PHILADELPHIA

• Passion flower. Guillermo Pernot, who jumped ship from Manayunk's Vega Grill after being named one of "America's Ten Best New Chefs" by Food & Wine, has teamed up with front-of-house veteran Michael Domkowski (Susanna Foo) to open Passion in the 16th Street space vacated by Cary's. Pernot is putting his own spin on a Latin menu.

• The 120-seat restaurant/bar Edge has opened in the waterside location formerly known as Riverdeck. Chef Anthony Marini has designed an eclectic menu. Eliott Stone, the brains behind the West Coast Video chain, and his family are owners.

• Robert Schaffer has joined with owners Bruce Lim and Ian Mark of Ciboulette/Cibo, tweaking the classic menu with some of his unique creations.

• Restaurant Associates chef Tracey Hopkins, who has long been marrying food with art at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, recently intro-duced a French and Moroccan menu to complement the museum's Delacroix exhibit. A Moroccan influence is apparent in Delacroix's later works..

• The restaurant most recently known as Chanterelles, owned by chef Philippe Chin, has been taken over by Mark Vetri, former executive chef at Bella Blue in New York, who has great plans for the space. Chin has headed for the ritzy Locust Club to turn the hitherto-private dining room into a restaurant serving his trade-mark French-Asian food. The bar at Philippe, as the club restaurant is now called, is whimsically named Chin-Chin.

• Salvatore Di Palma has opened Di Palma, a 60-seat restaurant on Market Street in Old City serving Italian cuisine with a modern touch. The European-style space also includes a 32-seat bar, and banquet seating for 70.

• Sebastien Thieffine is the new pastry chef at The Ritz-Carlton, where the Lobby Lounge now offers a sake and sushi bar.

• Argentine-born John and Pascual Cancielliere (Italian Ristorante Volare in Manayunk) have opened Monterey Grill at Market Street in Old City. Chef Scott McLeer, late of The White Dog, is turning out a South American-European menu under executive chef Javier Cuesta.

• Joe Wolf, most recently at Tony Clark's, has become a major factor at Eat at Joe's, a new '50s-style chain with outlets popping up all over town.