Dinner at the Club
100 Years of Stories and Recipes from South Philly's Palizzi Social Club
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- $21.99
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- $21.99
Publisher Description
A Special Invitation to a Delicious Members-Only Experience
A hard-to-get reservation is prized among serious restaurant-goers, but a table limited to members only seems to be the Philadelphia diner's Holy Grail. Palizzi Social Club is 100 years old this year in South Philly, but it was after chef Joey Baldino took over from his late uncle Ernie that business really started to boom.
Palizzi has mastered the balance of old-school Italian kitsch and super-high-quality food and cocktails. Once a gathering place for the Abruzzi-American community, Palizzi Social Club is a current hot spot: members can take up to three guests, and if the light is on outside, they're open. In 2017, Palizzi was named Bon Appetit's #4 Best New Restaurant, Esquire's honorable mention best new restaurant, and Eater Philly's #1 restaurant of the year. Chef Joey's menu at Palizzi has a broad Southern Italian scope. Seventy adaptable, accessible recipes throughout include dishes like:
Fennel and Orange Salad
Arancini with Ragu and Peas
Spaghetti with CrabsStromboliHazelnut Torrone
Come on in, and join the club.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Chef Baldino and Erace (coauthor of Laurel) open the doors to Philadelphia's members-only Palizzi Social Club, with nearly 70 hearty Italian recipes, 13 cocktails, and numerous options for a Feast of the Seven Fishes. The club, founded in 1918 as a gathering place for male immigrants from the Abruzzo region, served a cuisine inspired by family traditions and the blue-collar joie de vivre of its neighborhood. Tomato and cinnamon-braised tripe is a mainstay not because it is often ordered, but because it represents the "community's past." One popular dish is macaroni and crab gravy intended to bring to mind summer vacations in South Jersey, the dish's tomato sauce is packed with blue crab, anchovy, and clam juice, balanced by white wine and brandy. Conversely, tagliatelle with lemon and bottarga employs a simple sauce of lemon juice and spices, but the noodles are golden thanks to a 20-yolk pasta dough recipe (it results in a pound and half of pasta, and the leftover egg whites can be used for a dessert, hazelnut torrone). The cocktail list includes the Bozzelli, a daiquiri-like quaff with habanero tincture, and Cocchi Americano, an aperitif wine with a history back to 1891. Old-world flavors and heartfelt presentation make for a delicious mix in this rare look inside a South Philly institution.
