"There’s only one restaurant in town serving a fantastic, five course, $100 tasting menu while My Chemical Romance plays, and that’s South Philly’s Heavy Metal Sausage Co. The deli-by-day, trattoria-by-night is laidback, to say the least—there’s a meat case in the dining room and a skeleton figurine in a Santa suit by the window—but they take their food seriously. The chef in the open kitchen talks about picking seeds out of the raisins going into the tomato-y confit tuna fettuccine, milling the polenta that serves as a creamy mattress for the goat ragu, and why nepitella is the perfect herb to amp up salsa verde. The result is unexpected, incredible dishes—like the beet gelato—that you won’t find at other Italian spots in town. The restaurant has perfected a couple of things: comforting yet complex food, and helping us relive our garage band fantasies for just one night." - candis mclean, alison kessler