Chicago Foodies

Bar Toma Shows Up Mag Mile Tourist Attractions

If there's one restaurant opening that people can't stop talking about, it has to be Tony Mantuano's Italian-style pizzeria in the spot of Bistro 110. But can a restaurant nuzzled next to Ghirardelli and across the street from Water Tower Place actually have quality food - without being over-priced? 

Bar Toma was much anticipated as a way to enjoy Spiagia-style food on a more casual night out. And fortunate for diners, the restaurant has accomplished exactly that. It even has an impressive, yet reasonably priced, wine list. Not only does Bar Toma deliver some inventive and delicious pizzas, but it also has a bar of mouth-watering gelato, espresso and breakfast pastries for the serious morning shopper or local. 

Much-Anticipated Bar Toma and Slurping Turtle Open Downtown

Love it or hate it, you're going to be spending some time shopping downtown this month. In the consumer playground between Pearson and Hubbard, diners generally had to choose between two categories of restaurants: the generic tourist traps (here's looking at you, Pizzeria Uno!) and sceney lounges like Paris Club and Hub 51. Thankfully, homeotown heroes Tony Mantuano and Takashi Yagihashi bring two new casual restaurants to the area this week, just in time to save your holiday season sanity.

Inside Salone del Gusto, Italy’s Artisanal Foodie Mecca

Clockwise: whole prosciutto from San Daniele on display; a band of two accordions, a guitar and a hurdy-gurdy (the bearded man on the right was making animal puppets out of a hankerchief to entertain the kids); a self-service milk truck parked outside Salone del Gusto; Puglian women stringing cherry tomatoes by hand

After a long morning of seminars, I was sipping a glass of Left Hand beer, when the sound of drums and horn began thundering down the hall. It was Macedonian folk ensemble Akud Mirce Acev, beating a lively rhythm and whipping a crowd of Asians into a frenzied dance. Heads bobbed, cameras flashed, women in hanbok dresses waved their arms in the air. Just another day at Salone del Gusto.

Salone del Gusto is an international food fair and celebration of the artisanal producer, on a decidedly not small scale. In the exhibition rooms of Torino's Lingotto Fiere, 65.000 m² of space will encompass 910 exhibitors from 17 Italian regions and 46 countries. In 2008, the fair attracted 180.000 visitors and I would guess that this year's show attracted just as many, if not more attendees. The event is a combined effort of Slow Food and the city of Torino, and as you might expect, the environmental impact is minimized through the use of ecofriendly materials. For instance, the flooring for the stalls is made from Ecomat material, made from the residual pulp left from olive oil pressing mixed with new and recycled polypropylene.

Puglia Food Products: Olive Oil, Capocollo, Wine, Cheese and Seafood

Crystal Cun is spending the next year in Italy studying at the University of Gastronomic Sciences. She recently traveled to Puglia (the heel of the boot) for a one-week school field trip. For more information, you can check her blog at Lady Parmalade.

Though some time was alloted in Puglia for activities not requiring mastication, the bulk of the trip was spent at food production sites, restaurants and agricultural lands. I realize that this must sound like the best foodie vacation ever, but eating rich foods nonstop for a week is not as pleasant as it may seem. Some of us had the added stress of documenting the trip in detail because there is a paper and presentation required after the stage. By the end, we were all thoroughly sick of cured meats, cheeses and each other. A few people actually became ill, though I cannot say whether this was due to food poisoning, general infection, or the stress of traveling and eating from 9 am to 1 am every day. My advice for anyone who goes on these trips is to ingest plenty of fiber and choose your roommate carefully. 

Moving on to the actual food. Puglia's dry, sunny climate makes it difficult to grow many crops, but the hardiness of olive trees in times of drought has resulted in their widespread cultivation. The trees dot the Puglian landscape with their graceful, twisted trunks and branches, akin to a pair of ballet dancers. We were told by one farmer that the trees twist according to the Earth's rotation, and that olive trees planted south of the equator would twist in the opposite direction, similar to the rotation of water draining from toilets. This is a romantic idea, but since the Coriolis force has been shown to have a tenuous effect on toilet water, I am somewhat doubtful of the tree-twisting claim.

 Still, the trees are majestic to behold, knotted and gnarly, reminiscent of the baobab tree in The Little Prince. The one pictured above actually belongs to a Russian who admired the unique shape of its trunk. So, he bought the tree for €5,000. In return, he gets to keep the olive oil milled from the olives of this tree, which comes to 10-15 liters of oil per year. He also comes to visit his tree annually. If you are interested in owning a piece of Italian real estate and having a lifetime supply of olive oil, you too can invest in one of the 50,000 available trees for the low price of €500-1,000 by contacting Olio Cazzetta.

Ricobene's: Breaded Steak Sandwiches

Ricobene's is a long-time Southside institution, with a sign proudly trumpeting its opening in 1946. Though Bridgeport has been playing host to an eclectic melting pot of eateries lately, Ricobene's is no flash in the pan, but a stalwart of old school Chicago dining. Think Manny's, but less Jewish and more Italian.

Framed black and white photos hang on the walls decorated with the classic checkboard motif. A closer inspection of one picture revealed a signature from Mayor Daley. This is, after all, the neighborhood which has served as the home of five of the city's mayors. If political clout isn't enough for you, Ricobene's is also a popular cop hang out. No less than four of Chicago's finest walked through the doors during my last brief visit.

Mia Francesca: Popular Transitional Italian

I moved back to Lakeview recently, and one thing I remembered from before was the perpetually long line outside Mia Francesca.  Somehow my group was able to snag a table at 7:00 on a Friday after a Cubs game with only a twenty-minute wait, for which we were very grateful to the maitre d'. 

Despite living in Chicago for almost five years I never managed to eat at Mia Francesca's flagship location.  I tried Francesca's at Bryn Mawr in Edgewater a couple times, and the food was quite good.   The Francesca name appears to have branched out, and it piqued my curiosity to do some digging:   I counted seventeen restaurants on their web site, thirteen of which are conveniently located in the suburbs.

Riccardo Trattoria: As Real As Italian Can Get

My wife and I stumbled upon Riccardo Trattoria when we were checking out the line at Chicago Pizza and Oven Grinder next door and decided instead to pursue other options.  We decided to eat there on a whim, and when we were done felt that we needed to return a second time.

All but one of the staff I have seen so far are Italian.  The passion for the food, the homemade pasta, and the attention to detail make this mid-priced restaurant an incredible value for money.  For an appetizer  I ordered the Honeycomb Tripe Florentine, which was braised with tomatoes, what I believe were basil leaves, and Parmesan cheese.  It was outstanding and exceeded expectations, and I would recommend it to those who do not normally care for tripe.   My wife ordered Minestrone Genovese, which was not your typically tomato and lentil soup, but rather a wonderful pesto and rice soup.

BRAVO! Cucina Italiana

You know when you walk into a restaurant and the majority of people are waiting to see Madagascar 2 that you are probably in the wrong place.  That’s exactly where I found myself early on a Saturday night – at Bravo, the new restaurant that replaced Wolfgang Puck’s next to the Evanston Century Theater.  The proximity to the theater makes it an easy choice, especially as the weather gets colder.  The wait for a table on a Saturday was about 30 minutes.  We luckily got a seat at the bar, ordered wine and reviewed the menu. 

Adesso: BYO Italian in Lakeview

Tonight I bought a bottle of red wine and went over to a restaurant with a curious, funky vibrant inside called Adesso.  With a striking brown floral motif, Adesso grabs your attention as you walk down the west side of Broadway a few blocks north of Belmont. 

Service is peppy, attentive, and not pushy or intrusive (though perhaps not quite as informative)   Since we were in the restaurant on a slow Wednesday we never had to wait for anything either.

Fresh Pesto

When I'm on the road I stay at a room with a kitchenette and boil up pasta with pesto sauce.  By far my favorite pesto is called Sauces 'n' Love, which Whole Food sells.  It's a refrigerated pesto and neither has the bitterness nor the staleness in jar pesto and other refrigerated brands.  Today, though, with a week off the road I decided to make homemade pesto.  My wife and I went to Lincoln Park's Green City Market and bought some fresh basil from Growing Power, a favorite spot of ours and bought some Italian basil.   With some pine nuts, garlic, Parmigano-Reggiano cheese, salt, pepper, and olive oil, and a blender or food processor and shazam!  Pesto is done in 10 minutes.  I still haven't been able to match Sauces 'N' Love but believe I added too much garlic and didn't take some stems and leaf-ends, which added bitterness.  The recipe came from Ruth Reichel's Gourmet cookbook, but I also found the online link to share.  http://www.ruthreichl.com/?ID=3&page=8#recipe

However you make pesto, hopefully you will find it's much, much better than what you find in most supermarket shelves.

La Gondola

La Gondola is tucked away in a small space of a "strip mall" shared by Jewel-Osco on Ashland in Lakeview. Blink, and you might just miss this hole-in-the-wall joint. The restaurant literally had about 6 tables and a single waiter bustling around the small space.

Terragusto: Wonderful Homemade Pasta at BYO Prices

Honestly I had not heard about Terragusto until two days before I ate there. We received a recommendation from someone I just met, and it was convincing enough for us to want to go there. The fact that the restaurant was BYOB made it very easy to consider, and I promptly went to one of my favorite wine shops, Que Syrah on Southport, and picked out a traditional Italian dolcetto (a red wine from the Piedmont region).   It seems that lots of people know about this place, too.  I was told that 5:00 dinner on Saturday was impossible so I had to settle for Sunday.

Think Cafe

So, it's not much to look at from the outside, but the food inside of Think Cafe is spectacular.  The Web site says this place used to be a kitschy cafe, but it's definitely swank these days...blond wood, white linens, etc.  Most of the patrons used the BYOB menu as an excuse to pull out the neoprene wine cooler bags they received for Christmas, but one guy pulled up with a 12 of Miller Lite, so really, all kinds are welcome.

Aldente Cafe and Lounge

I met a couple of girlfriends out for dinner and drinks Saturday night at Aldente Cafe and Lounge.  It was about 8:30PM when we walked in and the place was pretty empty.  We started at the bar and ordered glasses of wine.  I asked the bartender what he would recommend and he commented that he didn't drink wine so he couldn't recommend anything.  A bartender that doesn't drink wine?  I might not think anything of it in a bar but at a restaurant?  OK.  I ordered a Chianti and after a couple of sips we moved over to our table. 

Tonelli's

It was a warm summer night when my party of six headed into Northbrook, destined for some big, hot, heavy bowls of pasta.  Though the weather and the fare at Tonelli's seemed a mismatch, we were generally happy with our decision.

Spacca Napoli

A nice walk to a new pizza place would be a good appetite stimulant and help digestion on the way home. The only problem was when we realized that Spacca Napoli was on Sunnyside, not Summerdale. So we stopped at Joie de Vin, next to Pauline's on Balmoral, had a glass of wine and then started our additional mile-long march for pizza.

A total of 2.7 miles usually means eat like a pig but somehow we didn't. We simply ordered the four cheese pie, two more glasses of wine and the antipasti plate. While it's not enough to really judge this place, it was a tasty evening and delivered on the artisanal wood-fire style pizza where we were disappointed by Pizza D.O.C.

Pizzeria Uno vs. "Uno Chicago Grill"

First there was Uno. Now it's "Uno Chicago Grill." When I was a kid I remember loving dinners at Uno. The walk down to the eating area, the scratched up tables... the pizza. Then I left town and reminisced for many years. Imagine my surprise one day, in Madison Wisconsin, seeing on the corner an Uno's. I dragged my then girlfriend inside. Oops. The long and the short is that it wasn't Pizzeria Uno. It was an Edwardo's or a Gino's or a Giordano's or a _____. It was not an Uno. It's part of the reason I won't recommend any place other than Unos or Dues on Wabash and Ohio...  Looking at their website... www.unos.com I cringe at the language:

"The new Uno Chicago Grill menu, introduced in fall 2005, offers hip and intense new tastes that are built on Uno's history of artisanal fare."

What? The place made freakin Pizza. It wasn't an Italian gourmet restaurant. There were no wood burning ovens, no artisianal ingredients. Mozzarella. Tomatoes... a handcrafted bread we all call "crust."

The Pasta Shoppe & Café

I was in Oak Park this past Sunday and went door-to-door at 3pm-ish looking for lunch. We actually walked in and out of several spots... we were really just checking things out. Then we came to the Pasta Shoppe and on walking in saw fresh pasta in a chiller case and desserts... and sauces... and things I've never seen before - Arancini, which are saffron rice balls stuffed with spinach and cheese. The Shoppe does catering, trays, carry out, and there's a Café to eat in. We ate in.

So we sat down in the back. We ordered an appetizer portion of the arancini - three smaller sized balls instead of the slightly oversized baseballs upfront. They were crispy with creamy rice, mozzerella and spinach inside. They were delicious in a fresh tomato marinara.

Calo

This Italian spot in Andersonville used to have that red carbet, booth and disco feel of a spot that's been there and been doing that for a while. They opened a shmancier option next door and then chucked it all and just remodeled the two together. Lots of the character is gone but the old-school menu stayed the same.

Osteria Via Stato

" Osteria Via Stato embraces the lifestyle of Italian dining..." from the "Lettuce Entertain You" website.

Without getting into the whole restaurant chain vs. traditional Italian lifestyle thing I'll just say it does this gobs better than the Olive Garden.

I wanted a nice lunch and have been curious about Osteria and their fixed price lunch. The price on it has dropped from $19 to $15 which with tax and tip ends up being $20... If you can rationalize $20 for lunch it's money well spent.