Italian restaurants serving handmade pasta are a dime a dozen in Philly—both now and for the past 100 or so years. And like every baseball bat-sized salami swinging in the Italian Market, most aren’t discernible or memorable. Scampi, the relaxed Queen Village supper club and BYOB, is both. The ever-changing tasting menu is an impressive, rotating showcase of Italian regions, and sometimes a little closer to home, like New Jersey Italian. Between courses, the chef/owner gives you a detailed yet lighthearted spiel about everyone. By the end of your meal, you’ll know just as much about the balsamic vinaigrette dowry system in Emilia-Romagna as what a perfect cacio e pepe tastes like. The pink and green dining room is decidedly casual—could it be the framed cat photos?—but the dishes are precise, and prove that this former pop-up is ready to play in Philly’s Italian cuisine big leagues.
Pasta makes up most of the $115 per person, five-course dinner, but there are non-noodle guest stars that kick things off, like a luscious caesar toast or aged prosciutto with pear mostarda. But occasionally, they exchange their prix fixe menu existence for an a la carte one (check their Instagram for the latest). Groups celebrate birthdays to the tune of Whitney Houston and three bottles of red, and a couple compares their earthy bowl of plump balanzoni to the one they had on their Florentine honeymoon (verdict: Scampi’s is better). You’ll find cohesion throughout the meal—the aforementioned prosciutto makes appearances in both the tortellini and lasagna, for instance—and you’ll be Garfield-after-a-kitchen-raid-stuffed by the end of the two-hour run.
There are plenty of spots serving spaghetti these days, but Scampi isn’t like every pasta place in Philly’s vat of red sauce restaurants. Dinner here will reignite the spark in your love affair with pasta—and leave you doing the math on how much aged balsamic it would take to book a flight to Bologna.
Food Rundown
The menu changes monthly, but here’s what you can expect to see.
Prosciutto Di Parma And House Made Bread
We’ve had this 16-month aged prosciutto with fluffy housemade duck fat tigelle, duck rillettes, and whipped pesto butter topped with pear mostarda. The meat is melt-in-your-mouth thin with a delightful subtle saltiness. The only downside is that now, anytime we see an English muffin, we’re sad it’s not this tigelle.
video credit: NICOLE GUGLIELMO
Tortellini En Brodo
Key-hole shaped, belly button-sized pasta in a clear broth that’s simultaneously light and super savory. And smoky. And delicious.
photo credit: NICOLE GUGLIELMO
Cacio E Pepe
Cacio e pepe is the creamy, peppery pasta standard. And this one doesn’t disappoint. How do we know? Because we saw someone scraping the bowl with the housemade foccacia to get every last nutty, buttery drop. And yes, someone is us.
photo credit: NICOLE GUGLIELMO
Balanzoni Di Zucca
These have the same shape as the tortellini. They’re just larger and made with a spinach dough that gives it some earthiness. Each pouch is stuffed with tender acorn squash, and the entire dish is topped with Pennsylvania black walnuts that have been toasted in brown butter. The result? A pasta that makes us want to book a trip to Northern Italy to learn its origin story.
photo credit: NICOLE GUGLIELMO
Fettuccine Alfredo
Strands of fettuccine are tossed with mega-rich sauce and slivers of Parmagiano Reggiano. It will please even the most adamant alfredo purist.
photo credit: NICOLE GUGLIELMO
Lasagna Vecchia Scoula
After eating this lasagna with reckless abandon, we left with a bolognese-stained sweater and no regrets. Instead of a towering lasagna, it’s more like a short stack of soft, supple sfoglia verde pasta. It’s salty and savory from the fried prosciutto and bone marrow, but the besciamella is so creamy that it’s also downright smooth.
photo credit: NICOLE GUGLIELMO
Tiramisu
The tiramisu is a menu mainstay, but we’re confident it will never get old. Scampi ditched the ladyfingers for a moist housemade mocha chiffon cake. It’s also layered with mascarpone anglais, cocoa powder, and a layer of Frosted Flakes. It’s cake-y, coffee-y paradise on a plate–with a little crunch.
photo credit: NICOLE GUGLIELMO
Dining and Cooking