Aubrey Plaza names her 5 favorite Wilmington spots for the New York Times

Wilmington may not be a secret exactly, now that it’s been home to a sitting U.S. president, but Delaware’s biggest city just got some more star-studded exposure.

Actor and native Wilmingtonian Aubrey Plaza was recently featured in the New York Times for a piece listing her five favorite spots in her hometown.

Aubrey Plaza’s Wilmington, published Friday, details how “the acerbic star of ‘The White Lotus’ and ‘My Old Ass’ is enthusiastic about her often-overshadowed Delaware hometown, which she calls a ‘magical little gem.’”

Those of us here in The First State know Plaza’s love of Delaware firsthand. Her family still lives here and she visits regularly, having been spotted just recently before embarking on her media tour promoting a trio of new projects: “Megalopolis,” “My Old Ass” and “Agatha All Along.”

Over the years she has popped up in Wilmington at fundraisers, dining out, volunteering, attending weddings or just strolling around.

New York Times writer Steven Kurutz reports that Plaza was “an enthusiastically earnest tour guide” when it came to Wilmington, “even though [there is] no theme park, no professional sports teams [and] no famous regional cuisine that demands a pilgrimage.”

So what sites did Plaza highlight for The Gray Lady?

Here’s her list, which exposed our “magical little gem” to the newspaper’s more than 8 million worldwide subscribers.

One of Wilmington’s more beautiful locations earned Plaza’s first shout out, with the star revealing that her family once lived nearby.

“It’s one of the most iconic Wilmington landmarks,” she says of Rockford Tower, “but the park itself is so beautiful.”

The community theater where Plaza got her start shouldn’t be a surprise entry. She name-checks the Lea Boulevard theater often in interviews and returned in 2017 to help celebrate its 85th anniversary fundraiser.

In the entry, which included a New York Times photograph by Neal Santos of WDL production manager Kathy Buterbaugh, Plaza recounts the first time she discovered the theater.

 “I just thought, ‘Wow, the guts these kids have to stand up and audition in front of other kids,’ ” she says. 

So what spots in Trolley Square got the Plaza seal of approval?

Café Verde, where she likes their pizza slices and gelato, was listed, with Plaza snubbing Café Verdi’s rival across Delaware Avenue Gianni’s Pizza. (Gianni’s did appear, however, in a photograph of the area included with the entry.)

Catherine Rooney’s and Kelly’s Logan House also were noted as popular bars with the younger set, although it was unclear if Plaza herself mentioned them specifically.

 “That little square, I’m drawn there every time I go home,” she says.

The famed cobblestone lane that cuts past Brandywine Zoo from Brandywine Park to West 18th Street may be home to the Monkey Hill Time Trial at the annual Wilmington Grand Prix, but Plaza cites more personal memories for the entry.

Kurutz writes: “The very old, very bumpy road was like an amusement-park ride for Ms. Plaza and her cousins, who used to ride their bicycles down it as children.”

“It’s steep, so on a bike, it’s like being on a roller coaster,” she tells him before mentioning the nearby Brandywine Creek. “We used to swim in it. Rope swings from trees. All the kinds of things you read in a book.”

The lone commercial business to get its own listing is a neighborhood bar that can be found on Union Street in Little Italy.

The hang-out spot best known for pairing its Buffalo chicken tenders, “Chicken Nixon” sandwich and “Irish nachos” with cold drinks and locals bar crowd also has been home to Plaza sightings through the years, usually around the holidays when she stops in with friends and family.

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Plaza told the Times she grew up in the city’s Irish Catholic community, spending part of her childhood Irish dancing and that Dead Presidents “was a central meeting spot for my friends and family.”

She adds, “It’s your neighborhood pub. Everybody knows your name there. We would go to the pub. Then we’d have a Yuengling. Maybe two. Maybe three.”

Not mentioned in the article: Dead Presidents is now owned by Plaza’s uncle Brian Raughley, who purchased the beloved watering hole back in 2009.

Have a story idea? Contact Ryan Cormier of Delaware Online/The News Journal at rcormier@delawareonline.com or (302) 324-2863. Follow him on Facebook (@ryancormier) and X (@ryancormier).