To most Chicagoans, Little Italy means Taylor Street, with its smells and tastes of deep-dish pizza and Italian beef and lemonade, as well as established restaurants like Rosebud and Conte di Savoia.
Yet just Southwest of Pilsen lies Chicago's second-oldest Italian-American neighborhood. Located on the blocks between 24th and 26th streets and Oakley and Western avenues, the Heart of Italy neighborhood is different from Taylor Street and even New York's Little Italy in that you see no neon, submarine shops, beef joints or other signs of American/Italian assimilation. Instead, it is a quaint strip of mom-and-pop storefront restaurants, with chalkboard menus on the sidewalks and straw chianti bottles in the windows.
Taylor Street was settled mostly by Neapolitans in the years immediately following World War I; the Heart of Italy area was the destination of the former residents of the Toscano region. Many of the arrivals from this area in north-central Italy found work at what was then the McCormick Reaper Plant. Today, the neighborhood remains composed of the same tidy brick and frame bungalows, giving the strip a village-like feel.
One of the oldest and most established restaurants in the area is La Fontanella (above), at 2414 South Oakley. Like most of the area's eateries, it is a small, family-operated restaurant, with twelve tables, stucco walls and a small bar in front. Featuring an extensive menu, its specialties include chicken Fontanella, a half chicken, lightly breaded and seasoned, best eaten with generous portions of fresh lemon juice. As for the pasta dishes, the penne Toscani is dished up with a hot and garlicky garnish that is a unique experience to most taste buds. Also recommended is the ravioli, which taste like little pastries, as well as braciole, or beef filled with onions, peppers and a hard-boiled egg.
Just across the narrow street is Bacchanalia's, at 2413 South Oakley. Like La Fontanella, it is basically a house converted into a restaurant, with a bar in front and a dozen or so tables. A bit darker and more festive, it is known throughout the city for its veal or eggplant parmesan, an old favorite. You can also grab a tasty plate of chicken Vesuvio, or chicken with olives, carrots, peas and tomatoes. Served over pasta, it is the Italian equivalent of the French one-pot meals. At the end of the block is Bruna's, 2424 South Oakley. More upscale, with valet parking and higher prices, Bruna's features a more truly Northern Italian cuisine, such as baked fish, pasta primavera, seafood and veal.
As you continue to walk south you will see De Michele's. An old-style neighborhood deli, it features Italian sandwiches and desserts in a small seating area, and sells pastas, cheeses, cappiola and proscuitto. If you truly want an Italian blue-collar bargain special, head to Villa De Marco, 2358 South Oakley. Here, most dishes are under ten dollars, and served with soup and salad. Nothing fancy here, but if you want a dish of fettucini Alfredo or calamari pasta with red sauce, the portions are gigantic. For a finale, go to Mila's European Pastry across the street, at 2401 South Oakley, to sample some cannoli, tiramisu or Polish and French delights in a European-style cafe.
Although the overall quality of the dishes is often not up to par with many of the new, North Side tratorrias, the Heart of Italy offers visitors giant portions at low prices and a true cultural experience. Like a stanza of a John Ciardi poem, you walk down the narrow streets and see children playing two-square, and old-timers sitting on the street side benches or in Faber's Hardware, speaking in Italian. Even though most of the descendants of the original immigrants have moved to the suburbs or back to Italy, a recent wave of immigrants from Bari, as well as a sprinkling of Italian-Americans displaced by the gentrification of Grand & Ashland and Taylor Street, now fill the sunken bungalows of Chicago's second Little Italy.
by Dave Witter
copyright 1998 New City Communications, Inc.