Talula's cuisine is prepared by Bryan Sikora, a 38-year-old Culinary Institute of America graduate who apprenticed under Nora Pouillon at Nora's, the eminent all-organic bistro in Washington. A kind of John Coltrane of the kitchen, he improvises with textures and flavors, making unexpected combinations work with disconcerting justesse. Sikora changes his fare every six weeks to reflect the seasons and his expanding cadre of local growers and producers.

He grew up in Pennsylvania coal country, where Rolling Rock flowed freely, but fresh food was scarce. "I got interested in cooking because I was always hungry," Sikora says.

Sikora met Aimee Olexy, his wife and business partner, in 1992 at a hotel in Boulder, Colorado. He was the head chef; she ran the whole hotel. A restaurant worker since age 13, Olexy skipped much of 10th grade to sell bagels with sprouts and scrambled eggs at Grateful Dead concerts.

Together, the pair worked at inns and cafes in Denver; Eugene, Oregon; and Cape Cod before settling in Philadelphia and signing on with Stephen Starr, the city's high-concept restaurateur. While Olexy managed Starr's empire, Sikora presided over the galley at Starr's Moroccan outpost, Tangerine.

In 2001, they quit. With a government loan of $45,000 and little more than mountain bikes for collateral, they opened Django, a boutique restaurant in Society Hill, pioneering Philly's renaissance in chef-run, B.Y.O.B. establishments. Casual and affordable, Django offered European-based fare, with the menu driven by the season. It reaped national acclaim from the New York Times ("may be the hottest ticket in town") and the Los Angeles Times. Philadelphia Inquirer food critic Craig LaBan called it "one of the region's best restaurants, period, dollar for dollar or by any other important measure."

Alas, Django had only 38 seats and no liquor license, so profits were slim. In 2005, Sikora and Olexy sold the restaurant. Seeking a more rustic setting in which to raise their infant daughter, Annalee Talula Rae, they moved to Olexy's hometown in the Brandywine Valley.

They bought and gutted a vacant shoe store in Kennett Square, which bills itself as the mushroom capital of the world. (The town produces more than 40 percent of the nation's mushrooms.) Talula's opened last spring and was an immediate and unexpected sensation. The table filled up with Django groupies and epicures who had read about the place on foodie blogs. When LaBan wrote that dinner at Talula's had been his most memorable meal of the year, the reservation line jammed. A harried Olexy came up with the current scheme. "Otherwise," she says, "people would have booked Fridays and Saturdays 10 years into the future." The names on Talula's waiting list take up an entire office wall.

Aside from staking out the joint, Olexy says the surest way to secure a table in 2009 is to call Talula's the moment it opens. There is a little-known second option. Twice a week, Olexy seats parties of two to four in the kitchen at Talula's invitation-only chef's table. Crafty out-of-towners might consider overnighting a set of bootleg Dead CDs—along with a subtle reservation request.