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The important thing to know about Danny & Coop’s, the new East Village Philly-cheesesteak joint co-owned by Bradley Cooper, with his bright blue eyes and considerable acting and directing credentials, is this: The cheesesteak is great. Really great. It’s a huge twelve-inch roll, sliced lengthwise and filled with a delicious blend of cheese (smooth and tangy Cooper Sharp, no relation to Bradley) and sliced ribeye (tender, velvety soft, paper-thin), laced with sweet strips of fried onions. It’s the best cheesesteak I’ve had in New York, which isn’t saying much; it’s as good as the best I’ve had in Philly, which is saying a lot.
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Cooper’s partner at Danny & Coop’s is chef-baker-turned-restaurateur Danny DiGiampietro of Angelo’s Pizzeria, home to the best cheesesteak I’ve ever had in Philly. Opened in 2019, Angelo’s is a bold and downright ambitious newcomer to a city that (like most cities) can sometimes be self-destructively devoted to its traditions. The restaurant serves incredible pizza and even better cheesesteaks, drawing lines that can stretch down the street or, on certain days, in the opposite direction to keep life from feeling boring. DiGiampietro’s focus on quality (“He just makes perfect food,” one fan once raved in the Philadelphia Inquirer) has transformed a cheesesteak world saturated with sodium-laden “wit ’wiz” cliches and sticky industrial steak. His high standards for the inside of a sandwich are a big part of Angelo’s magic, but the real magic is his bread: elegant torpedoes of flour, yeast, and dough, with a crust baked to a crisp, autumnal golden brown and sprinkled with sesame seeds, and an interior that’s at once soft and springy, tart and salty. Most of the bread used for cheesesteaks tastes like nothing else; it’s just a container and a handhold. DiGiampietro’s tastes like bread, like sun on a wheat field, like the mysteries of fermentation, like salt and steam and the hot, mysterious darkness of an oven.
Thin slices of ribeye steak are topped with a creamy, tangy Cooper Sharp cheese (no relation to Bradley).
Bradley Cooper, for whom I, a sandwich-obsessed person, wish nothing but blessings—may he win all the Oscars his heart desires; I’ll even forgive him for serving a runny egg yolk on a perforated plate in Burnt—grew up just outside Philadelphia. Perhaps it’s no surprise that he seems to approach cheesesteaks with the same intensity he brings to his directorial endeavors and awards-season campaigns. Danny & Coop’s began as a food truck in New York City in 2023, with Cooper manning the flattop. The brick-and-mortar location, like
Sourse: newyorker.com
