Alla Spina

Alla Spina is offering its normal $8 mortadella hot dog for just 99 cents this evening. Get there and get two, three, four, five, sixers! The 76ers will also be on TV in the Alla Spina lounge tonight.

Adam Erace embraces the gastropub food with Italian twists at Alla Spina where he finds Chef Damon Menapace and the rest of Marc Vetri’s team is clicking.

Smothered with the promised Bolognese (made with guinea hen), that poutine would make even the most traditional Quebec lumberjack’s knees buckle, and Vetri was not kidding about the fries. Cutting the canola fryer oil with rendered beef fat (a la the Dandelion) gave the golden-brown batons a round, satisfying meatiness. It’s a heart-stopping quartet, this amalgam of potatoes, gravy, cheese and tallow, but Alla Spina shows mercy with its sensible portions and newer section of vegetables, “overlooked at the beginning,” according to Menapace and born of Vetri’s dissatisfaction with the early menu’s kale salad.

Alla Board [City Paper]
Alla Spina [Official Site]

Alla Spina makes a man of Leah Blewett and she says that’s a good thing.

Yes, Alla Spina made me a man—because ever since my first meal there, I have been lusting after pigtails with a hunger I can only describe as masculine.

The menu’s charms don’t end there, which is a good thing given the size and scope, ranging from $6 “sotto aceti” house-cured pickles to a $75 whole roasted pig’s head for four. Those pickles, though bright and pungent, are almost unnecessary; most plates are so balanced that there’s no need to add additional vinegary bite. They do serve nicely alongside the pig pot pie, a puff pastry-topped casserole of meaty nuggets and creamy gravy that benefits from the snap and crunch of vegetables (recently, ramps, pearl onions and bell peppers).

Alla Spina Successfully Marries Italy, Inspired Bar Snacks and Craft Beer [Philadelphia Weekly]
Alla Spina [Official Site]

Starting tonight Alla Spina is offering happy hours twice nightly. Between 4:30 to 6 p.m. nightly and then again late night from 10:30 to midnight and even later on Fridays and Saturdays, where the deals will run from 11:30 p.m. to 1 a.m.

During the happy hours all draft beer is two dollars off, some wine is available for $7 and several of Alla Spina’s most fun snacks will also be discounted.

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All week long Alla Spina is offering The Saisonale, a week long salute to saison-style beers and a welcome to warmer weather. Saison beers are usually a cloudy gold color and make for easy drinking in warmer months. Saisons also pair well with food and though they developed in Belgium, the style has become popular with American and Italian brewers.

Some of the best examples of the style will be on display this week at Alla Spina

Check out the list of what will be featured »

Marc Vetri’s Amis has done plenty of industry nights for the downtrodden and (ostensibly) under-served cooks and servers and hostesses and dishwashers in this town. Most of the time, they pass by pretty much unremarked save by those who use them like life preservers to get through the more challenging weeks of La Vida–The Life, as measured by restaurant employees.

But tonight’s industry night is really something special, featuring the combined efforts of Tom Peters (owner of Monk’s and the Belgian Cafe), Fergus Carey (of Fergie’s) and the crew at Amis (with a little liquid help from their bretheren at Alla Spina). Imagine that a fast-moving Irish pub, piloted by a Belgian beer snob, were to crash violently through the front glass of an Italian birreria and you’ll have some idea of the kind of party that the Amis crew are cooking up–a three-way multicultural mash-up of booze and grub all put together for the benefit of starving line cooks (and the occasional beer rep).

The Menu, And More

Marc Vetri’s Alla Spina (meaning “from the tap”) opens tonight on Mt. Vernon Street, just off of Broad Street and next door to Stephen Starr’s Route 6. Vetri’s take on an Italian bar is very much about the fun but that’s not to say there isn’t serious food on the menu here.

The Food, Drink and Space »

Last night we were lucky enough to be invited to experience Alla Spina and sample pig tails, fried chicken, mortadella hot dogs and pretzels with the best cheese sauce we’ve ever been fortunate enough to have touch our tongues. But this post is about the beer, the exclusively brewed Victory Novello to be exact. The Belgian-style blonde is brewed with the same yeast as Victory’s uber-popular Golden Monkey but comes in at 7% alcohol by volume, a couple percentage points below the Downingtown brewery’s dangerous Belgian strong ale.

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Alla Spina is going to bankrupt us. It is going to destroy our relationships and make us fat. It has everything we want in a restaurant–interesting beers, fried pig tails, mortadella hot dogs, a cool bar, graffiti, a pig dressed in leg-warmers like Alex from Flashdance. The only saving grace is that the place isn’t closer to the office, because if it was, I’m pretty sure we’d be moving all Foobooz operations permanently to the 2nd floor mezzanine.

Alla Spina officially opens for business on Monday the 27th. Can you guess where we’re going to be on Monday night?

Marc Vetri and Jeff Michaud have been tweeting away about the progress being made at Alla Spina. The garage doors are in, the bar’s installed and the graffiti artist (yes, graffiti artist) almost has his art installation complete.

Here are some shots the various principals have been posting to Twitter.

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