Le Virtu
1927 East Passyunk Avenue
Philadelphia, PA 19148
My
fiancé and I dined at Le Virtu a while back because it was on a short list of
places we were looking into for our rehearsal dinner. We had been wanting to
try it for quite some time because of all the good things we had heard about
chef Joe and chef Angela and their team.
We sat at the bar for a while until our table was ready, about 15 minutes after our reservation time, but no biggie there. Once we were seated our waiter told us the specials and we ordered a bottle of wine before making our decisions on dinner. Unfortunately our waiter was pretty aggressive pouring the wine and some of it ended up on the table. We ordered our food, the appetizer special of the evening, the pasta special of the evening and the braised lamb dish.
The fried dough stuffed with ricotta and rosemary and served over a bed of prosciutto de Parma, the appetizer special of the evening, was ok, but not as good as we hoped it would be. The stuffed dough was good, but it didn't have enough filling for me. The bits that had the filling were great though. And what's there to say about prosciutto de Parma. It's incredible.
The pasta special of the evening was a pheasant ravioli with mushrooms, pecorino cheese, brown butter and rosemary. It was absolutely incredible. The pasta had a great amount of chew to it, and the filling was exquisite. I was in heaven eating it. Its one of pasta dishes I always think about when asked about some of my favorites in Philly. Unfortunately it was a special for the evening, so who knows if I can ever get it again.
We had a miscommunication with our server on the main course. We wanted the braised lamb dish, but he thought we wanted the lamb pasta. He handled it perfectly though when we said that wasn't what we ordered, he took it back and off of our bill and brought us what we ordered. The dish we ordered was the agnello brasato, braised lamb with cippolini onions, parsnips and Brussels sprouts. The broth was rich and flavorful and the lamb was incredibly tender. I loved the vegetables as well. It all paired incredibly well and the whole dish made me warm inside.
We couldn't skip dessert, so we ordered the torta di mela, olive oil apple cake, cinnamon streusel and marscapone thyme cream. The cake was incredibly moist and the crumble was outstanding. It was an amazing dessert, however the cream was over whipped, so it had a butter like taste and consistency unfortunately. Other than that the dessert was absolutely flawless.
Three and a half pints for Le Virtu. This is really a beautiful place to have a nice meal. The food coming out of the kitchen is delicious. I really didn’t enjoy dealing with their private events coordinator, so we wound up going elsewhere for our rehearsal dinner, but the restaurant itself is really a treat. I will definitely be coming back for more. Cheers!
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