Anastasi Seafood Ristorante
It is almost impossible to have heard of
will find dozens 
of produce vendors, butcher shops, Pat’s King of Steaks and Geno’s Steaks,
assorted stores and eateries. But located on the corner of
The seafood store features fresh fish and seafood daily. The fish are large, and can be purchased whole or cleaned. The shellfish are beautiful: enormous, clean, and meaty. Anastasi Seafood offers live crabs, male and 
female, of differing sizes, and live lobsters that are sure to satisfy the biggest of appetites. Even their homemade sauces are fabulous. Most important, I was unable to get a whiff of fish or seafood while walking through the seafood market. This reinforced my finding that everything was fresh.
I sat down with Mia Anastasi, the seafood market’s and restaurant’s manager, to learn more about Anastasi Seafood and the Ristorante. “Anastasi Seafood was established in 1907 by Thomas Anastasi….My father, Salvatore, is the current owner, but it’s a family run business,” she told me.
In 1996, Mia’s father opened the restaurant to provide his son, Thomas, a Culinary Institute of Philadelphia graduate, an opportunity to run his own kitchen. Thomas has taken the bull by the horns, creating a menu featuring seafood with an Italian flair. Indeed, Thomas creates all of the menu items from his own imaginings. None of the dishes are traditional family recipes, and everything is created from scratch at the time it is ordered.
Mia points out that everything is fresh and made on the premises. All of the vegetables come from the Italian Market, and the fish and seafood come right from
the store, of course. “You are receiving fresh, high quality food on the spot from across the street straight to the stove,” Mia boasts, and rightfully so.
“We’re a very inviting restaurant,” Mia says. “The servers are very friendly, outgoing, and have nice personalities. They’re also young—mostly in college.” These points are well taken, and all work to Anastasi Seafood Ristorante’s benefit.
The Ristorante only seats 35, but will handle small parties. They will provide food for catered events; however, they are unable to offer servers. The restaurant 
maintains a full-service bar that offers a small wine list featuring French,
The Experience
My girlfriend and I wander into Anastasi Seafood out of sheer curiosity, drawn by the fish display out front. The live crabs, lobsters, and fresh fish are enough to make anyone hungry. At first, we browse the displays of fish inside, not even realizing that there is a restaurant to be visited. The enormous salmon, bluefish, and flounder are each enough to feed a small family. The monkfish, trout, cod, and haddock fillets are fresh and cleaned. The tuna is mouthwatering, ready to be cut into steaks of any size. At this point, I notice that there is a bar behind me and tables with people eating at them. A bit amazed, I ask the fishmonger if we have walked into a combination seafood shop-restaurant. She replies with a large grin, "You have found the best of them all." My girlfriend and I smile to each other deviously since it is lunch time, and immediately walk over to be seated.
We are met by a vision who turns out to be Mia Anastasi, the manager, who seats us and hands us menus just before taking our drink orders. On the table are a small basket of oyster crackers and a cup of spicy horseradish for diners to enjoy.
The menu is filled with seafood delights, each containing an Italian twist. There are a number of delicious sounding ways to have crabs prepared, or to order 
my oysters along with steamed and fried seafood selections, a small raw bar, seafood salads, pasta preparations, and magnificent seafood entrees. My decision making will take some time today. I must choose wisely since we have dinner reservations this evening.
Mia returns with my water and my girlfriend's iced tea and tells us about today's specials. Oh no! More things to choose from! But, oh, what choices. She leaves so that we may consider all of the delectable selections in front of us.
My girlfriend and I discuss things and decide that we will share the Boiled Seafood Combination Appetizer for two which consists of calamari, shrimp, scallops, and crab on a bed of spinach in white wine sauce. After further conversation, we elect to follow this with the Lobster Pasta for two as an entree. This way, we rationalize, we will not eat large meals and will have plenty of room for our special 4th of July dinner tonight.
When Mia returns to take our order, I ask her, just to make sure, if the appetizer for two and entree for two on the specials list are enough for two. She responds, "Yes, they are just enough for two." I figure that this means they are small portions, perhaps tapas sized, and will be perfect for us. I order these two dishes and two glasses of Mezza Corona Chardonnay.
The Mezza Corona arrives first. It's not easy to get the mind around the idea of an Italian Chardonnay. For one thing, 
not the grapes. So "Italian Chardonnay" just does not roll off of my tongue easily. But Mezza Corona seems to have found a way around this: They figured out how to make a magnificent Chardonnay. This wine fills the mouth with ripe pear and apple flavors and just a soupçon of vanilla oak. This is quite delicious, drinkable, and a real steal at the wine shop. Unfortunately, here it is quite expensive.
While we wait for the food to arrive, my girlfriend and I chat with Mia, who has brought us a plate of marinated roasted peppers, to learn more about Anastasi Seafood and the Ristorante. Mia is a wealth of knowledge. She enlightens us about the wine list, the menu, and the seafood shop, and tells us a bit about the history of things. I am surprised to learn that Anastasi Seafood has been in the Italian Market since 1907, making it more than a business, but rather a landmark and an historical site. My girlfriend and I are very impressed by the high level of 
cleanliness in the whole establishment. There is not a whiff of fishiness in the either the store or the Ristorante, indicating that all of the seafood sold is very fresh.
Our appetizer arrives in....a lasagna dish! We are floored. Mia told us that this dish would serve two, not two battalions. And the dish is absolutely full of calamari hoods, jumbo shrimp, jumbo lump crabmeat, enormous scallops, and fresh green spinach in a white wine sauce. I am afraid of what the entree will be like if this is an appetizer. My girlfriend and I attack the appetizer with gusto. Oh, how fresh all of the seafood is! Each morsel has retained its own flavor, while the white wine sauce has taken on a melding of the whole. The calamari is soft, not rubbery. The shrimp are firm and fleshy. The crabmeat is succulent. And the scallops are as soft as warm butter. The spinach has picked up the flavors in the white wine sauce and serves as a remarkably appropriate medium for conveying these to the palate.
I taste the wine. The seafood flavors make a great pairing with the Chardonnay. The Chardonnay helps to bring out the finer points in the seafood and augments the delicate flavors of the spinach, as well.
Realizing that we may die if we try to eat another dish of food this size, I call Mia over and ask if she can change our entree order to a half order. She informs me that the order is ready, but that she will accommodate us. Such a last minute change is probably not outside of the realm of possibilities; however, for a restaurant to make the accommodation is wonderful. Remember, Mia does not know that I am writing a review. As far as she is concerned, I am just the average Joe off the street enjoying a meal in her restaurant. In any case, she gets extra points for this, especially since she did it with a smile.
After we finish the appetizer, we are given a few moments to rest, but only a few before the entree arrives. Sitting atop a mountain of rigatoni, crab, shrimp and scallops in a blush sauce is a whole split lobster tail that has been cooked in the same blush sauce. Had we received a whole order, we would have each exploded from the effort of trying to consume the sheer quantity of food. As it is, there is too much food on the plate, but we shall try.
The blush sauce is of the perfect consistence; it is thick enough to adhere to the pasta and the seafood without becoming the main 
attraction. Furthermore, it is rich with the seafood flavors and balanced with Italian seasonings. The seafood, as is to be expected, is fresh. The shrimp are jumbo, as they were in the appetizer. The scallops are of the same enormous size as before, and have been infused with the sauce, increasing their flavor. The crab has broken up in the sauce, adding its flavor to the overall package. The rigatoni is cooked al dente, and is of high quality pasta. It holds the sauce well and has absorbed the various flavors tremendously. The lobster, the grand finale, is divine. I may never use melted butter on lobster again; it is Italian gravy from here on out for me. The meat separates from the shell without a fight. Immersed in the seafood sauce, the lobster has gained another level of taste that sets my soul on fire. The seasonings' nuances each appear gently, caressing the lobster and augmenting its brilliant flavor. This is a treat indeed.
I taste the wine. Although not an ideal match, the seafood blush sauce and the Chardonnay do not clash. There is a slight alteration in the finish to the wine after tasting the pasta dish first, with a loss of the vanilla oak; however, nothing detrimental resulted. Here, I would probably select the Palladiane Montepulciano next time.
As expected, we are not even able to finish half of the entree having been served so much food. This means that dessert is definitely out of the question. We thank Mia for her generous hospitality, pay our bill, and leave.
Here is where I get to grade my dining experience. I grade on 5 factors: Atmosphere, Service, Presentation, Taste, and Value. These areas are scored on a 0 to 10 scale with 0 being the lowest and 10 being the highest.
Atmosphere: 9.5 Sitting in the midst of Anastasi Seafood is a truly interesting experience since it assures you that all of the fish and seafood that you are being served is fresh. You can watch the fishmongers at work, and buy ingredients after your meal for dinner tomorrow after you are done eating. There are few other places where this is possible. The cozy atmosphere, warm setting, and bright colored paintings make this an enjoyable place to eat.
Service: 10 Service was excellent. Mia went out of her way to make everything perfect, even going so far as to change our order at the very last minute after the food was already prepared. She smiled, she was polite, and she made us feel at home. We will definitely go back again; however, we will order smaller portions this time.
Presentation: 9 This was very hard to assign a rating to. You see, part of the appeal of Anastasi Seafood Ristorante is that it is simple. They do not need to use ornate presentations to sell the food. They let the food speak for itself. The aromas, the colors, and the enormous serving dishes tell of the food you are about to eat. Unfortunately, I grade based upon the eye appeal--how does the food feed the eye before it feeds the mouth. Here, Anastasi Seafood Ristorante is much better than average, but not over the top.
Taste: 10 There is very little that I can add here that I did not say above. Thomas Anastasi has obviously tested his recipes over many years of practice and has found that Seafood with an Italian twist is his niche. I truly must go back to experience the variations on crabs and oysters that he offers. The raw bar, too, intrigues my palate. Oh, heck, the whole menu tantalizes me! I'll just camp out in the Ristorante for a week or two. Mia, save me a table.
Value: 9.5 I have no complaints about anything that could be related to price except the wine. For this reason, and this reason only, I subtract half a point since many people choose to drink multiple glasses of wine with a multi-course meal. Otherwise, everything was of exceptional value, and as I said, I will definitely dine at Anastasi Seafood Ristorante again.
BUSINESS HOURS
Monday through Thursday 11:30 AM to 9:00 PM
Friday and Saturday 11:30 AM to 11:00 PM
Sunday 12:30 PM to 8:00 PM
Reservations are suggested.
Anastasi Seafood Ristorante
PH (215) 462-0550
FAX (215) 468-4465
30 July 2007