Kitchen Crazed

by A.D. Amorosi

If you’re Michael Moss -- one-time chef de cuisine for this city’s most prominent bastion of clubby privacy, the Union League -- the last place you might expect to work is the red-gravy-filled heart of South Philly. Yet that’s exactly where Moss, 28, wound up, taking over the legendary family-owned neighborhood pasta palace Priori’s for his debut venue, Cucina Pazzo. While the name means "crazy kitchen," Moss’ previous experience in the kitchen at the Union League (after a brief stint at Pompeii in 1998) was less than manic. "My specialty was classical French," Moss said of the considerably conservative League, where he headed up the menu between 1999 and 2001. "But I did Asian and Italian. The membership had become a lot younger and fresher at the time, so the taste had adapted to more fusion and contemporary styles."

There’s nothing stuffy, though, about his just-opened 40-seat bistro. While remembering his own Italian lineage, where life "revolves very much around food and the family kitchen," Moss bought into the heritage of another famous Italian family: the Prioris, Philadelphian purveyors of Old World cuisine for 85 years. "Their grandmother originally owned it," he says of the 10th and Wolf spot familiar to neighbors and suburbanites alike. "Everyone craves South Philly Italian cooking. Trends come and go in Center City, but people have always and will always come to South Philly for traditional Italian food." Moss has kept the look of Cucina Pazzo similar to Priori’s, with a rebuilt bar, rustic wood tiles, Tiffany-style lighting, exposed wooden beams and the same casual, warm style it’s always had -- but he has a contemporary menu. "It’s more upscale. But it’s not intimidating. We want to offer a more upscale regional Italian menu but with the comfort level of a traditional Italian home-cooked meal." So while he indeed offers pasta dishes and veal familiars suited to an Italian grandmother’s kitchen, Moss goes, too, for free-range chicken, sushi-grade tuna delicacies or spinach gnocchi in rich, gorgonzola cream sauce. Then there’s his favorite: Veal Ann. Like everything else Pazzo does, Ann is made fresh from scratch with goods grazed from his neighboring Italian Market. "Veal Ann? That’s something I’ve worked with over the years. Yet it isn’t a traditional dish." His grilled veal medallion with roasted jumbo shrimp stuffed with jumbo lump crab meat, finished with a lemon thyme veal reduction and portobella mushrooms, has become a surprise hit with the Pazzo audience looking not only for sophistication but also the sense of family that Moss’ food conjures up.

Cucina Pazzo, 1000 Wolf St., 215-755-5400.

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