At Old City’s latest restaurant, a South Philly restaurant couple updates their red-sauce memories

Piccolina is the newest entry from restaurateurs Michael and Jeniphur Pasquarello, and it may also be their most personal.

The Italian restaurant opens Monday inside the Society Hill Hotel at Third and Chestnut Streets, occupying a compact spot that was originally an oyster bar in 1830. The corner restaurant is anchored by the big-bellied, handmade brick Marra Forni pizza oven installed by the hotel’s owners, who closed their own restaurant in the space in December. At night, the bar glows against warm brick and plaster, giving the room a sense of intimacy.

For the Pasquarellos — whose restaurant history dates to 2003, when they opened their first Cafe Lift bruncherie in Callowhill — Piccolina marks a shift in focus. Over the years, the couple added a Cafe Lift in Haddonfield and moved the original location to 12th and Spring Garden (after closing a short-lived branch in Narberth), and opened the nearby concepts Prohibition Taproom (corner bar) and La Chinesca (Mexican). They also had a six-year run of the wood-fired pizzeria Bufad, and a decade in Fishtown with the beef-, then fish-centered Kensington Quarters.

Piccolina is a return to the Pasquarellos’ South Philadelphia roots: He grew up near Chadwick and Shunk Streets, and she grew up two blocks away, at 17th and Ritner. Her grandparents, the Bernardinis, ran Bruno’s luncheonette — later Brunic’s. (Brunic’s lives on, under different owners.)

“It’s tapping into memory and the feeling of where it all came from,” Michael Pasquarello said. But although the menu includes flavors they grew up with, Piccolina is not a South Philly red-gravy house. “We took all of that and then we let Alex put it through his filter.”

Alex is chef Alex Vazquez, whose résumé includes Vernick Food & Drink and Friday Saturday Sunday, where he rose over a five-year run from garde manger to sous chef.

At Piccolina, Vazquez is turning out traditional pastas like bucatini amatriciana and malfadine al limone. Stracciatella is folded into the campanelle vodka just before plating, giving the sauce a loose, creamy pull rather than a heavy coat, Michael said. There’s oxtail lasagna, too, built with just three layers of fresh pasta — a technique Pasquarello traces back to Kensington Quarters.

“We used to do these thin lasagnas because we wanted crispy edges,” Michael said. “Alex loved that idea. So we do braised oxtail, a really rich tomato sauce, drizzle Alfredo through it, then fire it in the brick oven so you get those crisp edges.”

Vazquez’s Neapolitan pizzas are sturdy-crusted, all the better to keep up with a load of toppings. Inspired by Bufad, there’s a sausage pie finished with béchamel, broccoli rabe, and shaved pecorino, as well as a mushroom pizza that had developed a following before the restaurant closed at the end of 2018.

The larger plates push the “memory through a chef’s lens” idea most clearly, Michael said. The half-chicken marsala starts with dry-aged birds that are brined, air-dried, and cooked, then finished with a deep marsala sauce and hearth-fired mushrooms.

“I remember my mom making chicken marsala for us,” he said. “So the idea was, what does that look like when you take it [more] seriously?”

The pork Milanese follows a similar logic. Vazquez brines the pork for 24 hours with coriander, fennel, garlic, and peppercorns before breading it in panko and frying it crisp. It’s served with a hearty crock of escarole and beans — a dish Michael describes as almost universal in South Philadelphia kitchens. “That dish is home to me,” he said.

“I love red-sauce places,” Vazquez said. “It’s so Philly. I just wanted to put my spin on what I want to eat — a red-sauce, pizza, pasta place that’s a little nicer.”

Piccolina serves dinner daily, with lunch and brunch expanding the menu into panini, egg dishes, and sweets like maritozzi French toast stuffed with mascarpone whip. The full bar includes six beers on draft, negroni and other cocktails, and an Italian-only wine list.

Piccolina, 301 Chestnut St., 267-761-4120, piccolinaphl.com. Hours: 5 p.m. to 1 a.m. for dinner. Lunch (noon to 4 p.m. Monday to Friday) starts Feb. 17 and weekend brunch (11 a.m. to 4 p.m.) starts Feb. 21.