This Streeterville wine cellar is an unspoiled hideaway, where the antipasti are satisfying enough to make for a light meal in themselves and the servers all double as affable, unpretentious sommeliers. more ›

RPM Italian isn't quite ready to open, but we attended a preview last week. Take a look at the new restaurant from TV stars Bill and Giuliana Rancic. more ›

A rotating schedule of free pours will be available next week, and all bottles will be discounted for Italian Wine Week. more ›

Nestled in the busy North & Clybourn shopping corridor, Sono Wood Fired serves up some seriously tasty and artistic wood fired pizzas. more ›

Take the time to create this traditional Italian dish and you won't be sorry. more ›

Tony Mantuano's new casual Italian restaurant opens today and is sure to be a hit. more ›

If you haven't ventured over to Randolph street for a sandwich from J.P. Graziano, you're missing out. more ›

Look out Edgewater, there is a new player in your pizza scene. The new kid on the block, however, is by no means new to the business, just your neighborhood. Pete's Pizza has been serving up traditional, thin crust pizza and Italian specialties for over 60 years. After working from essentially one outpost for six decades, this is their first real expansion. The new digs are bright and cozy, giving the Granville corridor yet another breath of fresh air. Having heard the hype, we decided to put Pete's to the test. more ›

It's not been a good couple of weeks for Chicago restaurants. 8 days after Kith and Kin closed unexpectedly, another shocker - Bistro 110, the Michigan Avenue French mainstay, is shutting down on August 4th. According to Chicago Magazine, Tony Mantuano, the Italian food impresario behind Spiaggia and Terzo Piano, will be revamping the property into an Italian bar, with "good espresso, homemade pastries, gelato to go, a mozzarella bar" and small plates. more ›

When it comes to restaurants, everybody loves a hidden gem. You know the place: tucked away, off the beaten path, romantic, and above all else, serving excellent food. Coming across such a place always raises a dilemma. Do you tell everyone about it, broadcasting your discovery from the rooftops of Yelp, and risk shattering the mystique? When you have an experience as good as our recent visit to Rose Angelis, of course, you want to tell the world. more ›

For those looking for a real old world experience and truly authentic ingredients, there is no substitute for a neighborhood Italian grocer. You have seen them in old mafia films like The Godfather and they are storied in East Coast cities with large Italian-American populations like New York and Philadelphia. The mercato Italiano, with its imported meats, cheeses, pastas and pestos is almost thing of legend. Thanks to Panozzo's Italian Market in the South Loop, this legend is alive and well right here in Chicago. more ›

Sometimes, meals seem to pass beyond the ordinary and into the realm of a glowing imaginary. This can happy for any number of reasons - good food, good company, flirtation, the right night, the perfect cocktail - and it rarely has anything to do with the price of the food. Those wonderful nights, and the restaurants that create them, have to be savored and shared. We were lucky enough to be lulled into one of those nights by Anteprima, and we cannot recommend it highly enough. more ›

Saturday, August 7 and Sunday, August 8 (10 am - 10 pm) more ›

Do you find yourself peeking into the kitchen at your favorite restaurant? Do you have an unhealthy obsession with Food TV? Well, Padova, Italy-born Chef Luca Corazzina of 312 Chicago will not only let you in his kitchen, he'll let you sip a glass of vino as you fire off culinary questions about the authentic Italian dishes he cooks up. more ›

Everyone has their own Christmas traditions but in my family there are two things from my far removed Italian heritage that are true staples -- the antipasto plate and fresh cannoli. We prefer to create our own versus the pre-made plate but are not opposed to a little help from experts. more ›

While waiting for the Procession of St. Rocco to pass yesterday, we began to feel pangs of hunger. Rather than pray to the Patron Saint of Pestilence, we asked for a menu at Bertucci's Corner. The corner itself is known as "Bertucci's Corner;" the family has been a longtime presence in Chinatown and many members of the family are also members of the Order of St. Rocco. more ›

Esquire Magazine's "Best Sandwiches in America" article is a must-read, if only for us because it gives us a checklist of places to hunt down the next time we're on vacation (btw, Katz's pastrami on rye is really all that). Although we have to question the inclusion of the McRib sandwich, we have no qualms with seeing Chick-Fil-A make an appearance on the list. more ›

So there we were on that really vicious cold Tuesday night last week, enjoying a steaming plate of pasta at Café Bionda (the good location on south State, not the skeevy Wicker Park version) when we remembered a tip from a frequent reader that Joe Farina was stocking Montegioco beers. Now if you're the type of beer drinker whose knowledge of Italian beers runs to Moretti and Peroni, you're in for a treat. more ›

Music: The Jazz Institute of Chicago is sponsoring a jazz guitar summit at Austin Town Hall this evening. Featured performers will be John Moulder, Buddy Fambro, Jeff Parker, and Curtis Robinson. more ›

--The Midwest Independent Film Festival starts a new season on Tuesday with the world premiere of Osso Bucco, which was produced in Chicago. The comedy revolves around disparate types stuck in an Italian restaurant during a massive snowstorm. Doesn't sound like such a terrible situation. The movie stars Illeana Douglas, who we've had a sort of crush on ever since Grace of My Heart. Several other cast members as well as the filmmakers will be at the show: 7:30 at the Landmark Century. more ›

The first time we ate the chicken focaccia sandwich from Miceli's Deli and Food Mart in the Heart of Italy neighborhood, the weather was markedly different. Specifically, it was about seventy degrees warmer and we didn't appreciate it as much. Focaccia sandwiches are much more agreeable in cold weather, don't you think? There's something about all those heavy ingredients and flavors that simply cry out for consumption when the mercury takes a nosedive. more ›

In November we took a look at La-Van Hawkins, a Chicago-born restaurateur who made a fortune in fast food franchises. Hawkins was planning on opening a slew of Nancy's Pizza and Al's Italian Beef franchises on the South Side even as he was waiting to be sentenced to 33 months in prison on corruption charges. more ›

Today, in honor of our favorite Christmas movie, A Christmas Story we've compiled a list of restaurants offering Christmas Eve dinner. You know, in case the Bumpases dogs ruin your family feast and you have to scramble the troops over some duck at a Chinese restaurant. more ›

In high school one of the constants of our Friday nights was a family-sized pizza delivered to the house from La Villa Restaurant and Banquets in Old Irving. We'd fight for a corner slice among our allotment, chase them down with a glass of pop, and head out the house for our other constant: vainly working on our game with every Catholic school girl we could meet. more ›

Today we continue our series of letting you know about the New Year's Eve packages being offered by local restaurants so that you have enough information to make a decision and not wait until the last minute to grab a table. In case you missed yesterday's installment, we've linked to it here for your review. Vegetarians rejoice! Green Zebra will offer an all vegetarian, 5 course tasting menu priced at $75 per person, with an... more ›

Chicagoist's brother-in-law is a man of many excesses, most of which revolve around pork products. And while we aren't quite the connoisseur that he is, it's no big secret that Chicagoist loves bacon. So what's so great about Milk & Honey's BLT? How about this — everything. The bread is perfectly toasted Italian bread that gives a satisfying crunch while maintaining its inner softness. The bacon is neither a greasy slab of fat nor... more ›

So yesterday in our "One Bottle of Wine" post we alluded to some gnocchi we had Saturday night. We felt the need for something to really stick to our ribs with the sleet and frozen rain falling all night, but we didn't want to go through the process of actually making these popular Italian dumplings from scratch. Lucky for us, the produce store by our house (Egg Store, 3008 S. Halsted, 773-284-8704) often carries pre-made... more ›

In our experience, most people who eat at Costello's Sandwich and Sides get the same thing every time. It's their Costello's Match. Former Chicagoist editors Scott Smith and Erin Shea love the Heartland and Smokin' Turk, respectively. Our boyfriend's favorite is the Italian Grinder. For us, our Costello's Match is the Turkey Focaccia. Generally speaking, the Turkey Focaccia is a basic turkey sandwich — turkey, provolone, lettuce, tomato, vinaigrette. But what makes this sandwich... more ›

Today's Sun-Times has an interesting article on restaurateur and Chicago native LaVan Hawkins, who's opening Nancy's Pizza and Al's Italian Beef franchises even as he's set to go to prison on corruption charges. The biography of Hawkins is a true rags-to-riches, rise-and-fall-and-rise-again story starting with his early years running in a gang and battling drug addiction, then from working his way up from the lowest rung at a McDonald's to commanding a fast-food franchise empire... more ›

What started as Chicago actor and director David Blixt’s creative inquiry into the Capulet-Montague feud quickly became so much more. The Master of Verona, Blixt’s debut novel set in 14th Century Italy, explores Italian political life, conspiracy, the life of Dante, and the possible backstory for Romeo and Juliet. While directing the aforementioned Shakespeare play years ago, he found its all-consuming resolution fascinating and troublesome, hinting at but never revealing the source of the families’ feud. So started an intense exploration that took the author to the Newberry Library, the University of Michigan, and the villa Serego Alighieri in Verona. more ›