Not One to Remember...

Le Castagne

1920 Chestnut Street

Philadelphia, PA 19103

www.lecastagne.com/ 

I had a gift card to try an Italian restaurant in the Rittenhouse area called Le Castagne, and I was hoping to stumble upon something great. There are so many places in the city that you do not hear about on a regular basis, so it’s hard to know if they will be good or not. When we walked in the door, the place was pretty empty. A little surprising for a Friday night, but there was a little bit of weather happening, so I guess there could have been some cancellations. They had a pretty decent selection of wines, and we wound up ordering a bottle. It was pretty good. Our server however was bad. We saw him when he took our order and that was it. Other than that he was nonexistent. 

The beet salad that we ordered was more of a carpaccio, and for the price it was absurd. There wasn’t much flavor going on, it really was not a good dish. The goat cheese cream was incredibly overpowering.

I thought my fiances black pasta with shellfish was ok. The best part to me was the pasta itself. It had retained a nice flavor from the seafood broth. Other than that, it was pretty bland. The mussels were small, as were the clams, and the shrimp were overly tough.

My veal hanger steak wasn't seared properly, so the entire dish was chewy. I liked the flavor of the sauce it was served with, but I couldn't get past the chewiness of the meat. The potatoes were very gluey because they had clearly been over whipped.

The dessert we ordered wasnt very good either. The fried dough balls weren't particularly tasty. They just tasted like fried dough, and the sugar coating wasn't adding much flavor either. We were so disappointed by the results, but we were extremely happy that we had a gift card because it was fairly pricey. 

One and a half pints for Le Castagne. The food and the experience were really subpar here. While nothing was really bad, nothing was really good either. In a city filled with great Italian food, this place is definitely forgettable. Definitely hit up one of the other amazing Italian restaurants in the city. This one isnt worth your time. Cheers!