In the basement of a Northeast Philly warehouse, underneath Secret Circus, where aspiring performers practice aerial acrobatics, is Mycopolitan, a mushroom farm you've likely seen pop up on menus across the city. The chestnuts accompanying the Berkshire pork at Little Water, the meaty trumpets served alongside the cured duck carpaccio at Lacroix, and the mushrooms swimming in Kalaya's tom yum soup all have roots — or, rather, a mycelium network — stemming back to this basement.
For decades, the specialty mushroom market has been dominated by Kennett Square, often referred to as the "Mushroom Capital of the World" for supplying half of the country's crop. But since 2014, Mycopolitan co-founders Tyler Case, Brian Versek, Dan Howling, and Dave Novak have been growing high-quality lion's mane, enoki, pioppino, black pearls, a wide variety of oysters, and more premium choice edibles right here in Philly. You can find them on the shelves at local grocery stores like Riverwards and Weaver's Way, on tasting menus from Ambra to Provenance, and through their bi-weekly farm share.
According to Case, the journey building this unconventional urban mushroom farm was as much of a professional pursuit as a philosophical one. Here, he talks about the beauty of their symbiotic relationship with the rest of the world, how he switched careers from working at a methadone clinic to running an urban farm, and his deep reverence for fungi.
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