Review of Via Locusta: Pasta magic on Rittenhouse Square from Michaud, Schulson and Co.

Jeffrey Michaud circulated through the buzzy dining room and amber glow of Via Locusta and sidled up to a table laden with truffled agnolotti, crimson curls of heirloom radicchio, and the familiar faces of some regulars from Osteria. One of them asked: “Are you wearing makeup?”

“Nah, another chef kneed me in the eye this morning,” said Michaud, 42, shrugging off his black eye with a nonchalance only a chef who sidelines as a black belt jujitsu instructor can. “The glancing blows always leave the biggest marks.”

The martial arts have no doubt landed some punches over the years. But Michaud’s chef life, by most measures, has been charmed since arriving in Philadelphia in 2001 to cook alongside Marc Vetri at Vetri’s eponymous restaurant. It’s an association that contributed to Michaud’s cooking interlude in Bergamo, Italy, where he met his wife, Claudia Cagnoni, to his triumphant return to cofound Osteria, winning a James Beard award (best chef Mid-Atlantic, 2010), writing a cookbook, and a piece of Urban Outfitters’ multimillion dollar purchase of the Vetri Family restaurants.

But if there’s been a glancing blow to Michaud’s enviable culinary career, it’s an unspoken sense that he’d been perpetually overshadowed, perhaps taken for granted by the brand-name recognition of his mentor and former partner.

Via Locusta, Michaud’s latest project with new partners Michael Schulson and Nina Tinari, represents a clean break for the chef to make a statement on his own. And any doubts over Michaud’s talent or vision can be summarily dismissed after some truly memorable meals in this stylish dining room off Rittenhouse Square, as one distinctive pasta after the next wrapped me tighter in the embrace of next-level noodles.

Springy garganelli quills are hand-rolled with grooves that grab a zesty all’amatriciana sauce sweet with onions and salty nuggets of guanciale. Smooth paccheri tubes crunch with toasted focaccia crumbs enriched by a citrusy anchovy butter whose briny savor conjured a seaside breeze.

A plate of doppio ravioli brings two-toned dumplings with divided centers that deliver with a double-barreled blast of flavors. The deeply fruity sweetness of wine-steeped figs. Boom. The creamy blue tang of molten Gorgonzola. Boom. Then one beautiful harmony as they melt.

Via Locusta is more than just Michaud’s story. It’s also about his collaboration with talented executive chef, Ed Pinello. It’s also about the beautifully designed compact room and slick service operation overseen by Schulson and Tinari.

The duo also partnered with Michaud to buy Osteria back from Urban Outfitters, investing a mint to rehab the space. I don’t prefer Osteria’s new vibe, which is darker, loungier, and more fern-bar corporate. But lowering prices (average checks now $10 to $15 less) and adding a solid happy hour while maintaining quality were smart moves to transition the North Broad Street landmark into more of a neighborhood standby role than exclusively a special occasion destination.

But Via Locusta, its name an Italianized version of its Locust Street address, has the fresh feeling of a concept tuned to the grazing ways and casual ethos of 2020. The lively mood manages to straddle both comfort (its servers in collarless Henley shirts, gray aprons and jeans) and the kind of Rittenhouse polish that feels like a cozy pasta-centric complement to neighboring Parc, the French brasserie owned by Schulson’s former employer, Stephen Starr, that occupies most of the ground floor of Via’s building.

Via Locusta is considerably smaller than Parc, at 40 seats plus 10 at the bar and an upstairs pasta production room that transforms at night into an intimate private dining space with a mezzanine view over the tony crowd below. But every inch of design reflects its Northern Italian theme, with Venetian plaster walls, rose marble at the bar, terra-cotta floor work, and cushy green velvet banquettes. Curvy-edged wall mirrors, subway tiles, and matchstick chandeliers conduct even more vitality to the space. Meanwhile, the restaurant’s only bathroom — one too few for such a busy place — is nonetheless a gem, a calming wood cabin of scented candles and artichoke photos that’s a quiet haven from Via’s pulsing din.

All that energy — well-oiled with Italian wines and cocktails shaded with house-steeped bitters — takes its cues from the cuisine, a vibrant take on Italian flavors built around 12 fairly priced pastas (almost all under $20), seasonal vegetable small plates, and a handful of mains intended for sharing. Contributions from both Michaud and Pinello, a veteran of Wm. Mulherin’s Sons and Il Pittore, are evident throughout.

Every meal should begin with the focaccia, the toasty round glistening with olive oil and fragrant rosemary is ideal with the creamy house farmer’s cheese, or a fermented sausage dip that’s tasty but has a raw pork look some customers may not warm to.

There are some beautiful seafood crudos to spark the palate, like the red snapper in Meyer lemon-horseradish vinaigrette with fennel fronds, or sweet Barnegat scallops with grapefruit in a clear acquapazza broth that tastes vividly of tomato and Fresno peppers.

The most compelling starters are rooted in great produce, like the salt-roasted Arrowhead cabbage that sits in a whey-enriched pool of warm Parmesan broth. Or the colorful crudité of tiny carrots, crunchy pears, and brassicas with agliata sauce, or the spectacular chicory piles of pink, red, and burgundy-speckled leaves that turn heads as they pass by like lush floral arrangements.

I wasn’t a fan of the roasted onion, too mushy with sausage stuffing. But the crispy, milk-brined romanesco fritto dusted with mint, dried chiles, and lemon zest and farmer’s cheese for dipping is my new favorite way to eat broccoli’s fancy cousin.

Vegetable garnishes are also key to elevating the otherwise familiar entrees. Minced fennel soffrito splashed with lemony prosecco vinaigrette brightens a juicy slice of swordfish. The concentrated sweetness of roasted tomato conserva, alongside a vibrant green dollop of whipped arugula puree, made the lack of sauce irrelevant with the 18-ounce strip, a tremendous bone-in chop whose beefy essence was intensified by dry-aging alongside the steaks for Schulson’s Alpen Rose.

Pinello’s superb suckling pig, a pressed square of crackery skin over fork tender flesh, found seasonal nuance in two shades of artichoke, braised Roman-style, and also candied to spicy-sweet mostarda. Even the chicken, usually a bore, was made memorable by a salt-roast technique that firmed and flavored the flesh, perched over a dark puddle of earthy porcini jus with the wine-red plumes of tardivo radicchio rising-up dramatically beside the bird like crunchy curls of bitter chicory flames.

Via Locusta’s essential appeal, though, is its stunning array of pastas, which are hand-rolled or extruded daily, and conceived with sauces that complement, rather than dominate the quality of the noodles, a craft Michaud has refined over research trips to Italy, and continuous tweaks to recipes to include more locally milled whole grains.

You can feel the luxurious texture of the wide fazzoletti as those perfect pasta sheets, glossed in brown butter, tug and snap against fried sage leaves and walnuts. The simple pasta water sauce is enriched and amplified by an egg yolk mixed in tableside with grated Piave cheese. Toothy rigatoni have a marvelous spring as they tumble into the Roman heartiness of braised oxtail ragù. The nutty savor of whole wheat adds a rustic grip to spaghetti that can stand up to a boisterous mince of peperoncini, a garlicky pepper blend of long hots, shishitos and dried peppers that fine-tunes the fruity heat to a bold-but-bearable spice.

I could eat the silky pappardelle with pork ragù every day, and actually afford it, at $16 a plate. But my favorite was among the most minimalist, a plate of quadretti ravioli stuffed with a stretchy buffalo’s milk variation on Taleggio (Quadrello), coated in a buffalo’s milk butter whose distinctive lactic tang magnified the cheese’s milky sweetness with every bite.

The desserts are limited to simple fruit crostatas and frozen scoops. But they’re well made, and offer the thoroughly-trained servers another chance to show off their menu savvy by suggesting smart pairings even for the gelati. Juicy blood orange sorbetti, it turns out, is brilliant beside herbal olive oil-bay leaf gelato.

The most memorable sweets, though, were the Ligurian-style baci di Alassio, the chewy little hazelnut-cocoa cookies sandwiched around rich ganache served as a parting gift. They offer just a glancing peck of sweetness. But as a final taste of Michaud’s impressive comeback, they leave a lasting mark.