South Philly’s Marc Vetri is mine and your favorite Italian chef. He’s won James Beard Chef awards. His fazzoletti with duck ragu is the item I’d be buried with if they allowed food in coffins. His Vetri and Osteria are among the finest Italian restaurants in this half of the United States. He hasn’t gone corporate or multi-restaurant mad, despite top-dollar offers. And he won’t say much about the rumor I dropped in a November Icepack mentioning that a Kimpton/Falcon Hotel at the Robert Morris building at 17th and Arch would house a Vetri restaurant on its ground floor. What he is up-and-adamant about is his Il Viaggio di Vetri: A Culinary Journey.

This coffee-table-size tome doesn’t just drop a tasty dime on around 120 of his most fantastic dishes. In the book, he also Vetri talks about his love of culinary exploration, as well as his desire to credit all the master chefs he worked with and apprenticed under, in both America and in the Bergamo region of the old country.

Vetri’s doing a free reading and book signing at the Free Library’s Central Branch (1901 Vine St.) tonight, Tue., Jan. 20, at 7:30 p.m. I caught up with him beforehand.

Meal Ticket: The book is very generous to the chefs you worked with in Italy in the ’90s. That’s refreshing, really. In this flash-in-the-celebrity-chef-pan planet, your lack of self-credit and understatement is rare. How do you think that works to your advantage? Do you think that’s what makes Il Viaggio di Vetri stand out among the gazillion other Italian recipe volumes?

Marc Vetri: I really don’t look at things like that. I just kind of do what I feel. So, when you ask how will it help me? … I can’t not credit people who have made such an impact on my life.  I’ve made a lot of decisions at this restaurant that people would assume would actually work against me … no PR firm, for starters. It just works for me, [but] maybe not so much for someone else, since PR is such a big aspect of the industry. As for the book, I just wanted to tell a story and share some recipes. The fact that people find my story interesting still boggles my mind. Of course it’s interesting to me … I went through it. But to others? I never really thought about it. I do think that people are touched by stories, It draws them to things, makes them reminisce about heir own lives and feel good. I think that’s what people like at Vetri. It wraps you up like a warm blanket the moment you walk in. It’s a feeling you have when you go to a friend’s house for dinner. People need to be touched in this way.

MT: The gentlemen you worked with in Italy — have they read the book, and do you know what they think?

V: I went over there in October to present the book to them. They were so emotional. I brought each of them big photos of some shots in the book. The boss, who is the leader of the pack, called me the next day. We were in the mountains hiking up to this restaurant where we had a really rustic lunch with Marco — from the book — [Vetri/Osteria co-owner] Jeff Benjamin and Brad [Spence, chef at Vetri]. He just had to tell me how overwhelmed he was, and that I couldn’t possibly understand what this meant to him. He said that he rarely sheds tear for anything, but he was so overcome that he noticed himself wiping tears from his eyes. Then, while Marco and I were finishing coming down the mountain, we were talking about it a bit. For me, it was like paying these people back for what they gave to me. For them, it was the most amazing gift, [but] for me it did not even scratch the surface of the debt that I owe them.
 
MT: You’ve stayed in Philly without moving to AC or NYC. I like your rooted-ness. Where does that come from?

V: It just feels right here. Not to say I wouldn’t go somewhere else — [but] Philly just feels comfortable, with all of its quirks. It’s just home.

MT: Think you’d have stayed here if Philadelphia had not truly blossomed as a restaurant town?

V: I think so. There [are] always people who want to eat good food and have a great experience, even if it wasn’t such a restaurant town. I don’t think Kennett Square [home to Talula's Table] is much of restaurant town, but there are still people who want and need good food, and good places to create community.  That’s the most important thing: community.
 
MT: Ever dance with the red gravy devil? Certainly the food at Vetri is never about that — so how, in your mind, can it be done right?

V: I was raised on that stuff. I love it. I love going to D’Angelo’s on 20th Street and getting ziti with meatballs and broccoli rabe. When it’s done right, there is nothing better. I just choose to cook a different kind of food in a different kind of atmosphere. I would never diss good old fashioned macaroni and gravy.
 
MT: So what’s in your fridge? And what, since this a practical cookbook, is the best, most versatile ingredient one should have to create a Vetri-like meal?

V: I have two kids, so this is not a good question — soy milk, cereal, chicken nuggets, frozen pizza, oatmeal, grain bars and lots of goldfish. One ingredient — good olive oil.

MT: I love how elegant simplicity is the key to your food. How can people learn that? How should new chefs avoid overcomplicating things?

V: Chefs get caught up the food world, I can’t have a conversation with a young cook without hearing [terms like] “protein station,” “fish programs” and “oui, chef.” How about “meat station,” “What are you using for fish now?” and “OK Marc”?  [When] people are wrapped up in the formality of cooking, they lose all the passion, flavor, heart and soul of food. If you really want to appreciate something, you need to go to the root. Go to a slaughterhouse, watch an animal be killed and watch the process of what happens to all of its parts. Then, when you are making something with a piece of meat, you can understand where it comes from, have respect for the animal and the process and make something beautiful with it. This goes for fish, vegetables, meat, poultry … two and three ingredients on a plate, cooked perfectly and balanced to bring out the flavors of the ingredients. That’s it. No big secret.

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