{"id":288219,"date":"2026-09-17T15:42:09","date_gmt":"2026-09-17T15:42:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/288219\/"},"modified":"2026-09-17T15:42:09","modified_gmt":"2026-09-17T15:42:09","slug":"the-dish-the-art-of-italian-aperitivo-and-the-small-bite-from-bar-cicci-in-center-city-philadelphia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/288219\/","title":{"rendered":"The Dish: The art of Italian aperitivo and the small bite from Bar Cicci in Center City Philadelphia"},"content":{"rendered":"

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PHILADELPHIA (WPVI) — If you’ve ever had a pre-dinner drink and a small bite in Italy, you’ve probably already fallen in love with the Italian tradition of aperitivo.<\/p>\n

Now, you don’t need a ticket or a passport – just pop into the brand new Bar Cicci <\/a>in Center City Philadelphia.<\/p>\n

It’s an all-day aperitivo cafe, where you will feel like you stepped right into a bar in Milan.<\/p>\n

“A cicca is like a little thing, a little love, a little bite,” explains owner Ellen Yin. “Cicci is the plural of cicco.”<\/p>\n

And that’s what Bar Cicci on Sansom Street is all about. In Italy, those small, savory bites are called cicchetti, and they are enjoyed during aperitivo, an Italian pre-dinner social ritual.<\/p>\n

“I want them to feel like they stepped into an Italian bar, away from their stress,” says Yin.<\/p>\n

First, the sips.<\/p>\n

“You could start with a martini and go all the way to espresso or a shakerato,” she says.<\/p>\n

A shakerato is an Italian iced coffee made by shaking hot espresso, simple syrup, and ice together in a cocktail shaker.<\/p>\n

The James Beard Award-winning restaurateur says she was inspired by her Italian travels.<\/p>\n

“And then we took the team to Venice and Milan in February, and we did a whole cicchetti tour,” she says.<\/p>\n

Yin and her team then brought that culture, along with color-drenched Italian vibes and authentic little bites back home to Center City.<\/p>\n

“We have prosciutto and meats. We have cheese. We have 20 different types of bites at least,” she explains. “You could make a dinner of it.”<\/p>\n

At Bar Cicci, you can start the morning with coffee and one of their cornetti, a sort of Italian version of a croissant.<\/p>\n

“They have all different fillings, like pistachio and mortadella,” she says. “We have the maritozzi, which is the one stuffed with cream.”<\/p>\n

There’s also a creation of their own, the cannoli cruffin, where cannoli cream is stuffed inside the cornetti dough.<\/p>\n

Around lunch, sandwiches and other savory snacks join the party.<\/p>\n

And don’t miss dessert, like the Campari sorbetto with a side of prosecco.<\/p>\n

Copyright \u00a9 2026 WPVI-TV. All Rights Reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PHILADELPHIA (WPVI) — If you’ve ever had a pre-dinner drink and a small bite in Italy, you’ve probably…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":288220,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[119831,69,71,70],"class_list":["post-288219","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-119831","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288219","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=288219"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288219\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/288220"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=288219"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=288219"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=288219"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}