lifted the dome, he swirled it around to make the effect more dramatic. Creamy, floral, and garnished with a singed stick of cinnamon, it was a smooth, refreshing drink that I enjoyed, but I’m not sure what the smoke added to the experience aside from social media fodder.

The food was a series of comical fiascos. We started off with the spicy tuna crispy rice, $24 of not-so-crispy rice topped with flavorless dollops of “spicy” tuna. The rice was so gummy it cemented itself to my teeth. I had to excavate it from my molars with my tongue — contorting my face while trying to maintain conversation.

The extra flourishes extend beyond what’s on the menu to the presentation of the menu itself. Only accessible via QR code, a cutesy load-screen graphic made ordering clunky, especially since the cell service inside the bar was pretty terrible. “Do you have any paper menus?” we overheard the table next to us ask. “We’re having trouble loading the menu.” The server offered up his phone for them to use.

The yellowtail tiradito / Photographs by Kae Lani Palmisano

We wanted to give the food another shot, so we ordered more dishes, each brought to the table in a parade of needless pageantry. The yellowtail tiradito — a Japanese-Peruvian dish served raw like sashimi and covered in a ceviche-like sauce — was seared with a blowtorch tableside. Though it’s not uncommon for it to be seared (and was advertised as such on the menu), it’s usually done so in a uniform fashion around the edges of the fish. Our server, however, only seared one side, which resulted in a lopsided textural nightmare — half slightly cooked, half buttery like sashimi.

The churrasco steak was plated on a Chili’s sizzling fajitas-style cast-iron skillet and also required a blowtorch. But when the server tried to squeeze between the tables — which were uncomfortably close to one another — he dropped the butane torch. As it tumbled to the floor, my mind jumped straight to the worst possible conclusion. I always felt like I’d go out with a bang, but not like this. Not in a fiery explosion in the underbelly of the final boss of gentrification. Luckily, there was no explosion. The head of the torch just detached from the butane canister, which still felt precarious as the server reattached it and used it to light our steak on fire.

After the fire extinguished itself, I went to grab what I thought was the end piece with my chopsticks, only to realize that the steak was a slab of uncut meat. The only thing I had to cut it with was the butter knife that was part of my place setting. The meat wasn’t that resistant to the dull knife — a testament to its tenderness. Once carved and ready to eat, it was tasty. The miso marinade gave it a salty, umami essence, and it paired nicely with the herb chimichurri on the side.

The churrasco steak being lit on fire with the butane torch that was dropped on the floor. / Photograph by Kae Lani Palmisano

Next, the sushi rolls. I was really in the mood for sushi. In fact, I held out on getting it all week in anticipation of the Newsroom. The spicy tuna roll was, again, not spicy and underwhelming. We also ordered the Headline Roll, which was highly recommended by our server. It had truffle avocado, which I was skeptical of (not everything needs truffle), but since it was described as “the most popular dish on the menu,” I decided to give it a go. We also ordered the Editor’s Roll, which never came to the table. In retrospect, it worked out in our favor because the aforementioned roll came out on an unnecessarily massive plate that barely fit on the table.

On the menu, the Headline Roll was described as tempura shrimp and truffle avocado topped with spicy tuna, but it was the opposite. It was another spicy tuna roll with a sauce-coated tempura shrimp glued on top with the truffle avocado. I practically had to unhinge my jaw to make the towering roll fit in my mouth. Flavor-wise, it was disjointed. The battered shrimp gave way to a layer of earthy truffle-avocado goo, which gave way to a layer of salty, nori-wrapped, not-spicy tuna roll.

This was all accompanied by a second cocktail: the Front Page, a vodka and matcha number sweetened with a little lemon and honey and adorned with edible flowers that cascaded down the side of a fluted glass. It was aesthetically pleasing and not too sweet. A lovely cocktail that had a punch of citrus mellowed out by the savory depth of matcha. Perhaps the cocktails are the only thing this place has got going for it, I thought. That is until I started to notice a stickiness creeping down my hands and onto my forearms. They used the honey to affix the flowers to the glass, and it was dripping down, leaving a sticky trail on everything in its wake.

The Front Page — the stickiest cocktail in Philly / Photograph by Kae Lani Palmisano

Around 8 p.m. we asked for the check — twice. As we were waiting to pay, an aerial dancer took to the center of the room, twirling above the floor from silk. It felt weird for a performance like that to happen so early in the night — it felt more like an 11 p.m. thing — but the whole experience was weird. The Newsroom is weird. Expensive and weird.

I usually wait a couple of months after a place first opens before I make any judgments. I want to give it some time to find its rhythm. And though the Newsroom has only been open for a little over a week, I am confident enough to say that it’s bad — because it’s bad by design. The showy antics, the tableside theatrics, the loud club music, and the acrobatic performance are engineered to distract from the fact that the focus is more on vibes than on craft. Which may fly in New York City, where people seem more concerned with image than with quality and authenticity, but not in Philly. It just comes off as a disingenuous ploy to cash in on Philly’s social capital now that our incredible dining scene has captured the country’s attention.

When I reemerged from the Diet 7Up door, I texted Sheehan about my experience. He had this to say: “I swear to God, every time some NY operator comes to Philly, it’s like they’re trying to prove how awesome they are and how podunk we are, and they end up overdoing everything by like 10,000%.” I agree. Philly is effortlessly cool. New York, on the other hand, is trying way too hard.