Fishtown’s latest destination restaurant captures the beauty and warmth of the Mediterranean

It’s an icy Fishtown winter at the corner of East Susquehanna Avenue and Belgrade, a fact I’m all too well aware of after circling the blocks nearby for a rare parking spot, followed by a long and shivery walk to dinner.

Next time, I’m taking an Uber. But the intimate neighborhood setting is part of the charm of arriving at the Hotel Anna & Bel, a stylish 50-room boutique hotel created inside the 19th-century brick bones of the former Penn Asylum for Indigent Widows and Single Women. Once you step inside its polished checkerboard marble foyer, take a left turn for Bastia. A crackling fireplace beneath a painting of Venus beckons you into this buzzy restaurant from chef Tyler Akin, where the warmth of two Mediterranean islands — Corsica, Sardinia — has been conjured to radiate straight into your bones.

The sunny aroma of a Corsican hillside — an herbal “maquis” blend of calamint, wild sage, immortelle curry leaves, and wild thyme — perfumes the roasted pork belly fanned over flatbread, as well as the effervescent Corsican 55 cocktail made with Cap Corse vermouth blanc and cognac. There are pastas rolled into teardrop-shaped spizzulus that tumble with look-alike calamari rings in the golden glow of a saffron and orange sauce scattered with pine nuts. Akin has even managed to make sundried tomatoes cool again, drying 150 pounds of Midnight Romas this summer on the patio beside the Anna & Bel’s courtyard pool and preserving them in oil so he could grace his plates with a kiss of Philly-Med sunshine deep into November.

Philadelphia may appear to be fully saturated with Italian options, but its hunger for all corners of pasta culture is never truly exhausted. So a modern take on the foods of Corsica and Sardinia, two kindred but distinct islands, offers some exciting regional traditions to explore. The intricate pasta shapes of Italy’s Sardinia are unique, while the mountainous French isle of Corsica, just a 50-minute ferry ride north, has a cuisine rooted in rustic braises, coastal seafood, and chestnuts — a legacy of its period under Genoese rule.

Bastia has marked a fortuitous return to Fishtown for Akin, an alum of Zahav and Little Serow, who Philadelphians first got to know making phở behind the counter of Stock, his tiny East Girard Avenue storefront. He’s spent the past several years reviving the considerably grander dining room of the Hotel Dupont into the French-themed Le Cavalier in his native Wilmington. It’s a project he’s still in charge of, though he moved back to Fishtown to launch Bastia.

Akin has plenty of experience with Italian cooking. He was a key contributor to Philly’s modern Sicilian phase a decade ago with Res Ipsa (the now-closed BYOB that saw the emergence of chef Michael Vincent Ferreri, currently at Irwin’s), and made a research trip to Corsica and Sardinia last year. He captured enough of their essence to effectively anchor one of the area’s most intriguing new restaurant experiences, though my meals showed enough inconsistency to suggest this kitchen is still grappling with some details of execution.

Bastia, named for a city in Corsica, is already a full-package destination, with a long dining room inside the asylum’s former chapel that blends the rustic elements of exposed beams and a fireplace with clean modern lines and pendant lights that cast an amber glow over its 56 cushy seats (not counting the 14 beside an illuminated bar that runs the length of the room). There’s yet another cocktail lounge tucked in back, Caletta, which looks out through a glassed-in porch onto the hotel’s pool. It’s a worthy draw in its own right: The cocktails get more elaborate, the grilled lamb skewers thrill, and one of Philly’s best new burgers calls in all its tallow-basted, tapenade-garnished glory.

Beverage director Benjamin “Benji” Kirk, previously at Wm. Mulherin’s Sons, works beverage program magic on all sides of the operation. Bastia’s staff is well-versed on various regional twists on the drinks, from the myrtle-based liqueur that shades the Winter in Sardinia cocktail to a wine program that sources half a dozen producers from the islands, among other Mediterranean options.

The dining room staff is earnest and enthusiastic, including one who delivered each dish of a meal to our table with a dramatic slide step entrance worthy of an open mic emcee: “Hellooooooo! And these are your culurgiones!”

In case you missed it, culurgiones are among the “hot girl pasta shapes of 2025,″ according to my colleague Margaret Eby. Bastia’s version of these pleated Sardinian dumplings featured dough that was a bit too thick and gummy, and the sweet potato stuffing was too sweet for me, like a noodle-wrapped slice of Thanksgiving pie. (The culurgiones I ate last year, from Vetri and Scampi chef Liz Grothe, were both more refined.)

For the most part, pastas are Bastia’s strength, including the toothy, groove-shaped malloreddus buttons that cradled a ragù of house sausage dusted with fennel pollen, pistachio, and ricotta salata. The toasted Sardinian fregola shaped like pearl couscous are among the only pastas here not handmade (not yet, at least), but they basked in a full-flavored seafood broth with mussels and an anise-scented rib of confit fennel. The twisty quills of the trofie were memorable for the simplicity of their garnish, a sauté of mushrooms with pasta water, lemon, and marjoram that highlighted the firmness and well-formed spirals of the semolina dough.

The chef’s instinct to embellish tripped up some dishes. A broad slice of toast lathered with uni butter and topped with a skinny arm of grilled octopus was awkward to eat, while the combination obscured, rather than complemented, each element. (I still preferred it to the deep-fried octopus from an earlier visit whose mushy texture inside that crust was unappealing.) A richly braised osso bucco over lentils was glazed in an intensely reduced dark sauce that was borderline salty. The addition of briny green olive “cheeks” shingled over top — an admittedly eye-catching flourish — pushed it over the edge. Another dish, the gnocchetti sardi with pork ragù, suffered the same salty fate.

Speaking of cheeks, Akin’s treatment of meaty skate cheeks was consistently excellent, their crablike sweetness accented by creamy polenta and the savory spark of a chile crisp made from house-dried Jimmy Nardello peppers. The seafood dishes, in general, were standouts, including a Nantucket bay scallop crudo with a silky soubise puree of hakurei turnips and onions, salt cured olives, and the juicy brightness of Buddha’s hand lemon. A delicacy of langostinos — Akin’s best flavor approximation of the spiny lobsters he ate in Cap Corse — are lightly grilled and candy sweet over a savory curd made from preserved lemons bolstered by fleshy butter beans, mint, and Calabrian chile oil.

A whole orata was one of the most satisfying entrees, butterflied and covered with a tapenade of Castelvetrano olives beside grilled artichokes that are, Akin believes, the result of the busiest artichoke prep kitchen in Philly. I’ll give props to any kitchen that dives enthusiastically into trimming those spiky thistles, an unpleasant chore many chefs skip with shortcuts. It’s also essential to one of my favorite new salads, a mound of paper-thin shaved raw artichokes dressed with salsa verde and Parmesan beneath crispy sunchoke chips. The combination of bright acidity and textural crunch is a Mediterranean analog to the Southeast Asian papaya salads Akin used to make at Stock, his debut local project over a decade ago.

Skilled pastry chefs clearly remain a rare commodity in Philly, even for a project as ambitious as Bastia. A couple desserts — a sticky lump of undersweetened dark chocolate ganache and a gâteau Basque with taleggio overbaked to the consistency of a dense cupcake — were just not good. (The olive oil cake is a better bet.)

Akin has come a long way since his early days, even if his grand new restaurant still has some edges to smooth out. But Bastia already does so much right. So order a plate of malloreddus and the grilled langostinos, take a seat by that flickering fireplace, and have another drink from the bar — perhaps the rummy nocino and sherry elixir called What We Do in the Shadows? — to toast to Bastia’s continued culinary growth, and its already promising start.

Hotel Anna & Bel, 401 E. Susquehanna Ave., Philadelphia, Pa. 19125; 267-651-0269; bastiafishtown.com

IF YOU GO Dinner Sunday through Tuesday, 5-9 p.m.; Wednesday through Saturday, until 10 p.m. Breakfast Monday through Friday, 8 a.m.-2 p.m.; Saturday and Sunday, until 10 a.m. Brunch Saturday and Sunday, 10 a.m.-2 p.m.

Dinner entrees, $27-$48.

Wheelchair accessible.

Gluten-free options and modifications can be made, with gf pasta available, and care to avoid cross contamination.

A parking lot for hotel guests at 2408 Almond St. is also available for dinner guests, who should inquire about the access passcode in advance.