Greg Vernick — the Cherry Hill native who cooked in Jean-Georges Vongerichten's New York kitchens and won the 2017 James Beard Award for Best Chef: Mid-Atlantic at his Rittenhouse flagship Vernick Food & Drink — opened Emilia in January 2026, his first restaurant outside Center City and the first without his name over the door. On Frankford Avenue near the East York Street roundabout, the room reads clean and contemporary: blond oak, steel beams, polished concrete, banquettes ringed by mirrors. Chef de cuisine Meredith Medoway, who studied in Emilia-Romagna and cooked in Calabria, runs a pasta-forward menu off a 48-inch wood-fired grill — capellini in pesto genovese, rigatoni in ragù bianco, crispy veal with broccoli di ciccio — alongside low-intervention Italian wine. Come for handmade pasta with the polish of a serious kitchen and the ease of a neighborhood trattoria.