Starr Restaurants will launch its newest concept, El Rey, a Mexican eatery this April. The restaurant draws its name from the fictional Mexican town featured in both the popular 1959 Jim Thompson pulp novel The Getaway and 1996 Robert Rodriguez film From Dusk Till Dawn and will take the place of the shuttered Midtown IV Diner on Chestnut Street in Philadelphia. El Rey will showcase home-style Mexican cuisine, highlighting the country’s many indigenous ingredients. The menu will be inspired in part by dishes Executive Chef Dionicio Jimenez grew up with, and will also draw on inspiration gathered during a recent trip to Mexico, spanning Mexico City to Puebla to Veracruz, by the Starr team.
Shawn Hausman Design—most known for its work with the iconic Los Angeles hotels, Chateau Marmont and the Standard, and Starr Restaurants’ Parc and Butcher & Singer—will be setting the mood at the new 84-seat restaurant. Despite being set in the bustle of Philadelphia’s Center City neighborhood, El Rey will give guests the feel of being at a well-worn, slightly gritty Mexican roadside diner. A vast majority of the restaurant’s décor will be objects and artwork discovered during countless hours scouring flea markets and antique shops in Southern California and Mexico, giving the aesthetic of being an eatery whose proprietors have collected and displayed items throughout the years
