Just because you live in the city of brotherly love and sisterly affection doesn’t mean that you are completely out of touch with your neanderthal roots. Sometimes you want to dig your fingers (and toes, c’mon don’t deny it) in some fluffy, scruffy dirt… or maybe some grass. And if that means you can eat the bounty of your fruit (and vegetables), even better!
Many city dwellers go to the rooftop to build an urban jungle, a sort of high-as-the-sky garden and zen place to get away from the hustle and bustle below. Restaurants are savvy to organic and home-grown cooking as well as producing nature’s best sweetener there is – honey from beloved, endangered honey bees. And The Philadelphia Bee Company is the bees knees and on the city’s scene with all sorts of buzzing information.
The Philadelphia Bee Co. provides residents with locally produced bee products including honey, wax and pollen all gathered and made within city limits. Bees are of vital to our way of life as the plants they pollinate plants that make up more than 1/3 of our diet. Apples, pears, almonds and even beef (due to their alfalfa and clover feed stock) are all pollinator dependent.
Some sections of the city taste differently than others due to flowers and trees available that the bees colonize. For instance, Paradiso had a slight lavender flavor and Liberte Lounge is very herbal due to the bees using the nearby garden as a pollen source. These two amazing area restaurants, the delicious Italian cuisine at Paradiso on thriving Passyunk Avenue and delicate French dishes at Liberte Lounge in the Center City Sofitel, are both garden savvy with thriving bee colonies and rooftop gardens.
If you ever wonder what makes food taste so good, it’s freshness first, skill and genuine love of cooking. These restaurants and the chefs attached – Chef Lynn Rinaldi of Paradiso and Chef Justin Perdue of Liberte Lounge – are all heart, soul and good food lovin’ – it’s no wonder plants, bees and patrons adore them so much. We’re sure you will too!
After quick, delicious catch-up lunch sandwiches at Paradiso with fellow media man James Zeleniak from Punch Media PR, we were off to Center City to take a peek at the rooftop world of Liberte Lounge.