South Philly’s love letter to Abruzzo has been revitalized by arrival of new chef

I was having a late dinner recently at Le Virtù when a few things struck me. First was the evening’s spectacular scrippelle, the traditional Abruzzese crepes that in some way, shape, or form are always featured on this menu. Stuffed with a cloud of tangy sweet ricotta made fresh from goat and cow’s milk, the delicately rolled crepes crackled at the edges over porcini ragù ringed with golden saffron butter and more sautéed mushrooms. It was a picture of earthy elegance and seasonal creativity, the epitome of this restaurant’s efforts to channel Abruzzo’s rustic essence in a way that’s thrilling for today’s diners.

Le Virtù‘s intense focus on the southern region of Abruzzo has made it an essential bastion in Philly’s crowded Italian dining scene since it opened 17 years ago. That leads me to the second remarkable thing that evening: At the relatively late weekday hour of 9:30 p.m, hungry crowds were banging down the doors as if Le Virtù were the hot new kid on the block — clamoring for platters of house-cured salumi, Braulio amaro-spiked Negronis, and slow-braised meats over polenta.

It marks an extraordinary turnaround for a place that, just over a year ago, was on the precipice of closing. “To be frank, we thought we might be out ... we’d lost our mojo,” co-owner Francis Cratil Cretarola says on a call from his second home in Abruzzo, where he’s in the final stages of securing dual Italian citizenship. He cited American politics and the bruising pandemic for his waning energy and the restaurant’s slow decline — that is, until landing a kitchen match made in paradiso.

There have been plenty of ebbs and flows as Cratil Cretarola and co-owner Catherine Lee have cycled through a series of chefs over the years. Enter Andrew Wood. The veteran chef best known for Russet — the farm-to-table BYOB he owned with wife Kristin Wood for seven years, until 2019 — was ready for a new challenge, as long as it didn’t include ownership.

“I don’t ache to be a small business owner again anytime soon,” says Wood, 48. “I have more time to do the things I love most: cooking. I try to be behind the stove every night, because I enjoy the actual process of making food.”

It’s a rarity for a chef with Wood’s three decades in the kitchen — from Lee’s Hoagie House to Le Bec-Fin, Terra, Quince, and Fork — to still covet the daily rigor of cooking. But it’s also a gift for diners to experience someone with such maturity who’s still so passionate, curious, and humble enough to keep learning. Since starting at Le Virtù at the end of 2023, Wood has been cooking some of my favorite food of his career. Experiences like his recent travels to Abruzzo with Lee and Cratil Cretarola, their second trip together, have been “life-changing” for his culinary perspective — not to mention providing ideas for the 50-course panarda blowout feast they recently held.

You can taste that subtle shift and recalibrated approach on the current menu in the measured touch Wood brings to the ceppe alla Vittoria, named for a dish served to them in the home of Vittoria Di Ponzio, the vice-mayor of Villavallelonga. The hand-rolled noodles are hollowed with a bamboo skewer so they look like inflated bucatini and have been glazed in a silky pumpkin puree spiked with guanciale and tinted golden with local saffron. “I could have read about that and had an idea, but I wouldn’t know if it was supposed to be very pumpkiny, very saffrony, or very porky,” Wood said. “Tasting her version let me know how to balance it.”

Wood’s long experience with Italian cooking meant he could hit the ground running in his reinvigoration of Le Virtù‘s kitchen. He inoculated the restaurant’s aging chamber with a salumi mold he’s been guarding since his days in San Francisco more than 15 years ago, for instance. In a matter of weeks, the salumi cellar was producing stellar cuts of fat-streaked pancetta; lean and translucent lonza; fennel-scented finocchiona; and an ‘nduja flared with Calabrese peppers from Campo Rosso Farm in Gilbertsville. If there’s a better house-made salumi platter in Philly, I haven’t found it.

Wood’s longtime relationships with the region’s farmers have infused the menu with more seasonality than Le Virtù has shown in recent years, and he has the creativity to be spontaneous and evolve dishes while staying within the rustic spirit of Abruzzese cooking. That’s evident in the ever-changing sformati, or savory flans, that showcased stinging nettles in spring and, in the colder months, coarsely pureed chestnuts, a staple ingredient in Abruzzo sourced locally through Green Meadow Farms. (Wood also occasionally grinds the chestnuts into dough for tortelloni.)

Wood’s culinary range is especially apparent with the pastas, which he makes in collaboration with the restaurant’s dough-rolling pastaio, Domingo Tlaplaya, whom Wood considers “a genius ... the best I’ve ever seen.”

The maccheroni alla mugnaia, a single, 6-foot-long noodle that’s a longtime signature of the restaurant, might appear one night coiled inside a tomatoey goat ragù with hot peppers or, more recently, a soulful bianco braise of lamb shoulder and white wine. Chewy purple snips of troccoli — made from a similar dough to the mugnaia but tinted dark with Montepulciano d’Abruzzo wine — tangle with crumbled sausage and broccoli rabe. Green cavatelli showcases rabbit ragù, while hat-shaped cappellacci cradle tender shreds of slow-braised guinea hen.

Wood’s stuffed pastas are also exceptional — and ever-changing. The three-sided dumplings known as triangoli were bursting in spring with green garlic and pesto, turning its ricotta-filled pillows a piquant emerald green; this winter’s triangoli have been filled with a woodsy bounty of porcini mushrooms.

This is not tweezer food. This is a hearty, pecorino-blasted expression of Abruzzese soul. If you see a stuffed lamb shoulder or tenderly braised braciole resplendent in gravy suspended over an heirloom white polenta from Green Meadow Farms, get it. If you see Wood’s take on grilled cotechino, the clove-scented Northern Italian sausage that he tweaks with a Southern touch of juniper and hot peppers, devour that, too.

I was also frequently reminded of Wood’s finesse with seafood. There were huge head-on prawns, fanned over a fennel and blood orange salad dusted with fennel pollen and a drizzle of chile-shrimp oil. One of the most stunning dishes I ate here, though, was the pallotte cacio e ova con pesce, a two-handled pan of hot pepper-tomato broth brimming with beautiful shellfish and plump bread dumplings made from egg and pecorino cheese. The dumplings, made from leftover bread, are a classic example of Italy’s resourceful cucina povera. This version, which incorporates seafood, is one the chef and owners encountered during a trip to Vasto, along the southern Abruzzese coast. The dish contradicts one of the most long-held taboos of Italian dining, which prohibits pairing strong-flavored cheeses with delicate seafood. “There’s no cheese with seafood — until it’s time for cheese with seafood!” Wood says. “It really blew our minds.”

What remains to be done in Le Virtù‘s culinary revival is a more thoughtful revamp of its desserts, which are perfectly fine — the Lu Parrozz flourless almond-orange cake and tiramisu are solid — with only Wood’s pistachio gelato reaching next-level satisfaction. Then again, you can always dive deeper into Abruzzo profondo with a platter of rarely seen sheep’s milk cheeses from La Porta dei Parchi, along with an amaro from the list of two dozen. The service team, led by cheerful manager Daniel Trotter, was excellent in guiding us through the many beverage choices.

The drink program is a reason in its own right to revisit Le Virtù, thanks to an energy infusion from beverage manager Chris O’Brien, who arrived three years ago. O’Brien, who also doubles as sous-chef, refocused the list more squarely on small-producer natural wines from southern Italy (De Fermo ‘Don Carlino’ Pecorino; Florami Falanghina); started a monthly wine club focused on Abruzzo; and launched a retail store with about 60 bottles that are difficult to find anywhere else in the region. I popped by just last weekend to buy some for a BYOB meal elsewhere, and the 2019 Montepulciano d’Abruzzo Riserva from Praesidium, which Le Virtù carries in multiple vintages, floored me. (In fact, it was the best part of that meal.) When Le Virtù‘s team has begun to make even other restaurant experiences better, that is remarkable indeed.

1927 E. Passyunk Ave., Philadelphia, Pa. 19148, 215-271-5626; levirtu.com.

Dinner Monday through Thursday, 5-10 p.m.; Friday and Saturday, unitl 10:30 p.m.; Sunday 4-9 p.m.

Entrees, $26-$42.

Wheelchair accessible.

About half the menu is naturally gluten-free, and gluten-free pastas are available to substitute for most any sauces.