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East Passyunk Avenue’s foremost stretch, and its most visible, has finally joined the culinary party. Palladino’s, 1934 E. Passyunk Ave., plugged in the bright lights and rolled out the red carpet last week to welcome guests to the Italian steakhouse. Dazzling, modern and sleek, the restaurant illuminates a too-long-dimmed corridor that has been vacant since a 2012 fire. Though as striking as the façade and signage may be, they are only a prelude to a menu offering an ambitious new phase of South Philly Italian and a chef raring to execute it.
“I think my approach to Italian cuisine and my style as a chef is different than what anyone else is doing in Philadelphia,” chef/owner Luke Palladino said. “Then I looked around East Passyunk Avenue — a lot of great chefs and great concepts but I thought our version of Italian would be great. Two, I didn’t see any big steaks, chops and grilled fish. So we got a beautiful wood grill, and people seem to be very excited.”
Anchoring the menu are those aforementioned big steaks and chops, ranging from a 32-ounce Tuscan porterhouse for two ($75) to a 16-ounce veal chop topped with wild mushrooms, prosciutto and a sage crema ($32). Wood-grill offerings are surrounded by a full compliment of hand-crafted pastas and antipasti, with many dishes representing the winter-driven flavors of the moment — butternut squash ravioli ($21), pasta filled with roasted beets and Tuscan kale ($19). Others recall stalwart ingredients from the Italian lexicon —arancini, focaccia, and gnocchi — but with Palladino’s modern touches.
“We change the menu seasonally and often. Right now we are in the winter menu, and this will even change sometime after the New Year,” Palladino explained regarding construction of the menu. “I lived all over the boot. It’s very regional and I love all different areas of Italian cuisine.
“In wintertime, we head toward more northern-style cuisine. Summertime, we head to the coasts all around the boot — Sicily, Venice and Puglia — all of those influences. Wintertime, it is more toward Piemonte, Friuli, that style of cuisine.”
Palladino speaks with confident ease discussing Italy’s regions and cuisine, without question the product of a two-year term as executive chef and partner of Venice’s acclaimed Ristorante al Covo in addition to several sabbaticals that immersed him in the culture. One of these came as recently as this fall and resulted in additions to the wine list.
On the interior, the biggest surprise is the 12-foot bar, set up facing the avenue to allow for people watching through accordion-style windows. Marble and mahogany, it leads directly into the wide open kitchen to let one catch the chef’s team at work, so it may contain the 18-best seats in the house. Three 60-inch TVs hover above the rows of liquor bottles. It all adds up to a more developed bar experience than many may have imagined, something Palladino had an eye on all along.
“We’re working on some happy hour things, and what we are going to do for football, the Eagles games — opening early with some specials on the bar menu with beers and stuff. We definitely want people to come in here and start watching some games,” Palladino explained. “We’re the only spot on the avenue really that has a great TV presence. It’s going to be a cool place to hang and have fun, and we have an amazing sound system.”
The bar menu matches this vision, as it offers potato skins, an eight-ounce wood grilled burger and calamari to go with price points of $9, $14 and $12, respectively.
Overall, Palladino’s presents an energetic vibe that comfortably supports fine dining as well as game-time noshing. Upon entry, the eye moves first to the buzz of the kitchen and shiny bar space before settling onto the dimmer hanging lights that dangle over the cozy dining area set in the back. Perhaps the final major puzzle piece of the always-rousing restaurant scene on the avenue, Palladino’s feels right at home with firm placement at the intersection of foodie destination and crowd pleaser.
Contact the South Philly Review at editor@southphillyreview.com.
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