It hasn’t been a quiet season for Italian food, but there was one low-key opening that didn’t have every prosecco-soaked food writer in town scampering after a celebrity chef. Azzurra EnoTavola is Marty Fosse’s fourth extant restaurant, and the first of those to open outside his Andersonville stronghold, anchored by pan-Italian Anteprima. If Fosse—a front-of-the-house veteran of Spiaggia—is harboring dreams of an empire, he need only rebrand his likable flagship and sail it out to neighborhoods all over the city.
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There’s a lot about Azzurra that feels like Anteprima: tin ceiling, superfluous doors and empty windowpanes, and bright, sunny walls hung with blown-up Italian postcards. If it strikes its own visual identity it’s from the ceiling fixtures, made from antique Victrola horns, and tables painted the deep shade of Mediterranean blue that the restaurant is named for. The menu is like Anteprima’s too, with some familiar dishes, and it brings together a similar diversity of options without ever appearing unfocused. At Azzurra, there is much touting of chef Katie Kelly’s hands-on approach to everything from sausage to yogurt to pasta to vinaigrette; anything “fatti in casa” is helpfully emboldened on the menu. If you find yourself lost, it’s not a bad decision to focus on those.
Like the pastas, second courses are less numerous than the smaller plates. They include simple meats such as a disintegrating lump of Chianti-braised short rib atop a soothing polenta with brussels sprouts, and chicken scarpariello, simmered in wine with pickled cherry peppers, brought down only by the inclusion of some dried-out Italian sausage—a problem repeated with a plate of duck sausage, served with pureed sweet potato and cranberry relish. Kelly, formerly of the Bristol, may need to work on her encased meats. But a filleted trout stuffed with nutty fregola pasta and sweet nuggets of shrimp demonstrates a better facility with more delicate ingredients. Frequently rotated specials have included fall-off-the-bone pork ribs that are seared crispy, topped with yogurt, and resting on a bed of meaty borlotti beans. It’s a shame this one won’t stick around.
1467 N. Milwaukee 773-278-5959azzurrachicago.com
