One of Philly's Best Italian...

Tre Scalini

1915 East Passyunk Avenue

Philadelphia, PA 19148

trescaliniphiladelphia.com/‎ 

It was my cousin-in-law's birthday in December and he wanted to take his parents to a nice dinner while they were in town, so he consulted the list of the greatest Italian restaurants in Philadelphia according to Philadelphia Magazine's recent Italian food issue. From that list he chose Tre Scalini, a great little place in South Philadelphia, run by the same chef since 1994. The chef puts her own spin on the Italian classics, and she's been doing it for quite some time. There were 10 of us for dinner, so we ordered a bunch of things, and the restaurant served them family style for us. We ordered two different salads, an arugula salad with pecans and a white crumbly cheese, and a classic Caesar salad topped with anchovies. 

Next up was a plate of eggplant parmigiana and mussels in white wine and garlic. The eggplant parm was some of the thinnest and most delicious I have ever tasted. The exterior was slightly crunchy, and it was topped with some very delicious sauce and mozzarella cheese. The mussels were very tasty as well, but they were pretty small. I have had some pretty good mussels before, and they were much bigger and meatier than these. I wouldn't order them again simply because of the size, but they flavor was definitely there. 

For the pasta courses we indulged in the specialties of the house, house made tagliatelle with truffle oil and porcinis, house made lobster ravioli, and house made squid ink tagliatelle with crabmeat and marinara sauce. All three of them were incredible. I was particularly blown away by the lobster ravioli. They were amazingly tender, filled with creamy and savory lobster filling, and topped with a creamy cheese sauce. I could have devoured the entire plate and more. The tagliatelle dishes were really notable as well. You could truly taste the freshness of the pasta in both of them.

Last up, we shared an order of the chicken parmigiana. It was nice and thin, just like the eggplant parm, and it was just as tender and flavorful. You can never go wrong with chicken parm in my opinion, but this was one of the better kinds I have had. I prefer it best with a crunchier exterior, but overall the flavor was quite delicious. 

A cool thing about the restaurant was that they let us bring our own cake for dessert and they cut up the cake and served it to us. I thought that was really decent of them.

Tre Scalini is definitely worth of the three pint rating. They do some pretty spot on food. I don’t know what the price point of the meal was because my uncle treated us, but the flavor and preparation of the food was on point. The service was great, and like I said they were extremely hospitable about us bringing our own cake for dessert. I would definitely go back to Tre Scalini for a meal, because I know it would be fantastic. Give it a try! Cheers!