Piccolo Sogno Due - Great Italian in River North

I see there isn't already a topic about Piccolo Sogno Due, only one about its sister restaurant, Piccolo Sogno. So without further ado...

For those who aren't familiar with either one, the very popular Piccolo Sogno was opened in 2008 by Chef Tony Priolo and Ciro Longobardo in River West, at Grand and Halsted. They decided to open a second location, and teamed up with Chef Todd Stein, the founding chef at the now-closed Cibo Matto and at the Florentine. Piccolo Sogno Due opened a couple of months ago in River North, on Clark Street just north of the river. It's open for lunch and dinner.

I had dinner there tonight, and it was thoroughly outstanding. It has a lot in common with Piccolo Sogno, including a fairly spacious layout (with a noise level that is only moderately high, not at all oppressive), available outdoor seating (along Clark Street and above the river), some of the best bread service you'll find anywhere, extremely knowledgeable and helpful servers, and delicious contemporary Italian food. Even Ciro was there greeting customers at the hoststand. The only significant difference is that Chef Stein's menu has more emphasis on seafood than at the original location. Oh, and there's more natural light than at the original, with big picture windows facing Clark Street and the river. (I loved the layout; we sat at a table in the corner, but it was angled 45 degrees so neither of us was facing away from the room.)

I started with gamberi (wood oven roasted prawns) while my companion had pesciolini (crispy floured white bait - seemed like fried smelt), and both were very good. We split an order of the candito ("Striped pasta stuffed with foie gras, topped with caramelized onions and aged balsamic") and I really loved this dish; it was topped with a slice of sauteed foie gras, yum! We both had a daily special of razza (oven roasted skate wing) which was delicious, the best skate I've ever had. They had four desserts - cannoli, semifreddo, a chocolate-pistachio mousse, and something coffee-flavored - plus gelato and cheeses, and we both skipped them. (Frankly, I was hoping for some kind of panna cotta, having enjoyed Stein's amazing cardamom panna cotta at Cibo Matto and Priolo's outstanding saffron panna cotta at Piccolo Sogno, but there was none, oh well.)

I suggest making reservations in advance, as they were full the entire time we were there (roughly 6:30 to 9:00 on a Tuesday).

This was a wonderful dinner, and maintains the excellence already established at the original Piccolo Sogno. I heartily recommend Piccolo Sogno Due for those seeking excellent Italian cuisine and/or terrific seafood.

Piccolo Sogno Due
340 N. Clark St.
312-822-0077
piccolosognodue.com

Has anyone else been able to try out Due? My wife and I were thinking of trying to grab a reservation for next weekend and were curious if it lived up to the original which has always been a favorite of ours.

Thanks!

I visited Piccolo Sogno Due for the first time last night and enjoyed it very much. The main difference between the two locations seems to be the far greater focus on seafood at Due.

To start, solid bread service featuring a few housemade breads - focaccia was easily my favorite. We shared a couple of their pizzas to start and they were both terrific. The pizzas are cooked in a wood-burning oven, are very thin, with crisp, charred edges. I loved the pizza with arugula, parmesan and prosciutto - the toppings were really fantastic and the crust delicious. The pizza with mushrooms was also delicious, again thanks to top notch ingredients and the crust. I'd say one pizza is good enough for two people, or maybe even two pizzas for three people.

I also thought that the squid ink spaghetti with tomatoes and shellfish was terrific. Pasta retained some bite, shellfish cooked well and not too long, and the sauce was delicious. Whole roasted branzino, somewhat similar in style to the whole roasted fish at Piccolo Sogno, was also very good. I was less enthused with the Trapanese, which supposedly featured a saffron broth. I tasted mostly a spicy tomato sauce, which was fine, but not what I expected. There was also very little saffron, really not enough to fight through the spicy tomato sauce. I also thought that the shrimp were rather overcooked.

Cannoli for dessert was terrific - very crispy shell, thick but creamy orange scented ricotta, and pistachios.

In terms of atmosphere, very similar crowd and style to the first Piccolo Sogno. So, sufficiently conversation friendly though vibrant, generally a little better dressed crowd.

We dined there last night (walk-in, chosen by being the one of the closest restaurants to the river after an exhaustive walk setting up an urban orienteering scavenger hunt for the Boy Scouts).

Very nice, not unreasonable prices. We started with an eggplant timballo which as very tasty (eggplant, mozz, tomatoes) and a bowl of olives (nice variety, would have liked if they weren't fridge temp).

I had the linguine with manilla clams, botarga, garlic and artichokes. The artichokes and parsley made a nice bright foil for the darker oceany flavors.
SueF had the special which was a pasta with buffalo ricotta, porcini broth, and a variety of mushrooms. Very rich, outstanding.

Sometimes a place can be too busy for its own good. (Or for the good of its customers.) That was the case here last night. Service was haphazard and error-prone, but not for lack of trying on the part of our waiter. He was nice, and eager to please, but the staff just can't keep up with the demand--at least on a beautiful Saturday night. A language barrier didn't help. Again, no fault of the waiter's; but with ambient crowd noise at near-deafening levels, communication between people of differing native tongues is even more of a problem than it would be normally. And it was.

Food for the most part was OK, nothing more, although the one of us who ordered the fish stew was very pleased, so that might be the way to go. In general, although we had fun because of the company (when we could hear them), I didn't get a strong sense that the restaurant has put the customer experience first and foremost. If we return, which I don't feel compelled to do, some night other than Saturday might be best.