Personal chef Landi Prendi opens Valentina, handmade pasta restaurant in Fairmount

Landi Prendi is turning a long-held dream into a Fairmount dining room of his own, taking over the former Figs space at 2501 Meredith Street for Valentina Italian Ristorante, a BYOB focused on handmade pasta.

The opening gives the neighborhood a chef-driven Italian destination with a personal backstory baked into the menu. Prendi, who grew up in Albania and worked in Southern Italy before coming to the United States in 2001, has spent more than two decades building a career that has reached Philadelphia, New Jersey and Toronto. He has also published three books on food, wine and poetry, including Dancing with Nature: Poems about Food and Wine.

Valentina is named for Prendi’s mother, and that family connection is the restaurant’s clearest point of difference. Prendi has said one of his earliest cooking memories was learning to make pasta by hand with her, and that lesson now shapes the concept he is bringing to Fairmount. The menu is expected to lean heavily on handmade pasta dishes, along with small plates and desserts, in a room that will operate as BYOB.

Prendi’s current business already points toward the restaurant’s wider role. His PastaPlus by Landi brand includes private dining and group cooking classes, and Valentina is set to extend that side of his work into a brick-and-mortar setting. Monday cooking classes are planned at the restaurant, with regular fine dining the rest of the week and brunch on weekends. That mix should make Valentina more than a dinner reservation, giving guests a place to eat, learn and return.

The project also arrives with neighborhood history attached. Figs operated at 2501 Meredith Street for about 25 years and had long been one of Fairmount’s best-known BYOBs before owner Salvatore De Cristofaro sold it to Prendi. The space is being updated with paint and décor changes ahead of a grand opening targeted for the end of May.

Fairmount already has a strong BYOB identity, including Italian spots such as A Mano, which helps explain why Prendi’s class-friendly pasta room fits the block so naturally. In a city where diners already know the pull of a good BYOB, Valentina is aiming to add something more specific: a handmade-pasta restaurant that carries a family name, a chef’s biography and a neighborhood’s dining history into one address.