The new Honeysuckle is thought-provoking, original — and totally delicious – Philadelphia Inquirer
If you have yet to wrap your hands — or mind — around the $65 “McDonald’s Money” burger at Honeysuckle, let me give you a preview of Philly’s most audacious new splurge.
Chefs Omar Tate and Cybille St.Aude-Tate shower the burger with summer truffles and gild the Jersey beef patties with shiny swatches of edible 24-karat gold sheets. There’s caviar, too, the briny beads cascading in flows of special sauce over the double burger stack, which is layered with molten Cooper Sharp. And it’s all between two plush cushions of house-baked Japanese shokupan milk bread. The caviar gives it an extra pop of oceanic umami, while some holy trinity (minced peppers, celery, and onions) and mushroom garum mixed into the meat lends an earthy Creole through line and vegetal boost to each juicy bite.
Is it an indulgence? Absolutely. Is it also delicious? Oh yeah. Especially alongside the crispy, tallow-cooked fries dusted with ”new bay” spice, whose paprika blush is piqued with mustard and ginger.
The married chef-partners here know exactly how to take a joke and wry cultural reference — this one rooted in Eddie Murphy’s stand-up complaint about his mother’s ugly DIY McDonald’s replacement burger — and lift it to where it’s so good it’s not (quite) a joke anymore.
The McDonald’s Money burger — of which there are 20 available per night — is an essential add-on to the $95 four-course prix fixe dinner experience here because it exemplifies the joyful, irreverent, no-limits spirit of the expansive new Honeysuckle, whose goal, Tate says, “is to make delicious food that feels contemporary and recenters you to Blackness.”