One of the progenitors of this most recent “restaurant renaissance” was Fork, opened in 1997 by Ellen Yin W’87 WG’93. When Yin first fixed her hopes on a fire-damaged cavity near the corner of Market and Third streets, even her partners had trouble seeing how an upscale bistro could succeed next-door to a dollar store. But that didn’t stop her. Building her business around the Slow Food credo long before it became fashionable, she helped to show that the neighborhood was hungry for innovation. And just plain hungry, period.

To celebrate the restaurant’s 10th anniversary, Yin has written Forklore: Recipes and Tales from an American Bistro. Equal parts restaurant memoir and recipe collection, the book offers a peek behind the scenes of Fork’s journey from upstart to institution. An excerpt starts on page 38. Yin also spoke with the Gazette about her mother’s home cooking, the thrill of eating out, and the search for American cuisine. Here is an edited version of that conversation.

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One thing that really comes through in your book is how much you love restaurants. You say that in the last 10 years, you’ve eaten out almost 3,650 days. Can that really be true?

Well, I mean, at work!

But what first turned you on to food was your mother’s home cooking. Tell me about that.

I’m Chinese, and growing up in an Asian household we were exposed to a lot of exotic foods. And we didn’t really have much choice in what we were going to eat. If my mom put it on the table, we were expected to eat it. Chicken feet, tendon, whole fish, shrimp with heads on, tripe—all these things that are maybe considered exotic by the American cuisine of the time, in the ’70s and ’80s. But my father was really an adventurous eater. My mom didn’t really like to eat things that were outside of her vocabulary, but my dad always wanted to try new things. He was the one who loved blue cheese, hard cheeses—and, I just found out from my mom the other day, oysters on the half-shell. All these things that she still wouldn’t really conceive of eating.

So the lunches you packed for school must have looked pretty different than what your classmates brought.

I didn’t want to eat pizza or grilled cheese or anything like that. So a lot of times my mom would pack lunch for us. But we also wanted to assimilate. It was a time when there weren’t as many people in the area from different countries. Now everybody wants to have their child learn different languages. Then, we were all trying to assimilate and be as American as possible. So we wanted McDonald’s, we wanted TV Dinners, we wanted all those types of things. So my mom would sometimes pack us peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches like all the other kids.

Assimilation is probably the wrong word, and fusion is such a cliché, but there are all sorts of different influences that inform the cooking at Fork. Do you see a continuity between the way you thought about food as a child and what you’re doing now?

Well, my view of food was a lot more limited. I mean, I probably never really had true Mexican cuisine. Maybe Tex-Mex, but not Nueva Latina cuisine. I worked at a French restaurant, so I was exposed to a lot of classic French cuisine ... I think that my mom’s and dad’s introduction to all different kinds of flavors made me more open-minded.

It seems like by the time you were a teenager, you just couldn’t get enough of restaurants. No matter whether you were wrapping spring rolls in the kitchen, bussing tables, taking orders—

I loved it. It was, one, a way to have a little freedom, as a teenager. And earning your own money gives you some sense of independence. But I loved the restaurant because there were so many different types of people—creative types, people who didn’t have the same goals as I did … you know—people who were artists, people who were traveling, people who had exposure to things that I felt were more worldly than what I had been exposed to.

And by the time you started your own restaurant, you’d been through Wharton as both an undergrad and an MBA student. I guess that nowhere along the line did someone tell you that the restaurant business is the quickest way to bankruptcy court.

As an undergrad I had put together a business plan for one of my classes. And I was definitely aware of what everybody says about the restaurant industry, but I’d felt for so long that it was something I wanted to do. When I was in high school, when I was in college, all through my young adulthood, I had this feeling that I wanted to open a restaurant. By the time I did, when I was 32 years old, I had worked in the health-care industry, but I still didn’t feel the kind of satisfaction that I felt when I’d worked in restaurants—whether it was in the kitchen or on the dining room floor. And the creative process of developing the restaurant was even more exciting than I had anticipated. I really think of a restaurant as a multi-sensory experience. There’s the visual component, there’s the eating component, there’s the music—there’s so many different components of creating an experience for people. I think that’s like an art in itself.

Was your vision for Fork fully formed in your mind from the beginning, or did it grow in unexpected ways over time?

When you have something on paper, you don’t know how it’s going to evolve. When I worked at La Terrasse in college, I loved La Terrasse. In my mind I always thought I wanted to have something similar to that, in terms of French-Asian cuisine. But when I had to find a chef, the person that I had the best connection with didn’t cook that style of food. So things evolved. I didn’t know who my opening staff would be. I don’t think I ever envisioned it would be as elegant as it is. I didn’t think it would be a destination restaurant. So all these things are constantly changing—as are all the elements around you. When we first opened the restaurant, there was nobody in Old City. Now there are a lot of restaurants in Old City. The dining scene in Philadelphia has become much more sophisticated.

Do you feel like you’ve played a role in the larger food culture of Philadelphia, which has changed so dramatically?

I don’t know if I’d take that much credit. But I will say that there are restaurants that have offshoots. One of my sous chefs opened up a restaurant. We have people who we’ve trained who have gone on to become sous chefs, or chefs de cuisine, or dining room managers. So from that perspective, sure, we’ve influenced the dining scene in Philadelphia.

The last decade, and especially the last few years, seems like a period of empire building for celebrity chefs and restaurateurs. Whether you’re looking at a TV star like Mario Batali, or somebody like Thomas Keller [of the French Laundry], or [Philadelphia restaurant mogul] Stephen Starr, the dominant trend is toward brand building and franchise expansion. But despite your success and longevity, you haven’t exactly followed that path. How come?

We did expand to Fork:etc, and there is the possibility of additional Fork:etc’s in the city, but I really enjoy being part of the hospitality process. I’m involved on a day-to-day basis with customer service, and creation of the menu, and I think that if I were to franchise or expand to other restaurants, part of that would be diluted.

Have customers changed over the last 10 years? Nowadays people seem to think about food in ethical terms more often than they used to. How much of that filters down to the restaurant?

People are much more concerned about what they’re eating. But people who come to Fork generally know what our philosophy is, and they appreciate that, and they’re willing to pay a slight premium to have what they want.

One of your chapters is titled “In Search of American Cuisine.” The term American cuisine gets thrown around a lot, and it’s not always clear what people mean by it. What does it mean to you, today?

Before, I think people perceived American cuisine to be comfort food. In fact, when we opened, people would say, “Oh, Fork—comfort food!” And I was just like, “I don’t see that.” Even at the beginning, we always defined ourselves as New American—meaning eclectic, international influences from all over the world. As someone who’s looking always to have what’s new and what’s interesting, that’s what my 10-year ride has been like. Trying to find what people would be interested in eating. Trying to find some new idea of how to be innovative. But still be simple. You know, I’ve had the opportunity to eat so much food outside of my home, and travel, and experience great food—but one of the most comforting foods to me is a hamburger. I always want a hamburger with great French fries. And it’s not like you can just find it anywhere.

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Penn Restaurateurs