Following approximately 40 yrs as one particular of the very best Italian eating places in Chicago, the legendary great-eating Spiaggia has permanently closed. Also closed is its sister eatery, the additional casual Cafe Spiaggia.
In accordance to a tweet posted Friday morning from the restaurant’s account, and a report on eater.com/chicago, Levy Dining places, the possession arm of Spiaggia, explained they were fully dedicated to reopening next far more than a yearlong pandemic shutdown, but could not attain a new leasing settlement with the restaurant’s making landlord, “which was necessary to reflect the realities of operating a restaurant in an business office constructing publish-pandemic.”
“We were quite substantially hunting forward to welcoming back again our cherished spouse and children and friends,” a write-up on Spiaggia’s web-site pointed out.
With a kitchen area helmed by the famous Chef Tony Mantuano, the cafe was Michelin-starred and the receiver of a lot of James Beard Award nominations, together with Mantuano’s get as very best chef Midwest location in 2005. His spouse, Cathy Mantuano, curated a James Beard-nominated wine cellar. With each other, they elevated Italian delicacies to new heights about 37 a long time.
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The restaurant was also identified for nurturing younger expertise like Sarah Grueneberg, the chef-operator of Monteverde in Chicago, and “Top Chef” champ Joe Flamm, who earlier this 12 months opened his have cafe, the Croatian-American restaurant Rose Mary, in the West Loop.
Spiaggia (Italian for “beach”), situated in the vicinity of the corner of Michigan Avenue and Oak Avenue, available diners one particular of the greatest sights of the city, way too, overlooking the Mag Mile and Oak Road Seaside.
The Mantuanos departed Spiaggia in 2019 to begin a new chapter in their life, opening the similarly swanky Yolan in Nashville.
In a 2019 interview with Meals & Wine, chef Mantuano mirrored on the couple’s virtually four-many years at Spiaggia and their lifestyle in Chicago. “It definitely was challenging just to say goodbye to all our pals and family members. I just truly feel like we needed a new act. We experienced completed what we’d performed there and then we’d attained what we attained. We were being wanting for a new problem. We gave the greater part of our life years to a location and are continue to seriously proud of what we did there. So, it was hard to go away, but we gave a good deal, and now it is time to enable that baby go on its way. It was time for mother and dad to discover a thing new to do.”