Chef Nicholas Elmi to close Laurel restaurant at the end of the year — with a planned relocation to Center City

After 12 years on East Passyunk Avenue, chef Nicholas Elmi plans to close Laurel, his acclaimed restaurant, at the end of the year. Next stop: Center City.

“South Philly has always been great to us, and we love being in South Philadelphia, but our lease is up and it’s time,” Elmi told The Inquirer.

Elmi said he was narrowing his search for a new location — Rittenhouse is on the table — and hoped that the transition from 1617 E. Passyunk Ave. would be relatively seamless. He has not decided if the new restaurant would carry the Laurel name. It will have a wine bar, an à la carte menu, and a chef’s counter for tasting menus.

Elmi said he wanted Laurel’s last five months “to be a celebration,” with collaboration dinners featuring guest chefs after the restaurant’s summer vacation from July 1 to 15. Zahav and Kensington Quarters alumnus Matt Harper is booked for July 22, while Lacroix’s Eric Leveillee is on for July 29. A dinner with Pray Tell Winery (with both tasting menu and à la carte options) is set for Aug. 5. On Aug. 19, Elmi will cook at Provenance with chef-owner Nich Bazik in a Nicholas-Nicholas pairing; in September, Bazik will cook at Laurel.

Laurel will offer a five-course tasting menu format through the rest of the year, including selections inspired by Elmi’s 2019 cookbook, Laurel: Modern American Flavors in Philadelphia.

“It makes me sad because it’s my baby, but I’d rather finish the year outright and do it right by the employees and walk away because we want to walk away, not because something catastrophic happened,” Elmi said.

Elmi also owns Lark (an Inquirer 76 restaurant), the Landing Kitchen, and a catering venue, the Pump House, in Bala Cynwyd, with Fia Berisha.

Elmi, 44, a Massachusetts native and Culinary Institute of America graduate, came to Philadelphia in 2001 to work for French chef Georges Perrier, first at Brasserie Perrier, then at Mia in Atlantic City, and later at Le Bec-Fin.

The closing scenes of the 2015 documentary King Georges — filmed shortly after the 2013 shutdown of Le Bec-Fin, a year after Perrier stepped aside — show the two men cooking and chatting at the about-to-open Laurel, the master chef stepping aside for the protégé in a poignant denouement.

Laurel was an à la carte BYOB with an optional tasting menu when it opened on the original site of Fond in November 2013 — shortly before the announcement of Elmi’s Season 11 win on Bravo’s Top Chef.

In 2015, the tasting menus went full time — one of a few Philadelphia-area restaurants at the time to shun the à la carte experience entirely. In 2016, Elmi opened the bar In the Valley next door, which allowed wine pairings at Laurel.

Business was great up to the pandemic, Elmi said. Then it became a scramble: Laurel hosted a pop-up with Curiosity Doughnuts, offered takeout cocktails, and even French barbecue to go. “We survived,” he said.

In 2023, Elmi merged Laurel and ITV and reverted to à la carte dining.

Elmi said he hoped that the Passyunk Avenue location could be a launchpad for another chef. “It’s been a really beautiful restaurant for so many people and it was a really beautiful restaurant for us, and now it’s going to be another fantastic starter restaurant for someone else,” he said. “You’re not spending a couple million dollars to open up your first restaurant.”