Grape expectations (and results) at La Famiglia

by LEN LEAR

Since it opened in 1976, La Famiglia at 8 S. Front St. In Old City has been a paradigm of Philadelphia’s Restaurant Renaissance. Planned and executed with impeccable attention to detail by the Sena family, La Famiglia (literally, “the family”) is a small restaurant that would be right at home in a European magazine on interior design. There’s enough marble and gilt to decorate a museum dedicated to Liberace.

There are mirrors everywhere, making the narrow room seem much wider. The room is so chic and intimate that you expect to see (and sometimes do) a handsome man offering a drink at the pocket-sized bar to a glamorous lady in a white matte jersey dress, Grecian-draped for drama.

It is even a treat to navigate to the men’s room because you have to descend a dazzling marble staircase and pass huge wrought-iron gates, moisturized with the help of two gargantuan 270-year-old cisterns. The wine cellar contains the largest variety of Italian imports of any Delaware Valley restaurant. According to Giuseppe Sena, who runs the restaurant with his brother, Luca, there are more than 400 vintages and 9,000 bottles in the cellar. The wine list is heavy enough to be used for training purposes by Olympic discus throwers.

What makes La Famiglia particularly impressive is the fact that the Sena family arrived in the U.S. from Naples speaking virtually no English, but they became entrepreneurs by restoring the 270-year-old building at 8 S. Front St. themselves. They installed tile and marble floors and implemented other improvements that make La Famiglia a banquet for the eyes as well as the palate. (The Sena family also owns and operates Panorama at Front and Market Streets and Le Castagne at 1920 Chestnut St.)

Our most recent dinner at La Famiglia took place May 4 during the fourth annual Philadelphia Wine Festival. Twenty-five of the most upscale restaurants in the city had special fixed-price wine dinners featuring set menus with a different wine for each course. Each participating restaurant featured a different vineyard.

We chose to attend the dinner at La Famiglia because their dinner featured the wines of Castello Banfi, a medium-priced group of wines from Italy’s lush Tuscany region. Castello Banfi, whose fabulous wines are available from Pennsylvania state stores, pioneered the planting of noble French grape varieties in Tuscany. The winery’s 1,100-year-old estate lies between the ancient medieval town of Montalcino and the Mediterranean Sea.

The four-course dinner at La Famiglia, complete with as much of the four accompanying wines as one wants, was $100 per person. Considering that the portions were huge and the wines spectacular, the price was reasonable. We actually had leftovers from each course, enough to make a great dinner at home the next night.

The dinner consisted of a fork-tender striped bass in an aromatic fennel herb sauce; fresh pasta layered with spinach, gorgonzola cheese, ricotta and mozzarella cheeses and peanuts; loin of veal with a divine black truffle and porcini mushroom sauce; and zuccotto (like ice cream) with a raspberry sauce. The wines — San Angelo 2004 Pinot Grigio; Cum Laude Super Tuscan 2004; Poggio Alle Mura 1998 Brunello (very full-bodied) and Rosa Regali Brachetto 2004 (a sweet wine with explosive fruit flavor) — were wonderful.

If you go to La Famiglia on a typical night when there is no wine dinner, do not pass up the dessert trolley, even if you have to run around the block a few times or do 250 sit-ups in the wine cellar. The last time we ordered from the menu, our eyes and tongues danced over the tiramisu — sponge cake soaked in espresso — and strawberry and melon marinated in brandy and fruit juices. The tarts and sorbets are also delectable.

The only joker in the deck is that the tables are close together and the noise really carries, as in so many restaurants these days. Younger people don’t seem to mind restaurant noise, maybe because they grew up on deafening video games and rock music, but in loud restaurants I now wear earplugs, which I bought in a local pharmacy, and they did make the noise bearable.

La Famiglia is definitely pricey, but the food, wine and service are as elevated as the price tag. For more information, call 215-922-2803.