Italian Restaurants Chicago

Spavone sings for his supper crowd

Where Tony Spavone travels, music cannot be too far behind.
Tony Spavone's Ristorante is proof enough. Food is served - excellent food, infact-but music is also a star on the menu.
Spavone's restaurant is one of the few in Chicagoland where the owner regularly serenades his guests with a song; where a restaurant full of people cheerfully sing along to whatever tune catches their fancy; where a roomful of diners routinely gets up to form a giant conga line.
Only a professional performer could create a Spavone's Ristorante, and it isn't surprising that the performer happens to be Italian.
"I don't know anything else but the restaurant business and singing," the congenial Spavone says with a broad smile. "There are a lot of good restaurants, but when you have a combination like that it's always a party."
He pauses, then adds, "You grow up in an Italian family, we're always doing things together. And I think that's what it is. You have to let people feel at home, comfortable. That's part of my background."
The atmosphere in the restaurant is a marvel. It's a place where individuals walk in and in an hour everyone is one big happy family. You can walk in with the worst mood and in 15 or 20 minutes you're having a great time. It's really magic in there.
Maybe magic is part of Tony Spavone's recipe.
Born in Naples, Spavone was 12 when his family moved to the United States. The son of a respected restauranteur, Spavone worked in his dad's restaurant (Seven Hills in Lincolnwood) as a teenager, learning the ropes and being groomed for the family business. It was assumed he would follow in his father's footsteps.
Spavone had other ideas. While he was busing tables and cleaning dishes, he was also singing-whenever he got the opportunity. By the time he was 21 he craved a more lyrical life style.
"It was singing. It was something I always wanted to do," Spavone says. "I loved performing. I said to myself, 'Maybe I ought to give it a try.' I never wanted to look back and wonder what might have been."
Spavone did indeed pursue a music career, first specializing in Neapolitan songs and touring the country with various Italian shows. He eventually began to realize he had to have a broader repertoire to attract the audiences he wanted. When Spavone broadened his act to include standards and rock 'n' roll oldies, he began playing to larger, more diverse crowds. "A guy who used to sing 'O Sole Mio' is now doing Dion and the Belmonts," Spavone says.
It worked. In demand throughout the area, Spavone was able to relax and enjoy his music. And eventually, he found himself drifting back into the restaurant business. In 1984 Spavone decided to open a restaurant in Bloomingdale. He chose a huge building, with a seating capacity of 285.
"Everybody thought I was crazy," Spavone acknowledges. "they said it was too big, and the overhead way too high."
They didn't realize that Spavone's name was popular throughout the Chicago area, "My clientele was from everywhere because I was performing all over." And as a performer, Spavone knows people. The ones seated in the audience want pretty much the same thing as the ones seated in his dinning room.
"My recipe for success is to take care of your customers and let them have a good time," Spavone says. "That works."
Spavone works, too - literally and figuratively. When he's not singing in the dining room, he's greeting customers, helping out the chef, serving food, checking coats, busing tables - in other words, mingling.
"I consider myself a very lucky person," he says. "I have a voice I can share with my customers, plus I have a good product I also spend a lot of my summers traveling and on tours. I'm having a great time."
And so are his customers and his fans.
Tony Spavone's Ristorante is located at 266 W. Lake St. in Bloomingdale. For more information, call (630) 529-3154.

Spavone's Ristorante - now that's Italian

By CHARLYN BRIDGES
Daily Herald Restaurant Critic

A number of Chicagoland personalities hang out at Tony Spavone's Ristorante.
In the spacious lobby, there are photos of Mike Ditka, news and other sports personalities - all with Tony. On another wall are the restaurant reviews from other notables.
We don't care if our review is posted up there in the celebrity corner. What we really want to do is go back into the kitchen and say, "Tony, tell us how you did the filet mignon francese." And he would show us how he batters the filet with egg and then makes the lemon butter sauce.
Then we'd say, "Tony, show us how you make the veal medaglione," and we would watch, take notes when we could, and learn everything we can from this master of the cuisine.
Cooking like this, you see, isn't something you can learn from a book - even the best cookbook. It isn't even something you can learn from a cooking school - even the best cooking school. It's something you learn from one generation to the next. Tony has the grace and good sense to credit his father (who put the Seven Hills restaurant on the map) with what he's learned about cooking.
Even if you don't care about learning to cook Italian, you should at least go to Tony Spavone's if you plan to eat Italian!
You'll enjoy the crisp white linens, the dark green napkins which match the dark green carpeting. You'll feel comfy in the tan leather chairs. But mostly you'll feast on masterpieces from the kitchen.
Your first surprise will be Tony's homemade bread. They are warm spirals of yeast bread with a herb garlic butter spread over the top. Your server will notice when the basket is empty and will bring you more.
We started with Tony's special shrimp sauteed in fresh tomato and onions. Fresh is the key word here. This is no sauce that simmered all day. The onions and tomatoes are chopped, sauted with fresh basil until they're aromatic and then the shrimp are added. There are six in the serving.
Stuffed eggplant starts with thin slices of eggplant spread with a herbed ricotta, rolled, jellyroll fashion, battered and fried crisp on the outside. We liked it, even though it was on the bland side.
Bravo to Tony's for offering soups other than minestrone. We went for the Escarole in Brodo and found it to be a healthy offering of fresh greens in a clear - but salty - broth. Another soup available with the meal is pasta e fagioli, a tomatoey navy bean soup with shell noodles - very hearty without being too spicy.
Salad is going to be the usual mixed green but the garlic dressing is authentic.
Several menu items allow the diner to taste a variety of entrees. The Fiesta Dinner combines veal medaglione, chicken parmigiana and cannelloni. Here you get the tomato based herb sauce over boneless chicken breast. At the other end of the platter is the veal covered in tender roasted red peppers, which give an entirely different treat for the palate. We were only mildly interested in the cannelloni which couldn't compete with the dominant flavors of the chicken and veal.
For a totally different sensation, go for the filet mignon francese.
The tender, butterflied filet is dipped in an egg batter, deep fried and then baked to order. The best part is the lemon butter sauce in which the juicy filet is served. This preparation also is available using veal, and either way must be sampled to be appreciated. It has a rich and slightly tangy flavor that complements the meat in a most intriguing and memorable way.
The cannolis are the only sweet prepared at Tony Spavone's, and they are rich, creamy inside and crisp on the outside. Our vote would be to order the Italian lemonade ($1.50), a sweet, but tangy lemon ice sorbet that tops off a hearty meal without overfilling you.
Tony is something of a vocal artist as well as being the host, owner and head food manager. He is known to grab a wireless mike and stroll among the dinner parties and serenade the guests, singing popular and traditional Italian love songs.
It is quite a place to be entertained as well as being well fed.

Dining Out

Tony Spavone's is all Italian

By CATHRYN CARDINE

"BENVENUTO IN Questa Casa" (Welcome to this house). This is the warm Italian greeting you receive when you scan the menu Of Tony Spavone's Restaurant,
At first glance the decor did not truly indicate that of an Italian ristorante. However, the delicious aromas aroused our curiousity as well as our appetites.
We highly recommend reservations at Tony Spavone's. We arrived on a Saturday night without them, and waited nearly an hour. (Our fault not Tony's).
A quick decision from this menu is next to impossible. Would you believe a selection of 14 appetizers? Seasonal; selections are cantaloupe with prosciutto, stuffed artichoke and mussels. Clams are available baked, raw or steamed.
THOUGH TEMPTED by the stuffed eggplant, we selected fried zucchini and fried calamari
The zucchini was golden and tender and the calamari (or squid) was superb.
A lovely basket of warm fresh baked rolls lightly brushed with oregano and garlic butter accompanied the appetizer. You'll have to build up all of your willpower not to gobble them all of them up, but try to save enough room for your entree.
Should you desire a salad, a selection from six varieties would satisfy any gourmet. Features include the cold fish salad, broccoli salad or Miscramboglio this was described by our waiter as the "garbage salad" containing chunks of salami, cheese, vegetables, olives, etc. all with an antipasto flavor.
All entrees are served with a choice of soup or dinner salad, and a side of pasta or baked potato.
SOUP WAS our choice and the minestrone was full bodied with a light tomato base, heavy on the shells and vegetables. The escarole in brodo (greens in broth) was fresh and flavorful. Next time we will have to try the pasta fagioli (pasta with beans), the third soup choice.
The diversity of entrees is overwhelming. If your choice is veal, there are 10 different varieties. Don't let the Italian language of this menu discourage you. Our waiter was happy to explain and answer any questions that we had. One of the veal dishes, Saltimbocca veal literally means "jump into the mouth."
Chicken cacciatore, vesuvio, parmigiana and chicken francese (boneless with lemon butter sauce) all sounded delicious.
OH YES, and for those of you who are not adventuresome, there are several broiler steak selections. Children's portions are available.
As we awaited our entree, trying to keep our hands and minds off those fresh baked rolls, we were serenaded by a strolling accordion player. What a treat!
Our dinner selections were braciole and Tony's Special Veal Dish. Such a simple name for such a delicious dish! The veal was breaded, topped with prosciutto and an abundance of melted cheese. Served on the side were green noodles, mushrooms and peas tossed with a creamy white sauce.
The Braciole was a thin tender flank steak wrapped around Italian sausage and seasoning, served with a side of mostaccioli. (This dish is extremely difficult to prepare, if the flank steak is not sliced thin enough, it makes the entire meal tough and chewy). This brociole was perfectly prepared, tender and flavorful. The tomato sauce was seasoned'just right and had just the right consistency.

REVIEWS