La Famiglia Ristorante still glitters after 50 years in action

We were led to a table lost in the shadows in the farthest corner of La Famiglia. The tall white candle waiting for us was lit and its flickering wick filled the space with a bright warm glow that revealed a posh little nook — the lavishly muraled walls wrapped around a table padded with silken napkins and not one, but two layers of linen table cloths. Our view of the room revealed a world that still hummed with fine-dining trappings that, outside this venerable Old City space, have nearly disappeared.

Crisply suited servers rolled guéridons across polished pink marble floors to decant grand old wines from La Famiglia’s legendary cellar. Other carts bearing whole branzinos entombed in salt crusts paused tableside, where the fish were deftly deboned into a bloom of fillets then glossed with olive oil, tomatoes, and capers. I haven’t seen so many men eating in blazers in years.

“Back in the ‘70s and ‘80s, people used to come here really really dressed!” says co-owner Giuesppe Sena, 73, recalling the era shortly after he and his brothers founded La Famiglia in 1976 with their parents, and his father Carlo “Papa” Sena’s classic Neapolitan cooking drew the city’s most well-heeled gourmands. “The women would come in chinchilla furs and so many diamonds the restaurant would be sparkling!”

Many longtime customers are still regulars. I ran into my retired rabbi here the same night that I ran into the retired poll judge from my local voting ward, both discerning eaters. The hushed tones and formal hospitality, as well as this menu’s fondness for center-cut meats, porcinis and hard-to-find old wines, still appeals to a certain generation. The yet-to-retire and under 60 set? They are far rarer in the gilded confines of 8 S. Front Street, a Colonial-era building that was once a tea warehouse.

It’s been over two decades since I last reviewed La Famiglia, and even then I considered it old-fashioned, not to mention too expensive. But revisiting this classic 23 years later, I view it now through a different and fonder lens, not only because the cooking was more consistent, but because the context has shifted.

La Famiglia is among the last of a generation of continental-style restaurants with European-born chefs and well-starched dining rooms that ruled Philly’s fancy Italian scene in the late 20th century, including long-gone destinations such as Gaetano’s, Monte Carlo Living Room and the original La Buca. But it has earned its status as a survivor. After two absolutely delicious recent visits, I can attest it’s clearly more than just a museum piece.

Set against the diverse riches of Philadelphia’s current Italian dining scene, from the stalwart red gravy icons of Italian-American cooking (Villa di Roma, Dante & Luigi’s) to the alta cucina of Vetri, regionalists such as Le Virtù or Irwin’s, the nostalgia revivals of Palizzi Social Club and Bomb Bomb Bar, along with fresh contemporary takes from Emilia, La Famiglia’s retro experience still occupies a unique and worthy place to dine. With check averages for a complete meal between $90 and $100, it’s still a big night out but nowhere near the top of Philly’s current price range.

The menu isn’t exactly innovative, but has been updated multiple times over the years. An overall delicacy remains to the cooking, now under the care of current chef de cuisine Luis Yauri, that, guided by Giuseppe and his nephew, Carlo, follows a direct lineage to the recipes and techniques Papa Sena had perfected at Zi Teresa in Naples before coming to Philadelphia in 1967.

You can taste some of those original dishes on a throwback menu for the month of June in honor of La Famiglia’s 50th anniversary, including snails in spicy red sauce and gnocchi Sorrentina. But the signature pasta, penne alla Famiglia, is the only original dish that still lingers on the current menu — and for good reason. The quill-shaped tubes are glazed in a buttery sauce tinted pink with fresh tomatoes, lightly sweetened with caramelized onions and dotted with savory nubs of rendered prosciutto, the epitome of patient cooking.

The founder’s elegant approach is also still evident in fried appetizers that employ only the finest grain of housemade breadcrumbs and an insistence on using only egg whites, rather than the more typical and heavier method of whole eggs with a flour dredge. The resulting wafer-thin snap on the crocchette just barely contains the whipped potato centers laced with three kinds of cheese. The rounds of eggplant are so sheer and deftly fried they form a fork-tender stack, along with truffled porcinis, fresh tomato sauce and mozzarella, of a dreamy Parm-like starter called a tortino.

Some of my favorite dishes here are unfashionably drab but deliver vivid flavors, like the vitello tonnato that dabbed silken-soft pads of veal tenderloin with a tonnato sauce of that zinged with the briny umami pureed tuna, capers and anchovies. I could also taste Neapolitan sunshine in the eggplant cream that glazed the burrata-stuffed triangolo ravioli that arrived lightly broiled to a cheesy crisp.

For the most part, these plates have largely been updated with splashes of flavorful herb oils that add colorful halos to the refined sauces that are always in service of La Famiglia’s sweet spot: luxury proteins.

A ruby-rare hunk of grilled ahi tuna comes sliced on the bias atop a sun spot of pureed tomatoes and olive oil, a Mediterranean tableau framed dramatically by a crispy ring of baked pappardelle. An incredibly tender veal chop arrives standing upright against a crisp frico of a Parmesan cheese over porcini cream sauce dotted with carrot mousse.

An amazingly juicy pork chop channels South Philly swagger with zesty banana peppers added to its white wine sauce, alongside plump caper berries. Filet mignon, a plush cut I almost never order over less tender but more flavorful steaks, rises here on a rich Barolo wine sauce infused with juniper and rosemary. The veal Milanese, meanwhile, whose breadcrumbs are pounded directly into the meat, is superbly crisped before its and topped with a juicy fresh salad of tomatoes and red onions. A pappardelle special was all about showcasing fresh burrata chunks that wept a lush milkiness into the juices of lightly roasted cherry tomatoes to form their own kind of tangy orange sauce.

If there was one savory disappointment, it was the puny nuggets of lump crab that came with scallops for the linguine, an uncharacteristic dip in quality for a restaurant that prides itself on luxury.

One other gold-plated aspect of La Famiglia that remains steadfastly exceptional is the wine cellar, whose 12,000-plus bottles and 912 selections are kept in the dank chill of temperature- and humidity-controlled cages in the basement. A trip to this subterranean treasure cave is essential, not only since it’s the corridor to the rest rooms, but because you can also view illuminated holes in the ground where Colonial-era privies were excavated during La Famiglia’s construction in the mid-1970s, a reminder that this address occupies one of the oldest corners of the city.

Decades of collecting and careful preservation have resulted in what is still one of the city’s greatest assemblages of vino, largely Italian but international in scope, from a 1945 Brunello di Montalcino Riserva that had been walled off for protection during WWII, to 19th century Madeiras, as well as verticals of late-’70s and early-’80s California cabs from Heitz and Beaulieu Vineyards. The restaurant has increasingly begun offering premium wines by the glass — Barolo and Amarone — as a nod to current drinking trends. (An iPad has also replaced the massive old “wine bible.”)

We decided to go all in and indulge in a bottle Barbaresco. The sky’s the limit there, including the last $4,000 bottle from 1961 that was Angelo Gaja’s first vintage. We didn’t have the time for anything so old to be opened far enough in advance (not to mention the budget), we took Maître d’ Jesus “Gaetano” Maldonado’s spot-on suggestion of a 2019 Famiglia Rivetti for $195.

After a careful tableside decanting over a flickering candelabra to scout for sediment, the wine was luminous within 15 minutes of touching air, a gorgeously supple red with notes of black cherries, tobacco, rose petals and spice that boosted the flavors of every dish on our table with a shine of glamour.

When it comes time for dessert, La Famiglia unfortunately settles for the tiramisu, cheesecake and cannoli clichés, which were fine but unexciting, and mostly not made in-house. But the ristorante’s alcoholic assets, not surprisingly, offer a beguiling alternative: a collection of nearly three dozen rare grappa bottles beckon from a marble fireplace mantel. I sipped a little snifter of the clear and fruity brandy, an aged Rossi D’Asiago Dal Toso Elegance made from five different grapes, and it warmed my gullet and flooded my mind with a glow of contentment that felt like a forgotten pleasure. Decadent. Out of fashion. But undoubtedly still beautiful, not unlike eating at La Famiglia itself.

8 S. Front St., Philadelphia, PA 19106, 215-922-2803; lafamiglia.com

Dinner Tuesday through Saturday, 5-9:30 p.m.

Entrees, $25-$75. Gluten-free pasta available.

The dining room is not wheelchair accessible, except with the assistance “of two strong guys.” The bathrooms, however, are located downstairs and completely inaccessible to wheelchairs.

Menu Highlights Arancini; crocchette di patate; vitello tonnato; tortino di melanzane; penne alla Famiglia; ravioli with burrata in eggplant cream; tuna with heirloom tomato sauce; veal chop with porcini sauce; pork chop with banana pepper-caper berry sauce; whole branzino in salt crust.

Drinks Italian-themed cocktails are a solid start the meal, but the legendary wine cellars is the main attraction, a 12,000 bottle collection offering some of the world’s most famous Italian, French and American producers. While the bottles (priced with generous mark-ups) tend to suit big spenders, La Famiglia’s much improved collection of wines by the glass, with choices under $20 along with more premium options hovering below $30, keep quality sipping within reach.