LaScala's FIRE - University City — Restaurant in Philadelphia

Menu looked excellent, and the actually food was ok. Stuck to the appetizers and pizza. Was happy with the mussels, and the hot Italian pizza. I do have some complaints however. Host at the door was not friendly. Told us there would be a 30 minute wait for a table in a restaurant that was 35% occupied. She said this was because of reservations and offered us a seat at the bar. The remaining bar seats weren't doing for me so I said thanks, we'll find somewhere else to eat. Nothing personal, I just didn't want to wait and also didn't want to eat at the bar. Suddenly she was able to find a seat. We watched as the other tables remained completely empty during the entire course of our dinner... Sitting next to the bar, I noticed an interaction between what seemed to be the manager and bartender. She came out scolding him about an order to the kitchen saying "a side? A side of what? The kitchen doesn't know what the hell you need" he told her he didn't know how to request a side of dressing, so he just pressed the side button. To me, she embarrassed and belittled him in front of many customers. She seemed very unpleasant and probably terrible to work with. They charge a 3.5% fee for using cards. I'm always paying your workers salary via tipping, now I also have to pay your operating costs. I don't return to restaurants that charge for using cards. I can understand if there was threshold i.e. less than $40 but adding $7 to my $200 feels wrong. Even the worst atms don't charge that much. "Due to economic changes" they say. No, tell the truth "our merchant service provider charges us for taking credit cards and we think you the customer should pay that." Lastly, our server Anthony was great....

If you just want the headline, here it is: I’d return happily, but not enthusiastically.

LaScala’s Fire has 11 locations, from the Philly suburbs down to the Jersey shore (and one in Princeton). We visited the one in University City. The layout and design is to my taste - subway tiles and a bit of a labyrinthine layout that allows tables to be separated to give a bit of privacy. It makes looking for your waiter a bit challenging, but ours was attentive enough so that it wasn’t really an issue.

The restaurant’s own description features its pizza, which we didn’t have. The menu isn’t particularly long, but has the kind of fare you’d expect at an Italian restaurant, with a few surprises.

We started with the Tuscan wings and the Brussels Sprouts. OMG they were fantastic. The wings had a crispy skin and a Parmesan cheese topping that was yummy. The sprouts were some of the best I’ve had. We shoulda stopped there.

I think someone kidnapped the chef and replaced him/her with a culinary arts student who was following an internet cookbook. The chicken piccata was as uninspiring as it gets. I was particularly appalled at the sauce, which has lemon flavoring, but it looks and tastes like a paste thickened by flour or cornstarch. My friend’s gnocchi was like little pasta nuggets covered in a basil marinara. Those suckers would come in useful in a food fight.

The lemoncello cake was a nice desert (but I doubt they make their deserts in-house, though they’ve found a good partner).

The restaurant deserves a second chance. I’ll probably dream about those first course choices for weeks to come. Plus, the layout and design is really clever. Maybe the pizza is...

I heard about LaSCALAS when my son got accepted to UPenn . We decided to give it a try as we were celebrating with family. we entered this nice place and we had the best server named Brion who made our experience the best. He made tons of recommendations and all of our selections were on point. Brion had a warm disposition and became part of our family during this time. If you want a great experience and service, ask for Brion. The food is unbelievable, the portions were so big we had to box up most of it. The appetizers were great, started off with calamari, truffle fries, cheese steak egg rolls and a ricotta board. veal and chicken piccata was phenomenal!! I had the Seafood Fra Diavolo and I wished I had ordered two so I could have it for next week. I ended up ordering the Wild Mushroom Truffle pizza to go. You can not go wrong with anything on the menu. I look forward to traveling to PA and visiting LaSCALAS .. I mean visiting my...