Tocco-Wicker Park

I had dinner here on Friday without a reservation after work around 5:00 and the place was fairly empty. The trendy factor is high here. Magenta walls, uncomfortable bar stools in white, and lucite communal table. The service was good, we were shown right to our table, and ordered a drink. The drinks came right away and they were good. The second thing that happened, was the obligatory, do you want fancy high priced water, question. No, Lake Michigan works for us. The third thing is where I was so turned off, that I harbored the feelings through my very tasty meal, and on to re telling my friends the next night. We were served two thin breadsticks and four slices of bread on a white plate. No oil, no butter. If we wanted oil or cheese, we had to order it off the menu and pay for it. Needless to say, the bread was not eaten, so I cannot say if it would have been worth it to order oil. I really was quite offended that this place could not provide oil for bread. It was like welcome to my restaurant, we are very stingy here.
We had a decent cracker thin crust pizza from the brick oven, with prosicutto and arugula. It was very good. We really enjoyed this, not Coalfire, but different entirely. We then split an arugula salad which was outstanding. The lemony dressing was perfect, nice and tart, and the parmesan was nutty and sweet.
I had the special which was a type of tortelloni, that was nice and light stuffed with ricotta, and in a brown butter sage sauce. My only quibble was too much nutmeg, and there were only a few pieces. We realized that most of the dishes here were small plates. Jman had a strip steak of some sort that was alright. It was presliced and very thin, and not much of it.
Some coconut sorbet for desert, will not be ordered again. It just didn't have a good feel in the mouth, and left an aftertaste. I probably will be back in the summer when I can sit out in the patio. But, the bread thing really rubs me the wrong way.

Tocco
1266 N Milwaukee Ave
Chicago, IL 60642
(773) 687-8895

nicinchic wrote: We were served two thin breadsticks and four slices of bread on a white plate. No oil, no butter. If we wanted oil or cheese, we had to order it off the menu and pay for it. Needless to say, the bread was not eaten, so I cannot say if it would have been worth it to order oil. I really was quite offended that this place could not provide oil for bread. It was like welcome to my restaurant, we are very stingy here.

It's hard to say without hearing the server's tone, but perhaps they weren't being stingy, but instead were trying a bit too hard to be authentic. In Italy, you don't get oil or cheese for your bread unless you're in a tourist trap. If you ask for it in a non-tourist trap, you'll probably get it, but you might have to suffer through some perplexed looks, and then wait some time for them to figure out how to serve it to you.

I've been to multiple cities in Italy and while I don't remember that, I didn't seem to be offended by it. In fact I remember oil on the table in Italy and the server adding some salt, and that was at an Osteria in Tuscany in the middle of a field. I also rememebr vinegar being out on quite a few tables, but I guess I attributed that to being in wine country. Maybe I didn't know enough Italian to see three or four types of oil to order. And in any case, this is not Italy. It's just my reaction, and if anyone else wants to go there and pay for oil, go for it, for $3 or $4 a splash I'm sure it will be good quality.

Perhaps I shouldn't have used the term "tourist trap" to describe places in Italy that serve oil with bread. "Trap" implies that these places are bad. I'm sure there are indeed some wonderful places in Italy that do non-traditional things to cater to tourists, even in the middle of Tuscan fields. My point is only that some fine restaurants here in Chicago leave the olive oil off the table not because they are stingy or incompetent, but because they are trying to maintain a certain authentic aesthetic. Anteprima is one that comes to mind, and to me it ranks near the very top of Italian dining in Chicago.

Went to Tocco for the first time last night. It is clear that the mission of this restaurant is NOT the food.

Tocco is all about the scene and the ambiance and (hopefully) the patio. Which is fine, just do not expect to go there for the food. The main meat dishes were shockingly bad. I had the bistecca all' aceto - an extremely thin NY Strip steak (1/4" thick;probably 4 oz. total) that looked like something out of a cafeteria (muddy brown color) with garlic, oregano, and vinegar. It was very mediocre and nowhere near being worth $18. The other meat dishes I tried were also underwhelming. Pasta looked fine; albeit small portions for $16.

On the plus side, the pizzas were good - napolitano-style. They won't change your life, but they are good. And the wine list was very affordable and had some great choices.

Moral of the story for Tocco: I'm sticking to the pizza & wine on their patio this summer. Nothing else.

nicinchic wrote:We were served two thin breadsticks and four slices of bread on a white plate. No oil, no butter. If we wanted oil or cheese, we had to order it off the menu and pay for it. Needless to say, the bread was not eaten, so I cannot say if it would have been worth it to order oil. I really was quite offended that this place could not provide oil for bread.

FWIW, Dish had similar comments regarding this situation:

Dish wrote:Tocco (1266 N. Milwaukee Ave.; 773-687-8895)
Good news: The food (wood-fired white pizza, radicchio salad, eggplant lasagna, seared branzino) is delish enough to get the place named one of Chicago magazine’s best new restaurants.
Bad news: Paper-thin dried-out slices of bread plunked down with a few green olives and scant Gorgonzola shards. And what’s up with an undisclosed $2 charge for the olive oil we requested?

An update for those who may be put off by the service and hipness discussion above:

I was going to a 7 p.m. show last night at Davenport's Piano Bar, just up the street, with a couple of vegetarian friends. Tocco seemed like the best bet and I made the reservations before I read Mike Nagrants scathing review. So I was very relieved that

a) we had a perfectly nice table, despite the fact that none of us were under 50, let alone hip
b) the bread was not only served with olive oil, but was replenished without us even asking
c) the wait staff couldn't have been friendlier
d) the owner came by and chatted for a good five or ten minutes.

We didn't sample much of the menu, but our pizzas (the margherita and the pomodorini) were very good and the lentil and pasta e fagioli soups were excellent.

A note for those who are fans of Abate's other restaurant, Follia. He told us he's looking to sell it. He said he saw lots of people with two three four restaurants, how hard could it be? It turns out to be too hard.

Bump.

Walked by here yesterday around 6:30PM and had forgotten how nice of an aesthetic this place has. Maybe 1-2 tables seated on a more or less perfect summer night for that patio of theirs.

Has anyone been lately? Any comments on the food?

We had dinner here on Friday prior to a show at the Den Theater. It's a perfect pre-theater dinner because you can park in one parking lot and walk to both. Bottom line, this isn't destination dining, but if you need to eat in this area, it's a fine dinner.

We have the burrata appetizer, which was good. Even the tomatoes that accompanied it had some decent flavor. We had one pizza; they have a fairly thin, crispy crust with good char flavor. It's not Spacca Napoli, but a very tasty pizza. I can't speak to the main dishes as we didn't have any.

The place was maybe half full when we left around 7:00. Service was very friendly.

Enjoyed a very delicious meal here tonight; care was really taken with everything from the perfectly crispy, perfectly seasoned calamari fritti to the lushly textured, golden-baked ricotta cake. Handmade pastas were outstanding and the flavors more refined than at Monteverde, which we have enjoyed often but also find salty. It's a neighborhood joint and LTHers should support it often!