Photos are here:

http://www.dentalcom.net/forum/showthread.php?t=1936

Restaurant Details

The Singing Chef, Frank Borda, draws wine from one of the barrels stored in
a nearby basement. His partner, Lou Gentile, is behind him.

http://ae.philly.com/images//31/46/04-18-2005-08:31:46:219-franco2_270x.jpg

With a side of opera

Rick Nichols
Philadelphia Inquirer
Published: Sunday, April 17, 2005

On the waist-high, wrought-iron trellis, the bunches of red-neon grapes have
been lit, and, at edge of the balcony, the accordionist is squeezing off his
first lush, anticipatory chords.

It is Thursday evening - open-mike night - at South Philly's warmhearted
Franco & Luigi's Pastaria, and the curtain, if there were a curtain, is
about to go up.

Soon, the full-throated arias of Puccini and evocations of the great Caruso
will fill the 57-seat dining room. Waiters (some of them voice students)
will break into song. And Milton Sadler, celebrating his 85th birthday, will
gamely take a turn - no, two turns - at the mike.

In due course, often in mid-lyric, the kitchen will disgorge hungry-man
platters of crisply fried scallops and calamari, grilled zucchini and
roasted red pepper, penne with prosciutto, and Veal Evita, a supremely
satisfying house specialty involving tender strips of veal and portobello
mushrooms in a sweet marsala blush sauce draped thickly over veal-and-feta
ravioli "with a hint of sage."

And if there are moments when the whole enterprise seems about to veer
jarringly into kitsch (tambourines shivering, refrains of "Mamma" soaring),
it is rescued each time - made touching and genuine - by the sincerity of
the assembled amateurs and the pure, unbridled passion of the music.

This is folk opera at its rawest, and most robust, the small, sweet world of
co-owner Frank Borda: He's the extroverted "Franco" to partner Lou Gentile's
quieter "Luigi."

Borda has anointed himself Philadelphia's Singing Chef
(www.philadelphiassingingchef.com), a character for whom he has bigger, you
might even conclude slightly grandiose, aspirations - maybe a TV cooking
show or civic ambassadorial roles (a la actor Ralph Archbold's ubiquitous
Ben Franklin), or sprawling Puccini dinners and a Singing Chef cookbook.

As an 8-year-old at 10th and Tasker (three blocks from the 13th and Tasker
corner held down by the pastaria), he tells me, he was already sneaking off
to buy recordings of Mario Lanza: "You'd hide it," he says. "My cousin found
out once. He ripped open my bag and was like, 'What's wrong with you?' "

But there's a deep strain of opera-loving in South Philadelphia. (Indeed,
the idea for Franco & Luigi's open-mike night comes straight from Victor
Cafe around the corner.)

And after studying voice (he's a tenor) at the Bryn Mawr Conservatory, he
fell in with more appreciative devotees - Frank Munafo, the Ninth Street
butcher (currently sidelined), Phil Mancuso, the ricotta cheesemaker (still
a weekly regular), and legendary Enrico DiGiuseppe, a retired tenor at New
York's Metropolitan Opera.

Borda's singing and cooking occupied different spheres at first. He had a
pizza place at Seventh and Federal in the 1980s, and sang in Lyric Opera
Company performances at the Venus Lounge.

But when the candy store adjoining his later 13th and Tasker pizza shop
became available nine years ago, he merged his passions, decorating the new
pastaria with photographs of opera greats and cooking in his signature red
apron.

He holds forth for an aria or two almost every evening from the room's
makeshift stage. But it is on Thursdays that the place can turn magical: On
the upper level, the usual suspects huddle, lubricating their pipes with
smooth ruby cabernet that Borda stores in oak barrels in a nearby basement.

At the lower-level marble tables, you may find surgical residents from
Temple still in their scrubs, a butcher from the Reading Terminal with his
family, a brand-new 85-year-old, and, on this particular evening, newlyweds
in from Mankato, Minn., their eyes full of wonder.

The macaroni itself is homey stuff, most of it made by Nino's, the grocery
and pasta-maker at 12th and Mifflin. The plates are profoundly simple -
linguine with mussels, shrimp scampi, chicken parmigiano.

But even though you can see it coming, even though it is familiar fare,
Borda's launch into "O Sole Mio," can catch you by surprise - the accordion
swells mightily, and now, in his flat cap, Phil Mancuso is up next to Borda,
and then so is Joe Curci, and they sing their Everyman hearts out.

For a moment in this small corner of South Philadelphia, visions of grandeur
don't seem out of place at all.