Tre Dita - Chicago
Inside the St. Regis hotel is Tre Dita, perhaps the most elegant Italian restaurant in Chicago. Headed up by Evan Funke, Tre Dita is the place to go for classic Italian food...and some innovative takes on that wildly popular cuisine.
Read MoreSays Chef Evan Funke, "When you visit a restaurant in Florence, Lucca or Livorno, you meet a constant in themes and traditions - handmade pasta, wood-fire cooking, and bistecca. Tre Dita is a place where those traditions can live in full illustration."
Take a look at the menu and you'll see what Chef Funke is talking about. The Tuscan-style pasta is made on premises, and there's a lot of fantastic preparations to choose from: lasagna bastarde is a classic combination of chestnut flour pasta, pesto genovese, sicilian pine nuts, and parmigiano reggiano; gnudi di spinaci is a delicious creation of heirloom spinach, ricotta, wild mushrooms, brodo di funghi, and parmigiano reggiano; as well as pappardelle con ragu d'anatra, with heritage duck ragu and pecorino toscana.
About the pasta, Eater Chicago reports, "Funke has immersed himself in Italian cuisine and a signature attribute of his restaurants, including Tre Dita, is a pasta lab. The lab is a refrigerated and glassed room with wood tables that allow the restaurant to regulate humidity and temperature. There are pasta labs in LA, Beverly Hills, and now Chicago. 'So pasta, much like bread, is an animal. It lives and breathes, it’s directly affected by its immediate environment, and controlling the environment is an extremely important thing if you want to produce a handmade product very consistently,' Funke says."
There is a special steak menu listing succulent red meat options like tagliata di manzo, a prime 8-ounce ribeye cap; costata alla Fiorentina, a 28-day dry-aged bone-in ribeye; and bisteca ala fiorentina, a 60-day dry-aged 42-ounce prime porterhouse.
To pair, select from a truly massive wine list, with deep and broad regional representation, and many selections available by the glass.