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Why is sushi master Jesse Ito making tacos at someone else’s restaurant?

Pop-up dinners offer chefs a chance to have fun and break the routine from working in their own restaurants. For guests, they're an opportunity to glimpse a celebrity chef.

Some of the dishes served at Middle Child's Taco Bell-themed pop-up brunch at Mission Taqueria in February.
Some of the dishes served at Middle Child's Taco Bell-themed pop-up brunch at Mission Taqueria in February.Read moreDaniel McLaughlin

Instead of serving sushi at his Queen Village restaurant Royal Sushi & Izakaya on Monday, renowned sushi chef Jesse Ito will be making such dishes as octopus tacos and tamales with uni at Center City’s Mission Taqueria.

The event is the latest in a series of “Tacolab” dinners held at the 1516 Sansom St. restaurant, which in the last year has hosted almost a dozen pop-ups featuring some of the city’s prominent chefs, including Marc Vetri, Saté Kampar’s Ange Branca, and Res Ipsa’s Michael Vincent Ferreri. Such one-off nights with guest chefs are increasingly popular, often selling out as soon as tickets are posted online.

Chefs love them, too. The dinners offer a chance to experiment with food that’s different from their routines, to collaborate with other chefs (such as Mission chef Jonathan Rodriguez), and test new ideas.

Ito, who normally serves a $130, 18-piece omakase at Royal Sushi, designed a seven-course, $90-a-person meal for Mission Taqueria that includes noodles, fish and green tea cheesecake. Recently, Ito also hosted Matthew Cahn of Middle Child deli at his restaurant, Royal Izakaya, for a katsu sandwich pop-up. In February, Cahn served a Taco Bell-themed brunch pop-up at Misson Taqueria.

“It’s reinvigorating energy for the chefs,” Ito said. “The way we cook at our restaurants is constrained within our cuisines or customers’ expectations and price points. Doing a pop-up with another restaurant allows us to tap into the other’s brand. We can create new dishes or drinks outside of our boundaries. We also get to work with our friends.”

For guests, the collaboration dinners offer exclusivity: food made for one night only by a well-known chef. To find pop-up events, most attendees follow their favorite restaurants and chefs on social media platforms such as Instagram or Facebook and watch for announcements. Restaurant regulars might hear about them from staff members.

The tickets for Misson’s events might cost more than a regular night at the restaurant, depending on the ingredients and the number of courses, but some guest chefs normally serve pricier meals in their own dining rooms. Tickets were $75 when Mission hosted Vetri in March, for example — less than half the cost of Vetri Cucina’s per-person tasting menu.

Pop-ups are also a chance to see chefs out of their comfort zone. Vetri, whose menu included goat tacos and a Mexican riff on gnocchi, was surrounded by diners who watched him work alongside Mission’s team in the kitchen, said Mission co-owner Daniel McLaughlin.

“He was using the tortilla press, talking to everyone on the line,” McLaughlin said, “and meanwhile, there are these people standing on the other side taking photos and videos of him cranking out tortillas.”

Yehuda Sichel, chef and partner of the American-Jewish restaurant Abe Fisher, revels in putting twists on Jewish dishes, such as his “Chinatown-style” Hungarian duck buns. So it seemed natural to cook a Chinese New Year dinner at Bing Bing Dim Sum in South Philly in February. Sichel has also collaborated on more elaborate events, such as a farm-to-table dinner in Chadds Ford last October that he designed specifically to accompany a performance by local musician Aron Magner of the Disco Biscuits.

“Pop-up dinners are a really great way to tap into this large creative pool inside of our culinary community,” Sichel said.

Separate from collaborative dinners, some pop-ups are designed for promoting future projects. Joe Beddia, who is soon launching a private “hoagie omakase” in his new Fishtown pizzeria, drew a crowd to Martha in Kensington last October when he sold tickets to people who wanted an early taste of his sandwiches. And many small entrepreneurs use pop-up events around the city to build a customer base before launching brick-and-mortar stores.

Mission Taqueria is hosting pop-ups later this summer with Bing Bing and Cheu Fishtown owners Shawn Darragh and Ben Puchowitz, as well as an event with Andrew Henshaw, chef de cuisine for Zahav.

“We figure for some of these chefs, it’s kind of like being on Broadway night after night,” McLaughlin said. “Sometimes you want to sing a different tune.”