Trying One of Philly’s Top New Pizzerias

Marc Vetri has been widely recognized as one of Philadelphia’s greatest chefs for a quarter-century. His self-named Vetri Cucina has arguably been the city’s best restaurant for nearly as long. He also opened a couple pizzerias, among other things, at one point but sold those off a few years back. 

Thankfully, he is back with another go at a pizza-themed restaurant; this one called Pizzeria Salvy; named after his father, Sal Vetri. After a planned lunch there the previous week with my former colleagues Nancy and Francisco had to be postponed, we managed to meet up Friday to see if Vetri’s new pies would live up to our high expectations.

The restaurant is situated in the Comcast Technology Center, which is in Center City and is Philadelphia’s tallest building. With an assist from one of the lobby guards, I was able to find the restaurant in the building’s lower level. It has an open and extremely casual set-up – kind of like something you’d expect to see at an airport.

The three of us were so busy catching up with each other that I forgot to photograph the menu, which included a selection of appetizers and salads. After discussing the options, we decided to stick with pizza.

While I thought a pair of 12-inch pies would be enough food, Nancy insisted that we try three flavors for the benefit of this blog post. She loves pepperoni, so we requested it on half of a South Philly Margherita pie. We also ordered a Fiorella sausage and peppers pie. Fiorella’s was a sausage butcher near South Philadelphia’s Italian Market that was in business for over a century. Vetri now owns a pasta restaurant in the space that it occupied. 

For the third pizza, we wanted to try something white and had our options down to a clam pie and the Ode to Sweet Onion Crepe. We decided on the former but didn’t notice that it had been deleted from the menu, leaving us no choice but to go with the latter. It’s named after a legendary dish that is served at Vetri Cucina. My wife and I sampled it both times we ate there, and each of us considered it to be among the best things we’ve ever eaten. 

The pizzas arrived almost shockingly fast. They must use an extremely hot oven that cooks them very quickly. 

Somewhat surprisingly, we all agreed on which of the three we liked best and least.  

Our top choice was the sausage and peppers pizza. The finely chopped roasted peppers mixed beautifully with the flavorful ground sausage, zesty sauce and high quality Mozzarella. 

We also were extremely fond of the Margherita pie. I didn’t have any with pepperoni, but the plain side was fantastic.

Given how great the original sweet onion crepe at Vetri Cucina is, we had extremely high expectations for the white pie, but we were all disappointed. While I love white pizza with Mozzarella and caramelized onions, this one featured Gruyere with truffle and Parmesan fonduta. Something about that flavor combination was slightly off for us.

For all three pizzas, the charred crust was wonderful both in terms of texture and flavor. It was also plenty sturdy.

In spite of the one minor disappointment with the white pie, the other two and the crust generally left us extremely impressed. Salvy is more than worth the time and commute for any Philly-area pizza lovers.

After we had finished our lunch, Nancy suggested that we take the elevator up to the Four Seasons Hotel lobby on the building’s 60th floor to check out its great view of the city. It was a high speed elevator that I probably wouldn’t want to take on a regular basis, but the view we were hit with when we arrived in the lobby was spectacular enough to make me quickly forget about any minor dizziness. 

I’ve never seen the city from such a vantage point before and it was pretty spectacular. 

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I’ll be back with a cheesesteak post Wednesday or Thursday. I anticipate releasing my top 20 list of the Philly region’s best steaks around the middle of next week.