From our correspondent, Philadelphia: Come January 31st and it was be the end of the road for West Philadelphia’s iconic restaurant Marigold Kitchen. Robert Halpern first started the legendary tasting menus in 2009, and it was one of the city’s first kitchens to experiment with foams and meat glues and liquid nitrogen.  Most notably, the kitchen put out some of the city’s greatest restaurant talents — Jonathan Adams (now co-owner of Rival Bros. Coffee), Erin O’Shea, and, of course, Michael Solomonov and Steve Cook.

In 2014, Halpern sold the restaurant to his two chef Andrew Kochan and Tim Lanza, who carried the multi-course tasting menus until last year when they were voted as one of Philadelphia’s best restaurant. But situation changed all of a sudden with Kochen telling close friends that there is inherent risk of involving additional finances and and it is not viable to keep the kitchen up and running for long. The iconic restaurant will die a natural death on January 31.