She wandered into the dining room in a turquoise skirt and a diamond chip bracelet that gave her broad smile a sparkle beyond her year.
Gisella Kauffman, 14 months old and already waving to guests like a pro, greeted us like she owned the place. Which, in a manner of speaking, she does.
Tre Scalini is the popular Italian BYOB that her grandmother, Franca DiRenzo, started 12 years ago at 11th and Tasker. And Gisella has Franca in her pocket.
Especially since the big move.
Granted, it was only a four-block jaunt south, from one bustling but tight bilevel space to another slightly nicer, more generous bilevel space. The same devoted legions of wine-toting fans drive from Center City and the Main Line. And Franca still cooks the same menu and nightly specials she's cooked for years, inspired by her native Molise in south-central Italy.
But the new address really did open a new chapter for Franca. Tre Scalini is a restaurant built on a culinary tradition handed down through generations of Molisana women. At one point, three generations of DiRenzo women worked together, fussing over the delicate gnocchi, sauteeing garlicky broccoli rabe for the grilled polenta, kneading the square-edged spaghetti alla chitarra to its perfect toothsome give.
But within a week of opening the new place on Jan. 25, Franca's mother, Adelina Scarduzio, passed away at 93. Franca was now the nonna on the spot.
"Since my grandmother's passing," says Franca's daughter Francesca, who manages Tre Scalini, "my mother has become even more protective of Gisella. It has given her more of a purpose here."
I've always loved the food at Tre Scalini, whose straightforward trattoria menu is neither trendy, seasonal, updated, nor frequently changing. It is an authentic repertoire of worthy family recipes passed down as is, and prepared each day with a ritual simplicity that helps fine ingredients shine, be it an Esposito veal chop, or Talluto's fresh pastas.
But I could actually taste a difference in my recent meals from my visits a few years ago. There's an extra focus and clarity to the flavors, a certain restrained grace that only comes from the patient care of a nonna's touch.
Take the chicken Veneziana, for example, a dish that many chefs would turn into rubber bits buried in a mound of mushrooms. DiRenzo's chicken, though, was velvety tender, the meat radiating the sweetness of roasted garlic and good olive oil.
