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Red sauces run rampant and the vino comes reasonably priced at the following restaurants.

Monday Nov 06, 2006.     By Pat Bruno

Food Feed

It's not easy finding la vera cucina Italiana—the true cooking of Italy—short of jumping on a plane and crossing the Atlantic. But a pleasing number of Italian restaurants around Chicago come very close to providing the consummate Italian dining experience. Red sauces run rampant, the Parmigiana family—vitello, pollo, melanzane—is always around and the vino is reasonably priced at the following restaurants. As it goes in a true Italian restaurant, service can be relaxed, but it's simply a matter of getting it done with seemingly little effort. Buon appetito!

La Scarola is storefront Italian at its finest. The place doesn't look like much on the outside, but don't read that as "stay away." The food here is quite good and the service staff keeps things moving (yes, there is most always a wait for one of the tightly-spaced tables). Start with the baked clams or the escarole and beans (practically a signature dish). Linguine with clam sauce is a winner, but when I want a plate of spaghetti and meatballs, this is one of my favorites. Skip the chicken vesuvio in favor the chicken angelo (chicken breast, eggplant, tomatoes, fresh mozzarella). Leave the tiramisu and take the cannoli.

La Piazza knows how to win over your heart and your stomach. Chef/owner Gaetano Di Benedetto is as inventive and as colorful as his pleasantly intimate restaurant, whose trompe l'oeil ceiling is worth a stiff neck. After a few bites you might believe that your mother just returned from a week at a cooking school in Italy. The risotto is always a treat (and always done just right), the pollo al mattone (chicken under a brick) is as good as that I have had in Lucca, Italy, and the cannelloni is some of the best you will find this side of Sicily. The chocolate and almond semifreddo is one of the proper ways to end a meal here.

Zia's Trattoria requires a bit of a trek to the Northwest Side, but the trip is worth it. You'll find an active bar scene and an equally vigorous dining sizzle throughout its intimate rooms. Executive chef and owner Joe Calabrese knows Italian food, and his menu pleases with rustic dishes like polenta with sausage, peppers and tomatoes, contrasted by the modern butternut squash ravioli with mascarpone cream. Roasted loin of pork with pancetta and rosemary potatoes is so Italian you can practically hear the cars buzzing around the Colosseum in Rome. Don't forgo the penne with rapini.

Club Lucky was trendy before Bucktown even dreamed of being au courant. The space housed a dancehall in the days of yore, and the 1940s supper club vibe beats on. Hop up a few steps from the bar and enter the dining room, which stretches the length of the building. This is no-frills, no-fuss Italian at its best, served by a perky wait staff that helps preserve the neighborhood feeling. There's a huge menu to wade through; I like to start with the excellent fish or terrific Melrose pepper salad. The homemade lasagna, eight-finger cavatelli, grilled pork chops with peppers and ricotta cheesecake stand out.

Rosebud on Taylor served authentic Italian long before real-deal dishes became the craze. The aura of this restaurant is magical; you know the food is going to be good before the first bite. Head to the main dining room, complete with huge picture of Sinatra, for baked clams, sausage and peppers, and pasta e fagioli starters. I love the hand-rolled cavatelli, pasta a la vodka rigatoni puttanesca and what is probably one of the best renditions of chicken vesuvio I have come across. I'm not a big fan of tiramisu (having had too many that were awful), but Rosebud's is just plain terrific.