Omaggio -- good sandwiches in Evanston

It's been probably a year since signs first went up advertising this place. I was suspicious of the promises made -- imagine every trendy Italian "food concept" and it was listed. ("Salumeria! Osteria! Enoteca! Bordello!")

Anyway, the place has been open for dinner for about a month now. Recently, they've also been open for lunch. And it's lunch, more specifically the "salumeria" aspect, that I decided to try out. And I can say (based on one visit so far) that it's good, with the potential to be very good indeed.

First of all, the meats are right there on display in the deli case and they look excellent. Really nice stuff -- nothing too unusual, but everything looks to be of high quality. Beautiful bresaola. Also several kinds of cheese, marinated artichokes, etc.

I went for what normal people call a hoagie but which you quaint Midwesterners have some weird name for. (I'm just teasing. I know you refer to it as a "Dagwood hero".) I chose the Italian, of course.

First, the bread: It's crap, I'm afraid. That same airy, tasteless wad of cotton that afflicts too many sandwich shops around here. The same exact stuff that Riviera uses, though not nearly as stale.

The filling was wonderful, on the other hand. Pre-sliced (Why? You have the slicer right there. Does it really save that much time?), which makes one apprehensive for what might happen if business becomes slow, but, as I said above, quality stuff. Prosciutto, capicola, salami, provolone. Nice.

The toppings were mistakes on my part. You can get giardinera or "olive relish" (some kind of New Orleans influence, I guess, although these olives are black). I don't think giardinera combines well with Italian meats that are of reasonably good quality, so I got the olives and they really didn't add anything to the sandwich. Next time I'll skip it altogether.

The dressing can be either oil and vinegar or what the guy making my sandwich promoted as a "tomato-based olive oil", which I'd swear they call "O-sauce". Again, I went for the unusual. The O-sauce didn't really bring out my O-face: it's basically an overly-sweet, thinned down tomato sauce. Avoid.

Although some of the choices I made contributed to a less than stellar end result, I do see that you really can build a pretty nice sandwich here; as I said, the core (i.e., the filling) is very good. I'll order more carefully next time, or what's even more likely, will buy just the meats to go and put them into some of Bennison's ciabatta.


Omaggio
1639 Orrington Ave.
Evanston
(847) 570-0500

Yes, but do they have chocolate chip cookies as good as the ones at Al's Deli?

We had dinner at Omaggio a couple of weeks ago.

The atmosphere was a little noisy and the food nothing special. The food was barely warm and a little too salty for my tastes, plus the menu is a little overpriced for the skill level and quality of ingredients you get. Some of the food we had looked as if it is prepared ahead of time a left to sit in a cooler and or reheated in microwave oven.

This could be because the place is so new, so I’m willing to give the place another try in a month or two. I was hoping for more and am a little disappointed, what Evanston does not need is another mediocre Italian restaurant.

I chose Omaggio for an office lunch today since I knew I wouldn't be able to join the Evanston Lunch Group next week. There were about 15 of us, including three kids, so we were able to sample a lot. The olive bread, fresh pasta with wild boar ragu (though this was ALMOST too salty), venison risotto (the risotto of the day, really nice), four-mushroom pizza and balsamic mushrooms were standouts--pretty simple (in a good way) preparation and very flavorful. Disappointments included the winter vegetable soup, which wasn't hearty at all (I saw the saddest piece of broccolini floating in my director's soup with very little else), and the penne with particularly undistinguished meatballs. I think Omaggio is another "just OK" Evanston restaurant. I guess I like it better than Dave's Italian Kitchen one street over on Chicago Avenue, but that's not saying a whole lot. I didn't find the prices any higher than the average sit down lunch in downtown Evanston.

I took some pictures with my phone, but I'm sure ELG will take better ones.