Andiario in West Chester is passionate about food and preservation, crafting the perfect farm-to-table dining experience, writes Kiki Aranita for The Philadelphia Inquirer.
Owner Anthony Andiario’s carefully preserves local ingredients in the restaurant, filling a vault of pickled, dried, and canned items. Much of the menu comes straight from local farms, however, the lesser-known larder is where the ingredients are fermented and aged.
The products made in the larder are on display throughout the restaurant. In the dining room, mushroom-filled jars are used as decor. In the open kitchen, 64-ounce mason jars of pickled eggplant reside along the hallways.
The glory lies in the basement, where rows and rows of preserved ingredients sit, waiting for their spotlight on a plate.
“Ninety percent of our preservation now is drying. Peppers, mushrooms, tomatoes, beans, leeks, in our dehydrators and ovens,” said Andiario. “We’ll do shorter term preservation on tomatoes. We won’t take them all the way dry, but we’ll do a sott’olio, which means ‘under oil.’ You dry them to 90 percent, splash them with vinegar, and then you can put them under oil.”
As his passion for local crops has grown, Andiario and his business partner have started a micro-farm on their property.
Get an inside look into Anthony Andiario’s kitchen at The Philadelphia Inquirer.
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Cooking through the seasons over live fire, Andiario in West Chester redefines farm-to-table dining with handmade pastas, local ingredients, and ever-changing tasting menus that surprise each week.
Editor’s Note: This post first appeared on VISTA Today in January 2025.
