Chow Now: Serpico

PC: Design Bureaux
PC: Design Bureaux

Looking for a delicious dinner? A meal that will leave you begging for more? A supper that’ll you walk away from satisfied, but slightly confused? Well that’s what I got when I walked into Serpico–a playful, dinner-only restaurant located at the heart of South Street.

Instead of the traditional bread course, our meal at Serpico started off with an enormous rice crisp sprinkled with sesame seeds and flax.

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The shaved pigs’ head was rich, smooth, and artfully presented on top a layer of spicy brown mustard. Like seemingly everything at Serpico, the charcuterie was made in house.

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Our first small plate was a small dish of corn ravioli. Each tender orb of pasta was stuffed with smoky bits of chorizo and creamy Mexican cheese. The pasta itself was earthy and smooth—it was the perfect compliment to the lime-infused sour cream lining the bottom of the dish.

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And oh, man… that long hot ramen. The noodles were thick and chewy, scattered with lightly pickled peppers, and bathed in a deeply savory broth. A scattering of nori powder upped the umami to a truly luxurious level, while the broth itself was infused with a puree of long hot peppers—blurring the traditional lines between Philadelphia and Asia. The decadently runny egg we broke open before digging in was—in a sense—the cherry on top.

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Next came the first large plate—rich beef short rib wrapped in a sticky-sweet sauce vaguely reminiscent of hoisin. It came scattered with grilled broccoli that still held a bit of crunch, but it was nothing compared to the fried potatoes’ fiercely crisp exteriors.

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We finished off with a dose of vegetables. It was listed on the menu as simply “lemon puree, stewed onions”, but explaining the dish that was would be like reading The Iliad via Sparknotes. A bright and silky lemon puree layered the bottom of the plate and sweet simmered onions were scattered among the other vegetables, but earthy celery root, crisp bok choy, and thick, woodsy mushrooms were the stars of the plate.

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Everything we ate was delicious. But just like looking at a piece of art for the first time, I felt like I had missed so many of the details. As I walked out the door onto South Street I knew one thing for sure—I would be back for another visit.

-Chase Matecun

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