Mr. Ansill, who grew up in Cheltenham, most notably owned the restaurants Pif and Ansill, but worked all over the city in a cooking career that spanned more than 30 years and numerous restaurants.
In his three-decade tour through some of Philadelphia’s groundbreaking restaurants, chef David Ansill cooked it all — burgers to escargots, cheeseburger quesadillas to pigs’ feet, cheesesteak spring rolls to multi-course cannabis-infused tasting menus.Mr. Ansill, 65, who lived in South Philadelphia, died Monday in hospice care of complications from lymphoma. He had been diagnosed in spring 2023 andWiry, with dreads and a pointy goatee, Mr. Ansill cut a striking figure in the city’s kitchens.
Mr. Ansill, who grew up in Cheltenham, got a job at age 18 in 1976 as a bar-back at the South Street cabaret Grendel’s Lair. The everything-goes atmosphere cinched him on the restaurant industry. He moved on to Copabanana, another colorful joint on South Street, and then the Restaurant School, now Walnut Hill College, in the 1980s, before heading to Spain to cook. Back home in 1991, he became chef at Serrano in Old City, offering regional Spanish dinners every Monday.
At Lucy’s, Mr. Ansill began tinkering with French peasant bistro food, offering such dishes as grilled quail served with red grapes roasted in a port wine sauce and grilled spinach — literally a bold game in a roast-chicken town.
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