Serafina - 18th and Sansom St

I'm not at all familiar with the restaurants that the Serafina Restaurant Group has apparently made successful in NYC so when Serafina at 10 Rittenhouse was being built I had no idea what to expect.  I'd seen the construction going on for quite some time behind the yellow sign covered windows surrounding the space but that only had the name and an indication of a cuisine that included seafood on it.
As uninformed as I was, what was obvious was that whatever opened up here was going to be damn expensive being right at the center of Rittenhouse Square.  With that in mind, having just opened the other week, we decided to investigate the new guy on the block and broke open our piggy banks to give Serafina a try.

 The interior is in a L shape with the bar occupying the inner part and the tables arranged throughout the outer.   As you can see the exterior wall is made up almost entirely of large windows and it really makes it feel a lot roomier than it is.  I'm sure when it not too hot outside for them to open up the windows this effect is made even more so.  All in all it's a very pleasant space, well lit, cleanly decorated and decently spacious.

First we're offered complementary bread and olive oil to which we obviously agree to.  It was a nice crusty bread but not warm which was disappointing.  Didn't find anything that particularly stood out about the olive oil but I liked the bread with olive oil nevertheless and wish more places would offer this, I need my monosaturated fats!

 1) Di Sofia - $9.50
The menu says this is an Italian version of the classic ceasar.  What makes this Italian I have no idea but it wasn't enough to make me want to pay $10 for this salad ever again.  I mean seriously, lettuce, croutons, a slice of parmesan cheese and I hope at the very least, a homemade ceasar dressing.  They must be paying the rent with this salad.  [4/10]

 2) Penne ala Vodka - $10.75
Next up, penne in a vodka sauce or as the menu describes, Italian peeled tomato sauce with a touch of cream and Stoli Vodka.  The pasta was nicely al dente, as it should be and the sauce was good albeit sparse but again, like with the salad, what am I getting here for $11?  Are they using Stoli elit and creme from the milk of some endangered species?  I understand there's a premium to pay for where we're eating but these first two courses aren't even trying to make us feel better about it. [5/10]

3) Le Pizze al Salmone - $18.00
Finally we have our main course of Scottish smoked salmon and dill over mozzarella pizza.  Honestly, we were expecting to see a pizza the size of our previous plates but almost in spite of the bitterness that we had built up to this point it came in larger then what we expected.  Now for $18 you're still getting the equivalent of a small pizza at a normal pizza place but you won't find smoked salmon at any of those places.  We both felt that the size was satisfactory so onto the taste.  The smoked salmon was awesomely smokey... like I was chewing on a piece of apple wood smokey.  They really did a good job of infusing that flavor into the salmon and I think the fact that it was so very lightly cooked made it stand out even more.  The mozzarella was also great and it made even the bites where I wasn't getting salmon in enjoyable.  This is a well conceived pizza and the quality made the price seem secondary which was a nice change.  [8/10]

Overall LTE score [6.5/10]  The salmon pizza redeemed the score here.  I'm all for having a nice ambiance to eat lunch in but if you're spending $50 for 2 people to eat a lunch that you can make at home then there isn't enough ambiance in the world that would justify that expense to me.  Now as pricey as our lunch turned out to be we actually ordered the cheaper items of their respective menus.  Given that, I would say there is a possibility that if we really went all out we could have gotten something that would've really blown us away but I can only review what we ordered and le pizze al salmone was the only dish we felt that was worth the expense.

http://www.serafinarestaurant.com/serafina/philadelphia.html