A Cage Match for the Ages...

Osteria vs Amis Cage Match

One of the coolest culinary experiences I had last year was the ability to go to the Cage Matches hosted by the Vetri Family at Alla Spina. This was the first of the series, an epic battle featuring two powerhouse, Amis vs Osteria. I jumped at the chance to attend such an event when it was announced via Twitter, but had no idea exactly what we were in for. The hosted dinner was upstairs at Alla Spina in a room that I didn’t even know was up there. There were about 20 of us, all in for the $65 per person price tag that got us 8 courses and 8 paired drinks. Wow, a great deal and lots of food. Each team was supposed to use one of the 4 key ingredients in a dish that showcased the ingredient. Those four ingredients were blood orange, oxtail, sunchokes and radicchio. All of us participating were then given grading cards to grade the dishes on their presentation, taste, use of ingredient and beverage pairing. It was so awesome, kind of like being on our own little Iron Chef America right here in Philly!

The meal started with an offering from Amis, something Brad Spence called South Philly Foie Gras. They seared smoked mozzarella a la plancha, as they would with a piece of foie, and stuffed it with radicchio and topped it with a balsamic glaze and herbs. I thought it was a really tasty dish, but the radicchio was a bit lost for me. Their rhubarb cocktail was awesome though. It went down so easy, it was kind of scary. I love the taste of rhubarb and it worked really well here to provide a touch of acid and sweetness.

Osteria's first course was equally as good, but had a very similar dessert. It was a two way pork "sushi" roll, with a piece of loing stuffed with pork belly and wrapped with radicchio. The radicchio seemed to just be an afterthought here. While it held the whole roll together, it wasn’t the star. The pork overruled it. That being said, it was fantastically delicious. They paired the first course with a sour beer from the Bruery, actually a beautiful pair together due to the bite of the sour really cutting through the richness of the pork belly. Two courses, one beer and one cocktail down, it was going to be a long night. 

Second course was the pasta course from both parties. The order of dishes reversed with Osteria getting the chance to serve first. Their plating was fantastic, using hollowed out bones to plate their pasta with oxtail and bone marrow. The dish was incredibly rich and a great use of the oxtail. It was tender and coated the pasta well, and was only made that much better by the bone marrow. The crisp white wine served with this course was a great pairing as well.

The pasta course from Amis was off the chain for me. They made a porcini mushroom papardelle and coated it with a rich oxtail ragu and then topped that with shaved black truffles. What a plate of pasta! I would kill to have it again because it was astoundingly good. I ate way more of that big plate than I should have, but I just couldn’t help myself. It was paired with a very nice beer to round out another stellar course. Four courses, two beers, a cocktail and a glass of wine. Things were starting to get wild. I had the two teams pretty even at this point.

Next course was actually fish from both Osteria and Amis and both of their courses were served with a glass of red wine. For Amis who served first, it was a monkfish picatta with blood orange. They also used caperberries instead of traditional capers. It was an outstanding dish, but I thought it could have used a bit more blood orange in the sauce. It wasn’t as prominent as I would have liked it to be. The fish was perfectly cooked and it was topped with segments of blood orange and the beautiful caperberries. 

Osteria really nailed it with their presentation. They brought out the whole roasted sea bass that they had actually cooked in the roaster over at Osteria, and then took it back down stairs to carve it up and serve. When they brought it back up, they served it with roasted sun chokes and topped it with a touch of truffle just to make it that much more delicious. The sun chokes were great. They weren’t exactly the star of the dish for me, but they were really tasty. They were like puffy little potatoes, but with a completely different texture and more flavor. 6 courses, three glasses of wine, a cocktail and two beers later, it was a close battle and I was nearing capacity, but I had Osteria ahead by a nose after the third course.

Dessert time, and time to finish strong to an epic battle. Osteria was first up, and they served what they called chocolate covered booze, a chocolate covered blood orange and prosecco popsicle that was very interesting. I wasn’t the biggest fan of the chocolate and would have much rather had just the blood orange popsicle alone. They also served it along with some fried sweet dough that was awesome as well, but again I really didn’t think it went with the popsicle so it felt a bit odd.

Amis blew us all away with their dessert. Apparently there was a battle in the kitchen about the fact that they were going to use sun chokes in their dessert and Osteria said they couldn’t do it, that it was too savory. Well I have to tell you, the dessert Amis served was the best dessert I have ever had in my life. They made a sun choke cake, much like a pound cake, that was topped with a deliciously sweet syrup, candied sun chokes and the vaunted salted butter semi-freddo. If you haven’t had the salted butter semi-freddo at Amis before, you have no idea what you are missing. You could put it on anything and it would taste incredible, and it did nothing different here. The dessert blew me away. Paired with the beer they served, I easily ate three pieces of the cake and ice cream.

That dessert course turned the tide of the whole match. Osteria was way ahead after three rounds, so apparently everyone didn’t feel the same way I did about those first three courses. Amis converted a 90 something point swing on the dessert round to come back and win the battle as announced by the man himself, Marc Vetri. Osteria demanded to see the scores because they couldn’t believe it. It was an all around phenomenal evening and some of the most fun I have had in a long time. The food was unbelievable, and its just another reason why Philly is such a great food city. If you get the chance to attend one of these battles, you will not be disappointed, so do it! Cheers!