January 17, 2008
By: Brian Freedman
bfreedman@aroundphilly.com
Sometimes—just sometimes—a good fried crust embodies everything you need to know about a restaurant. It speaks of simplicity. It speaks of ambition. It speaks of the confidence necessary to prepare a dish in its authentic style without giving in to the overwrought, overly complicated whims of modern food fashion.
Sometimes a good fried crust is all you need.
The fritto misto Ascolano, then, could serve as a mascot of sorts for this Passyunk charmer. The entrée consisted of an oblong plate of breaded and fried veal and lamb cutlets; a thin baby lamb chop; a scattering of green olives painstakingly stuffed with ground chicken, beef, and pork; sliced zucchini; and crimini, or “fried cream.”
What made this deceptively straightforward dish such a standout was the way that, despite the identical method in which all the components had been prepared, they never once devolved into any sense of homogeneity. In fact, the frying provided a sort of canvas upon which all those ingredients were allowed to express and differentiate themselves best, and with astounding clarity of flavor. This was because the focus here was the component inside the golden crust, as opposed to the crust itself, which, it seems to me, is where most restaurants go wrong with their fried preparations.
Pastas also showed a sense of well-considered creativity. Fazzoletti al ragu d’Anatra was comprised of silky housemade pasta the vague shape of tiny handkerchiefs. These were tossed with hearty braised-and-pulled duck and beef ragu. Again, the sense of restraint here worked to the dish’s ultimate benefit. There was no overabundance of sauce so the pasta was just as much the focus as the meat. And pasta this well-made certainly deserves a star-turn like it received here.
Arguably the most unusual pasta on the menu was the ravioli al cioccolato ripieni di Coniglio, another example of a trend that seems to have been developing in the city for the past year or so: the use of chocolate or cocoa powder as a savory ingredient as opposed to a sweet one.
Here, the light-brown pasta itself had attained a lovely bitterness—a flavor that is still sadly underused in area restaurants. Those delicate ravioli were filled with a smooth, almost pâté-like combination of braised rabbit and amaretto cookies and plated with a simple butter and sage sauce. Unfortunately, the dusting of grated Parmigiano atop it all detracted from the dish as a whole, and distracted from the more interesting flavors that should have been the focus. I’d much rather have had a whisper-thin layer of shaved amaretto cookies on top, which would have really thrown the tension between sweet and bitter into sharp relief.
But that was a minor misstep for an otherwise notably restrained kitchen. That restraint was plainly evident with the spiedini di calamari con gamberi, a straightforward appetizer consisting of two skewers of tender shrimp and sliced calamari that had been rubbed with a perfectly calibrated layer of salt, pepper, parsley, and thyme, then charred on the grill. The high heat and short duration of the cooking created a lovely juxtaposition between the crispy charred sides of the seafood and their soft, toothsome centers.
Melanzane alla Parmigiano was nothing more than eggplant parmesan reimagined as a napoleon. But those layers of eggplant—unbreaded, sautéed in olive oil, and gently kissed with a delicate tomato sauce—provided a sense of lightness that the standard oil-boat version rarely achieves.
Even the tiramisu worked for all the right reasons. The hegemony of the standard-issue cream component was here broken up by the unexpectedly soft crunch and dark flavor of ground almonds, which brought a complexity to the dessert that I wish other restaurants would mimic. In a city full of tiramisus, this one was a standout. The sachertorte, however, though well balanced between its deep-flavored flourless chocolate cake layers and the thin-spread apricot between them, could have used a bit more vigor in the moistness department.
But that is a very minor quibble considering all the other successes here. And in the context of Philadelphia’s other notable Italian openings of the past year, it seems to represent the happy continuation of a trend. Osteria, Salento, and now Le Virtu all focus primarily on the food of a single part of the boot, as opposed to the southern-centric though nonetheless vaguely pan-Italian tendencies of this town’s old classics.
Le Virtu is also of this new school in terms of its aesthetics and knowledgeable yet unobtrusive service. Though the dining room adjoining the bar area is higher energy and a bit more intimate than the other one, the appeal of both is predicated on a sense of understated, casual simplicity—very much like what you’d find in a restaurant of the same ilk in Italy.
There is, thankfully, none of that overt, dubiously ‘authentic’ Italian décor that was the norm for so long here, and no Mel Torme – Mario Lanza-style music to drive home the point that you’re dining Italian-style. Rather, Le Virtu has hit upon the ultimate truth of restaurant dining, in that kitsch and authenticity are necessarily mutually exclusive. Quanto rivoluzionario!
This seems to be the direction in which Philly’s Italian dining culture is heading, and so far, it has been to the benefit of all of us who love the regional food of Italy. Le Virtu is a delicious addition to that group. Its name, incidentally, means “the virtues.” This, for once, is truth in advertising.
