Crossword Genius

Foreign character left theatre with a drop of Amarone and cheese (12)

Ross

I believe the answer is:

philadelphia

I'm a little stuck... Click here to teach me more about this clue!

'cheese' is the definition.
Although both the answer and definition are singular nouns, I don't see how they can define each other.

'foreign character left theatre with a drop of amarone' is the wordplay.
'foreign character left' becomes 'phil' (I can't justify this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'theatre' becomes 'adelphi' (I've seen this before).
'with' means one lot of letters go next to another.
'a drop of' indicates taking the first letters (the smallest possible amount of the word).
The initial letter of 'amarone' is 'a'.
'phil'+'adelphi'+'a'='PHILADELPHIA'

'and' acts as a link.

Can you help me to learn more?

(Other definitions for philadelphia that I've seen before include "US city on the Delaware river" , "City of Brotherly Love" , "location for Independence Day" , "City where the American Declaration of Independence was signed" , "US Quaker city, former capital" .)

I've seen this clue in The Guardian.
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