Dolce Italian is a chic homecoming at the new W Hotel Philadelphia
The Italian restaurant, whose look is inspired by Fellini's Rome of the 1960s, has familiar names in key roles.
The W Philadelphia, a hotel nearly a decade in the making on Chestnut Street across from Prince Music Theater in Center City, has opened with a spiffy Italian restaurant with its own street entrance.
Dolce Italian is a spinoff of LDV Hospitality’s Dolce in Miami, which in 2015 won the Bravo show Best New Restaurant. LDV’s restaurant holdings include Scarpetta, at the Rittenhouse Hotel, which will explain some familiar faces in various roles.
The look is mid-20th-century mod, nodding to Fellini’s 1960s Rome.
One of the bigger surprises is the general manager, Lynn Rinaldi, who was chef-partner at East Passyunk’s popular Paradiso for nearly 15 years before its mid-2019 closing. She is running the front of the house only; the executive chef of the restaurant (and the rest of the hotel) is the well-traveled Terry White, last at LDV’s Dolce Mare in Atlantic City. His previous stops include Union Trust, Sullivan’s, Del Frisco’s, and SugarHouse Casino.
They bill Dolce (1439 Chestnut St.) as offering “elevated, yet approachable” Italian cuisine.
Official opening is Sept. 7 and 8, when it opens for dinner. From Sept. 9 to 13, it will be open for lunch and dinner, with breakfast (lemon ricotta pancakes, egg white frittatas, and the like) available to hotel guests only. Regular hours — breakfast through dinner 7 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. Tuesday to Saturday with breakfast and lunch 7 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Sunday — will start Sept. 14.
Lunch options include pizza, seafood risotto, and eggplant parm, while dinner specialties include veal Milanese, whole branzino, and veal ossobuco tortelli.
Bar list includes Italian-inspired aperitifs, cocktails, and digestifs by night.