Bacchanalia
For me, it was love at first bite of lobster ravioli: hand-rolled by a local gentleman, enfolding creamy crustacean, and transcending the cliche vodka sauce to achieve a fine balance of richness and acidity. “Seafood and Pasta” is a delicious dish of noodles, calamari, lobster, and shrimp with an encircling crown of mussels, in a light but intensely flavorful tomato broth. The veal saltimbocca pleased with thin slices, particularly hammy prosciutto, popping-fresh rosemary, and just a touch of cheese. The only weak link in the chain was Chicago’s own chicken Vesuvio, but even it packed more flavor than you might find elsewhere. Pork chops Lugana are grilled, seasoned with Provencal herbs in the style of Lombardy, and draped with lightly sauteed herb-flecked peppers, onions, and potatoes. A Milanese Fernet-Branca was recommended as a postprandial digestive, and with a house-made cannoli, it proved a perfect way to “settle up.” I liked the food here so much I literally busted a button on my trousers, a sad though strangely satisfying sensation. This is a cozy neighborhood place, with a bar and booths up front and a big old room in back. The friendly owner was tending bar, and service was simpatico, making us feel like regulars though we’d never stopped in before. —David Hammond
A grocery and deli (takeout only) on that stretch between Ashland and the Kennedy where West Grand suddenly goes Italian, Bari Foods makes a mean sandwich. On the abbreviated menu are subs stuffed with corned beef, roast beef, Italian sausage, or Italian deli meats, but a favorite is the fresh mozzarella and prosciutto sub. Available at nine or 12 inches, the sandwich packs ultrathin slices of melt-in-your-mouth prosciutto and hunks of squeaky cheese between the halves of a loaf of French bread crisp from the ovens next door at D’Amato’s Bakery, and dresses it up with shredded lettuce, onion, and tomato, with a dash of oil and Italian seasoning. The deli case includes a choice of fish salad, antipasto, and a selection of olives and other delicacies like lupini beans and hand-canned giardiniera. For an easier side dish, ask for one of the monster dill pickles or grab a bag of chips on the way to the register. —Martha Bayne
Bella Notte serves classically prepared southern Italian food in equally classic old-world style. Service is professional yet casual, and the small storefront space is intimate and relaxing. The menu offers primarily pasta, veal, and chicken in any number of preparations. More than a dozen pasta offerings range from simple rigatoni with vodka cream sauce to zuppa di pesce—a monstrous bowl of pasta that overflows with squid, clams, mussels, fish, and octopus in a tangy marinara sauce. Side dishes of greens (rapini, broccoli, spinach) sauteed with olive oil and garlic are also large enough to share. The only sour note in the place is struck by the ubiquitous Sinatra tunes. —Martha Bayne
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Part corner tavern and part classic Italian restaurant, this long-standing River North lair, started by grandpa Gus in 1952, was decimated by an explosion in the building next door. Now brothers Guido and Giancarlo Nardini have reopened, and while the interior is renovated, the place retains the feeling of the old space: all customers are greeted by the owners or the bartender, and the atmosphere is chummy; everyone seems to know each other. The menu is approachable and affordable. Starters include lots of fried foods—calamari, zucchini, mushrooms—as well as shrimp cocktail and baked clams. Spaghetti, tortellini, manicotti, and several other pastas come with a choice of sauces. For the lighter palate the marinated calamari salad is refreshing, with cucumbers, tomatoes, radishes, and tender pieces of squid in an Italian dressing. —Laura Levy Shatkin
Loaves of all shapes and sizes fill the display windows at this long-standing Italian bakery, supplier to many area restaurants and one of only two Chicago restaurants to still use a coal oven (the other, Coalfire, is just down the street). Every day the baker goes downstairs and loads the coal into a hopper above the lit stoker, which feeds the furnace. For the next five to seven hours it burns, until they close the chimneys and start baking with the heat retained in the bricks. Compared to conventionally baked bread, the difference, owner Victor D’Amato says, is “like, cook the steak in your house, cook the steak in a barbecue pit.” (The D’Amato’s down the street at 1332 W. Grand, owned by a different member of the family, uses a conventional oven.) Sesame-coated bread sticks are a specialty here; so is tomato bread, which also comes topped with olives or artichokes. Huge rounds of toasts (frizelles) are sold by the bag, and there’s thick pizza by the slice and a variety of tantalizing cookies, including plain or chocolate-dipped biscotti. Note: D’Amato’s is currently remodeling; retail operations have been moved across the street for a time. —Mike Sula
