Any day now I expect the New York-based foodie media to declare Philadelphia to be the hottest restaurant city in America simply because they’re running out of other cities to name. Fact is, Philadelphia has for decades been a terrific place to eat out, from the vast Reading Terminal Market to the slew of restaurants opened over the years by Stephen Starr—the city’s equivalent of Danny Meyer, Charlie Palmer and Rich Melman thrown together—whose groundbreaking concepts in Philadelphia include Alma de Cuba, Talula’s Garden, El Rey, Barclay Prime, Pod, Buddakan, Serpico and others. His newest is Love, about which more in a moment.
Philadelphia is known prole dishes like scrapple, cheese steaks, hoagies, soft pretzels, pepper pot soup and other items, but, sadly, with the demise of restaurants like Le Bec Fin and Deja-Vu, the city is now bereft of high-end fine dining.
A recent visit to Philadelphia showed, however, that there has been no lag in very good modern and traditional restaurants any city in the U.S. would be proud to have.
LE VIRTÙ
1927 East Passyunk Avenue
215-271-5626
Given its location in East Passyunk’s maze of narrow streets, you don’t expect to come upon Le Virtù’s splendid piazza, with its wide mural of Abruzzo, the Italian province whence owners Francis Cratil-Cretarola and his wife Cathy Lee and Chef Damon Menapace draw their inspiration. Indeed, Le Virtù is America’s only true Abruzzese restaurant, based on the food of this mountainous Adriatic region known for its seafood, maccheroni alla ghitarra and ample use of chile peppers the people call diavolicchie (little devils). The restaurant’s name itself—the virtues—refers not only to the honest goodness of the food but to a traditional soup built around the legend of seven maidens who contributed the ingredients to the dish, like pork, peas, pasta, carrots and herbs.
The owners bring in a great deal from Abruzzo, including artisanal honey, cheeses, saffron, extra virgin olive oil and dried pastas; the rest they gather from local farms like their pork from Berks County and lamb, chicken and rabbit from Lancaster County. They butcher their own meats and house-cure their salumi and sausages, like pancetta, guanciale, capocollo, lonza and more.
The place has the true rustic look of a trattoria, inside and out, and Cratil-Cretarola’s ebullient and large presence is felt as he goes from table to table making sure everything is going well, making suggestions, fretting if you don’t finish every forkful.
The glory of Italian restaurants is most often in the antipasti and pastas, and Le Virtu’s are glorious indeed: Grilled lamb skewers with Abruzzese spices ($16) and fried pizza dough with an eggplant-tomato confit, scamorza cheese and a dash of oregano ($15) make for good nibbles, and the palotte cac’e ove ($13) comes as egg and pecorino croquettes with tomato and basil.
Not one of the pastas I tried could have been improved upon, from ravioli with Abruzzese ricotta and pecorino in a saffron-tinged broth ($20) and classic maccheroni alla chitarra with braised lamb ragù and a good dose of pecorino ($19) to maccheroni alla mugnaia ($20), a remarkable single strand of pasta with chile peppers, plenty of garlic and olive oil, and taccozelle with a hearty pork sausage ragù, mushrooms, black truffles and saffron ($20). You may add to the wonderful pasta dishes a main course here of scrippelle ricotta-filled crȇpes with eggplant, tomato and pecorino ($24).
It is only a slight generalization to suggest that the main courses (secondi) in most Italian restaurants don’t come up to the savoriness of what precedes them. The mains are usually simple, letting the quality of the ingredients shine. I was somewhat disappointed, then, to find that the main courses at Le Virtù might very well have been found at any number of Italian restaurant, with nothing specifically Abruzzese about them. Roast lamb shoulder with polenta, broccoli di rabe and peperonata ($27) was a good dish, but there was little to rave about in the grilled pork cutlet with radicchio, tomato and balsamico ($27). A so-so slice of swordfish with chickpeas in a tomato brood ($28) had little of the intensity you’d find in a seaside Abruzzese town like Pescara or Vasto, and I would have loved to have seen some gamberi (large shrimp) or langostini on Le Virtù’s menu.
Desserts are quite simple and good, from strawberry gelato to a lovely almond-orange cake.
High kudos to Le Virtù’s wine list, which is crammed with bottlings obviously chosen for their quality and rarity, not least Abruzzese wines like Trebbiano and Montepulciano that go so well with this food. Pennsylvania state wine pricing laws make finding bargains difficult on a menu, but Le Virtù’s wines are as well tariffed as they can make them.
Open nightly for dinner.
BISTROT LA MINETTE
623 South 6th Street
215-925-8000
What Le Virtù is to regional Italian food, Bistrot Le Minette is to French bourgeois cooking. Chef/Owner Peter Woolsey and Chef Kenneth Bush are dedicated to reproducing the beloved dishes of bistro-ism and do so within a dining room that could easily fit onto any street in Montparnasse or Marseilles.
The spot-on décor makes all the sense in the world when you learn that the designer is Woolsey’s wife Peggy Baud, who was born and bred in France. In person she shows the kind of Gallic charm and American experience to complete the authenticity of an evening at La Minette. Indeed, the family heirlooms and objets d’art picked up in Paris flea markets adds measurably to the bonhomie of the room, with its butter yellow cast of light and bright red banquettes. Even the menus reproduce the art nouveau lettering of French bistros.
Woolsey himself trained in top kitchens in France, including Lucas Carton in Paris and with Philadelphia’s French master Georges Perrier.
Begin with lustrous foie gras pâté with hazelnut butter, tangy rhubarb gastrique and bitter endive ($12), or a chilled velouté of peas and parsley laced with crème fraȋche and topped with chives and radish ($10). Don’t miss ordering the Alsatian tarte flambé ($11) for the table, a flatbread with crème fraîche, goat’s cheese, leeks and fines herbes.
You’ll find out just how much Woolsey knows about French bourgeois cooking when you taste the perfectly rendered roast chicken with braised leeks, crisp and buttery pommes Anna and a sauce made from a reduction of juices and leeks ($24). Pan-seared duck breast was impeccably rosy, served with peas, turnips, potatoes and wonderfully old-fashioned green peppercorn sauce ($28), an ideal dish as the weather turns cooler.
Few American restaurants attempt to serve rabbit, so I applaud La Minette’s well-fattened rabbit braised with assertive mustard and served with housemade tagliatelle and rabbit jus ($27). And a real test of a French bistro is how it turned out gnocchi Parisienne, which so often comes as little more than a bland potato puree gratin. At La Minette the gnocchi have heft, texture and good rich cream and butter with a full-flavored cheese gratin ($24) and the lagniappe of baby artichokes and whipped goat’s cheese.
Desserts ($8) are all true to form: A miniature chocolate cake with gooseberries and crème fraîche ice cream; pot de crème of caramel with car’s tongue cookies; a frozen rhubarb mousse with vanilla sable, rhubarb compote, strawberry sherbet and strawberry sauce.
There’s a fine selection of wines by the pichet (carafe), as well as beers and ciders, and Liz Boleslavsky’s full wine list is just the right size and scope of regional French bottlings to further prove La Minette’s commitment to bistro tradition.
Open for Lunch Sat. & Sun., for dinner nightly.
