The two best restaurants to open in the past year escaped from New York. Tra Via features a chef who worked at some of the Big Apple’s highest-rated dining rooms; the Park Avenue Cafe is the first out-of-town venture by David Burke, a lauded New York chef and cookbook author–though he installed a local chef to oversee the kitchen here.
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David Burke says, “We picked Chicago for our first out-of-town restaurant because we thought it would be the most accepting city for the kind of thing we do.” Burke’s partner, Allan Stillman, operates a half-dozen places, including Smith & Wollensky, one of the best steakhouses in New York.
Burke hired local chef Charles Weber, who gained fame at the old La Tour and later the Blackhawk Lodge, because he was “totally sympathetic and compatible” for the kind of “new American” cuisine featured in the restaurant.
Tra Via–located on a boisterous strip of bars and restaurants in Lincoln Park–is deceptive in appearance and style. Its atmosphere is casual and pleasant, and most dishes–which come in generous portions at very reasonable prices–are exceptional. But it gets much too loud, even when half full, and the seating isn’t very comfortable. Though it has an Italian name and a great wood-burning brick pizza oven, the food is not authentic Italian but Italian-influenced “new American.”
