The All-New Lovechild Restaurant Will Be Serving Japanese & Mexican Food on an Argentinian Wood-Fired Grill
The space at 990 Spring Garden is no stranger to great food. The former location of The Lucky Well will be home to a brand new concept by Chef Elijah Milligan. Having spent time in kitchens across the country, he’s now poised to open Lovechild along with his New Zealand friends/partners Simon and Yaminah Egan.
With a target opening of early fall 2025, Milligan said the new restaurant will feature global influence with a heavier focus on Japanese and Mexican cuisine, with many dishes cooked on his Argentinian wood-fired grill and utilizing his technique-driven approaches to cooking. There will be a raw bar and plenty of raw fish options, as well as a very eclectic, lengthy menu including various shareable plates, plenty of vegetable options, house-made pastas, signature cuts of meat and fish, and much more. Desserts will be made in-house.
Lovechild will have a full liquor license and feature an extensive bar program. The restaurant will be developing drinks and ingredient components for the menu, including clarified cocktails. The beverage menu will feature 3 or 4 rotating clarified cocktails at a time. Milligan is looking to source locally for nearly everything at Lovechild, with the exception of wine, which he’s planning on focusing on California and European vintages with extensive options on the menu.
The name is deeply connected to Milligan’s soul since he was raised by a single mother, and is a single dad himself.
“I want this to be both a neighborhood gem and a destination. This is a project I’ve wanted to sink my teeth into for a long time,” said Milligan, 35. “I knew it was going to name it Lovechid, and I knew I was going to want to incorporate a variety of cuisines that I love into one menu. I have learned so much from some really incredible chefs, and I’m ready to create something really memorable in a city that I truly love.”
Philadelphia born and raised, Milligan’s mother and step-father owned a soul food restaurant, which Elijah eventually took the helm of shortly after he began cooking. Two weeks after graduating from high school, he went to culinary school at J&A Culinary Institute in South Philadelphia. His career would take him all over the country, working under some incredible chefs including Dominique Crenn and Michael Chiarello in California, as well as under Daniel Stern, Christopher Kearse, David Ansill, Greg Vernick, and Nick Elmi (at Le Bec-Fin) in Philadelphia.
Milligan migrated out west in 2015, where he would eventually work for Crenn at her uber-celebrated restaurants, Atelier Crenn and Petit Crenn in San Francisco. He would then go to Yountville to work with Chiarello at Bottega. He then moved to Los Angeles to take some time off and shortly, he then moved back to Philadelphia to raise his daughter full-time. In 2018, Milligan launched a program named Cooking for the Culture, a pop-up dinner series which highlighted chefs of color in Philadelphia. Since returning to the city, Milligan has been involved with numerous projects and restaurants as both an executive chef and a consulting chef.
Preview dinners with local restaurants are in the works, as Milligan plans to introduce Lovechild’s food weeks before the restaurant opens.
The restaurant is 3,500 square feet in size, with 85 seats in the dining room, and upwards of 130 when maximized with a 20-seat chef’s counter, 20-plus bar stools, and additional window seating. The design will contain a 1970s vibe, and the space will be illuminated and feature fresh flowers in the hallways when you walk in. Durell Bottoms, who worked on such jobs as Ardiente (now Mei Mei) in Old City, is leading the design.
The restaurant’s color palette will feature deep forest greens, burnished rust, walnut brown, and brushed gold, with velvet upholstery, patinated steel, exposed concrete, reclaimed wood, green marble, and aged leather throughout the space. The textures will include matte walls with warm uplighting, polished cement floors, lush fabric draping, copper piping, and raw steel beams that are left intact. Lighting will be soft, with glowing pendants, hidden LEDs, and flickering taper candles giving the space its vibe. The bar will feature green marble and amber-lit shelves, and velvet booths in crescent arcs will adorn the dining area. Expect sultry soul, modern jazz, and neo-R&B music to create intimate evenings and a perfect date night ambiance.
Specific hours will be announced closer to opening, but Milligan is planning to be open for dinner five nights per week.
