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Saturday,
December 22, 7:00 P.M.
Members $85, guests $110
The Italian Christmas Eve dinner is commonly referred
to as The Feast of the Seven Fishes, but if you ask
families to account for this custom, the explanations
are endless. Some Catholic families did not eat meat
on Christmas Eve, so the dinner became a feast of fishes.
As for the number seven, some say it’s related
to the Catholic church’s seven sacraments, others
to the seven deadly sins, the seven Wonders of the World,
or the seven days it took Mary and Joseph to travel
to Bethlehem. But one thing almost everyone agrees on
is that this feast is a collaboration of food, loved
ones, and tradition.
We asked Salvatore DiPalma,
chef/owner of the popular trattoria DiPalma,
to share his family tradition at the Beard House this
season, but we should warn you that in the DiPalma household,
seven is just a starting point, and dinner can easily
run to 25 dishes, most made with fish. Though the menu
is not set in stone, there are strong traditions, and
baccala (salt-dried cod) is one of them. Other
frequent choices are calamari, anchovies, smelts, clams,
mussels, and shrimp.
Seafood also features prominently on the menu at DiPalma.
“Wonderfully rich,” Philadelphia Inquirer
restaurant critic Craig LaBan
wrote of the lobster cannelloni, wrapped in tender sheets
of squid-ink pasta. Meats and pastas also received rave
reviews. Phyllis Stein-Novack
of the South Philadelphia Review called the veal
chop a “triumph,” and proclaimed the pappardelle
with fresh porcini, tomato, and veal essence “the
finest in town.”
Formerly the chef at Roscoe’s
Kodiak Café, DiPalma cooked with Martin
Yan while attending Johnson & Wales.
He fine-tuned his skills at The Ritz-Carlton
in San Francisco and at Laguna Beach, California, and
has shared kitchens with such heavyhitters as Guenter
Seeger, Paul Bocuse,
and Lidia Bastianich.
DiPalma says he’s really just a Philadelphia boy
at heart, and the proof is in his cheese steak. In a
competition to raise funds for Philabundance, DiPalma’s
version of this Philadelphia specialty (a simple combination
of grilled filet mignon, braised peppers, and Asiago
cheese) bested those of 14 chefs and teams from Philadelphia’s
Buddakan, The
Striped Bass, Philippe’s
at the Locust Club, and other star-studded
restaurants.
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