Anteprima
Owner Marty Fosse ran the front of the house at Spiaggia at one time, and while Anteprima is a far cry from that rarefied temple of la cucina Italiana, his neighborhood place has many virtues. A long list of antipasti leads the menu, which changes frequently, a few of them very inexpensive and a few rather special, like soft veal meatballs in a sweet saffron-tomato sauce. My table’s orders of orecchiette with lamb sausage and bitter greens arrived merely warm and a little gummy, but an order of spaghetti with fava beans was damn near perfect. Main dishes include a brick-grilled baby chicken, New York strip, and wood-grilled whole fish specials. There’s a long, all-Italian wine list with plenty of quartino options and a decent selection of grappa and other digestives. The Anteprima team is also behind the recently opened Acre (5308 N. Clark, 773-334-7600), serving an extensive selection of craft beers and a seasonal menu in the former Charlie’s Ale House. —Mike Sula
I’m all for the pandemic of serious pizza we’ve been blessed by in recent years. Every block deserves a wood burner, every neighborhood rates an experienced pizzaiolo. But Andersonville is already home to one significant pie shop, Great Lake. Here’s hoping that in the future people like Antica chef-owner Mario Rapisarda (a Spiaggia vet) will target areas that desperately need earnestly pie-focused professionals in their midst. At Antica the pies are of the Neapolitan species, thin, charred, blistered crusts that get a bit swampy toward the center. They’re as pricey as the ones at Ravenswood’s Spacca Napoli, but topped less lovingly: I was happy with the quality of the olives on the quattro stagioni, but the prosciutto could have been better. The balance of the menu is composed of a few antipasti—including calamari, tender but overbattered—and salads, including a particularly well-composed arugula-radicchio-frisee trio with diced black olive and some crumbles of goat cheese. There are also a handful of pastas and a few fish and poultry entrees, all delivered with supreme haste. Their house-made desserts include profiteroles, tiramisu, and a wonderfully creamy panna cotta in a martini glass. —Mike Sula
Paul Fehribach, former chef at Schubas’ Harmony Grill, has taken the space long home to trapped-in-amber Augie’s diner and turned it into an airy, minimalist dining room distinguished by floor-to-ceiling windows and wrought-iron chandeliers. Like those chandeliers, the menu gives a little wave to the French Quarter. The cocktail list is full of daiquiris, hurricanes, and Sazeracs—including one with absinthe—and the menu includes crawfish-boudin croquettes and a rich and smoky gumbo with chicken and andouille. I didn’t try the sandwiches but I wish I had: at a neighboring table a sizable Tallgrass beef burger with fontina and aioli was provoking groans of happiness. And the fresh, clean flavors of a simple house salad got my friend to sit up and take notice. All in all Big Jones seems to be striving to fuse the accoutrements of upscale dining with the down-home soul of country cooking. When it works, the results are stellar, both sophisticated and bone-deep satisfying. —Martha Bayne
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You can’t say that Great Lake hasn’t nailed its niche. Operating out of a tiny Andersonville storefront, it offers pizza, in five different variations, to take out or eat in at the restaurant’s small communal table. Period. But, oh, what pizza it is. Made to order from meticulously sourced ingredients—everything on the menu has a pedigree—the pies are perfectly balanced. The #2 features creamy pools of house-made mozzarella, sopressata straight from New York’s Salumeria Biellese, and a light fresh tomato puree atop a chewy, slightly salty crust. Other options showcase earthy cremini mushrooms and raw cow’s milk cheese or hickory smoked bacon, creme fraiche, onion, and sage. Warning: the pizza oven is as small as the rest of the place, and can only handle a few pies at a time, but owners Lydia Esparza and Nick Lessins do their best to give you an accurate wait time. Frankly, it’s worth it. —Martha Bayne
Michael Roper’s Hopleaf has always been a great bar with a few tragic flaws. The staggering selection of beers with an emphasis on Belgians can be daunting for novices to navigate without assistance, and occasionally stony bartenders are sometimes unwilling or too overwhelmed to provide it. A victim of the Check, Please! phenomenon, it can get so unbearably crowded on weekends that it’s advisable to avoid it entirely, though a planned expansion may help in that regard. An extremely detailed beer menu helps too, and there’s no place like this one to explore the deep Belgian tradition of pairing great beer with food—not to mention good food cooked with great beer, the most celebrated and enjoyable example being the mussels steamed in Wittekerke white ale, with long, crispy frites and a tangy aioli. But one of the coolest things about Hopleaf is its commitment to the proper way of drinking—many drafts are poured in their own glasses, designed to accentuate the special qualities of each. —Mike Sula
