For much of the last decade, you see, it's been an unofficial sport around the newsroom to grouse about the lack of good lunch options within a few blocks of The Inquirer. While the rest of the city was in full restaurant-renaissance mode, our highlights arrived in all-too-tiny bursts: Cafe Lift and Prohibition Taproom on a hideaway block of 13th Street; Jose's Tacos at the even more obscure corner of 10th and Buttonwood Streets; and upscale Osteria, of course, a few blocks north on Broad Street, although that is a rare splurge.
But what has grown organically to the west of the paper in the last couple years, rising amid the low-slung brick facades along Callowhill Street behind Family Court, has suddenly found some sustainable momentum - and with a diverse menu of venues few city planners could ever intentionally summon. On a stretch long anchored only by the aging Rose Tattoo, once more frequented for its proximity to immigration-law offices, nearby I.D. photo trucks, and community college classes, there is now a craft-brew bar with a packed beer garden (Kite & Key), a darkly-lit-but-friendly Indian (King of Tandoor), a once-frumpy coffee shop now transformed into an upbeat branch of a South Philly brunch legend (Sabrina's Cafe).
With the recent arrival of Doma, however, this strip is reaching for a new level of sophistication. The understated facade doesn't look like a sushi haven. But inside, the long and narrow space is surprisingly sleek and serene, with a pale palette of contemporary colors, mod Lucite chairs, and a cushy banquette that rides along a wave-textured wall beneath a sea spray of dangling glass votive bubbles.
