I was at La Donna on N. Clark the other night, and I believe they make all of their pastas in house. They do noodles as well as filled pastas. I greatly enjoyed my pumpkin ravioli, though it was admittedly much sweeter than I was expecting. I think that also had something to do with the "creamy balsamic" sauce they recommended to go with it.

Service was spotty, but all in all a nice place. I'll be going back.

La Donna Italian Cuisine
5146 N. Clark Street
http://www.ladonnaitaly.com

mailsf wrote:I greatly enjoyed my pumpkin ravioli, though it was admittedly much sweeter than I was expecting. I think that also had something to do with the "creamy balsamic" sauce they recommended to go with it.

I love that dish, it's a fabulous combination of sweet, tart and savory.

I could go on and on about the taglioline paglia e fieno that I recently had at Merlo. Perfect al dente pasta, a delicious veal and prosciutto ragu, and finished with hard boiled quail eggs and then a drizzle of white truffle oil.

I was also fortunate enough to taste my dad's fava and zucchini risotto, topped with a fried squash blossom which was filled with what I believe was a mixture of ricotta and anchovies. It was fantastic.

Once again, I can only rave about the food at Merlo (on Maple this time) and in particular, their house-made pastas.

Spiaggia, michigan ave.

Pizza D.O.C, lincoln square, lawrence ave.

Caro Mio, Ravenswood, Wilson?

mmmm. gnocchi done right.

Hi,

I am looking for a restaurant that serves fabulous pasta. Interesting, tasty fresh pasta that just melts in your mouth with a sauce that would really complement it.

I would prefer something in the N/NW suburbs, mid-range restaurant price wise. But if there is something outstanding on the North side of the city, that will work too. And if you love a specific pasta dish there, please let me know what it is.

Thank you!

Amore Mio in Hoffman Estates, they have homemade raviolis, gnocchi and cavatelli.

eggplant wrote:Hi,

I am looking for a restaurant that serves fabulous pasta. Interesting, tasty fresh pasta that just melts in your mouth with a sauce that would really complement it.

I would prefer something in the N/NW suburbs, mid-range restaurant price wise. But if there is something outstanding on the North side of the city, that will work too. And if you love a specific pasta dish there, please let me know what it is.

Thank you!

Well it's not in the burbs but I'm almost entirely sure that Spiaggia serves fresh pasta- I've been to the cafe a number of times recently and it's been AWESOME. The linguine with clams is to die for.

It's gotten somewhat mixed reviews here (none recently), and there's some construction around the building, but I like the fresh, house-made pastas at

La Cucina di Donatella
2221 W. Howard Street
Chicago, (almost Evanston)
773-262-6533
BYOB

A million places. Didn't we have this precise thread before, yielding Katy's?

I've had wonderful pasta at Va Pensiero in Evanston. Some of the pastas are made in-house and others are imported.

Privyet Baklazhan!

You'll have to wade knee-deep in invective to find the actual comments about the food at Terragusto:

http://www.lthforum.com/bb/viewtopic.php?t=10266

In general, though, they've addressed some of the service issues, and the pasta, particularly the farfalle alla bolognese with the day-long ragu, is irreproachable. All of their pasta is made in house.

Terragusto: excellent fresh pasta especially well adorned in the bolognese.

For commentary (often strident) on the above, search and ye shall find.

JeffB wrote:A million places. Didn't we have this precise thread before, yielding Katy's?

I believe you may be referring to this one.

Home-made pasta is a wonderfully delicious treat, that seems to be relatively hard to find in Chicago. Making pasta is such a lengthy process, but the result is so far superior to processed pastas. So, if I am going out to a restaurant for pasta, I prefer to only have freshly made pastas.

I have been to Gioco, Merlo on Maple, Luna Caprese and Riccardo Trattoria. Of the four, I would not return to Gioco. I found the pasta to be less than average. I ordered the handmade pasta with braised wild boar, and found the sauce to be just too heavy.

Merlo was alright. I enjoyed my beef carpaccio here, and I found the pasta here to be about average. I ordered the handmade tagliatelle with marinara sauce. It had a good flavor, but overall it was nothing particularly special. The atmosphere of the restaurant was too pretentious, the wait staff unhelpful—combined with the average food, I wouldn’t recommend a return.

Luna Caprese was quite enjoyable. I shared two pasta dishes and liked both of them (wish I could be more specific here, but it was over a year a go).

Riccardo Trattoria had by far the best hand-made pasta. I ordered the tagliatelle with a rabbit ragu. It was delicious! The pasta had the right amount of firmness combined with yield, and great flavor (perhaps this varies depending on the flour?). I also had the tuna carpaccio, and the beef carpaccio, both of which were excellent. My friend had the hand-made tortellini filled with spinach and sheep ricotta cheese in a butter-sage sauce with Parmesan, which he loved. The restaurant itself was pretty charming also.


Riccardo Trattoria
2119 N. Clark St., Chicago
(773) 549-0038

dippy-do-da-egg wrote:Merlo was alright. I enjoyed my beef carpaccio here, and I found the pasta here to be about average. I ordered the handmade tagliatelle with marinara sauce. It had a good flavor, but overall it was nothing particularly special.

Since the husband and wife owners are from Bologna (and the wife is the chef) and Merlo's menu is largely Northern Italian, I wouldn't recommend a marinara sauce there (can't recall even seeing one). I would recommend the tagliatelle with bolognese sauce however.

Matt wrote:I believe you may be referring to this one.

Whoops, you got bit by one of the annoying things about the phpBB, the software that runs LTHForum. The link above is a "relative" link and right now it goes to the King of Burritos - LTH taqueria project - sort of. Someone else may click on it and get something else...

You probably found it with a google search? The URL under Matt's link is this:
http://www.lthforum.com/bb/viewtopic.php?t=9171&view=next&sid=6d9aa60ffdde271740f1229a8d963044

When you see that "view=next" (or "view=prev") in a URL, it's not "safe" to use in a link in a post, because which post is "next" after number 9171 changes over time as other posts get made.

If you see that in a link you want to use in a post, the easiest thing to do is to click on the post's title at the top of the page. That will reload the page with a URL which unambiguously points to the thread you are actually trying to share. Copy and paste that instead of the one you found in Google, and you'll give people a link that should be much more reliable.

Amore Mio in the NW suburbs.

I found these pics online.



http://www.flickr.com/photos/14129160@N03/

Amore Mio
1457 Palatine Rd
Hoffman Estates, IL
(847) 358-5506

(Address added by moderator)

Amore Mio looks delicious! Zucchini blossoms are so hard to come by. (As a side note I made them a few times this summer because I have a garden. Most summers I made the mistake of letting the flowers go to waste. They are wonderful when stuffed with fresh goat cheese and fried in oil.)

Thanks Br for the tip on Merlo, perhaps I'll have to try the bolognese.

Since we had two fresh-made pasta threads active at once, I merged the new one into the existing one.

Okay, I'd like to chime in with a slight bias. I make my own pasta at home (I have one of those small roller/cutter doohickeys that clamps to my countertop), and I also wait tables at Gioco. The wonderful ladies who make the Gioco pasta do it full-time and do it very well. On the regular menu, all except the garganelli (Barilla brand) are made in-house fresh. The pappardelle is delicious, very silky wide ribbons but doesn't have the toothsomeness that the spaghetti has. The ladies cut it with a "chitarra" which is a lyre-looking thingy with wires. I can second the aforementioned opinion that the kitchen doesn't want to invest the time for short and/or tube pasta, so they make long noodles, and stuffed pastas in-house only.

I live down the street from a Tavola, one of my favorite Italian restaurants in Chicago. Their gnocchi with sage brown butter is the best in town, and they do make a few other tasty pastas in-house as well. They serve them in primi portions, but if you ask nicely, they will make an entree-sized dish for you.

I haven't been to Merlo, but it sounds very tasty. I was at a wedding reception last week at Spiaggia and the food was delicious, but there wasn't a focus on pasta for the dinner.

Riccardo Trattoria is a damn good place for pasta. Actually, the place it was before that was even better for pasta!!

Convito Cafe and Market in Plaza del Lago in Wilmette has house-made pastas. You can get fresh-made pasta to use in cooking at home from the market or prepared pasta dishes from the market to reheat at home, and they serve pasta dishes there in the cafe.

luvtruffles wrote:Amore Mio in the NW suburbs.

I found these pics online.



http://www.flickr.com/photos/14129160@N03/

Amore Mio
1457 Palatine Rd
Hoffman Estates, IL
(847) 358-5506

(Address added by moderator)

I must of drove by this place over a dozen times, I finally took a chance and went for dinner w/ my wife.

It was outstanding. As far as the homemade pastas go, I had a homemade ravioli stuffed w/ ground turkey and dried cranberries in a roasted corn cream sauce. My wife had pumpkin ravioli in a balsamic cream sauce.