Brendan Tripp

Review of Francesca's on Chestnut

The other night were were looking for a place to c...

The other night were were looking for a place to celebrate our younger daughter's graduation from middle school, and were considering going down to Francesca's on Taylor, when I saw they had one up in our neighborhood, and figured we'd go to Francesca's on Chestnut rather than spend $30-40 to cab it down to Little Italy and back!

We had to wait nearly a half hour past our reservation to get seated, but I guess that's about par for the course for a popular place on Saturday night. I wish I could recall what other restaurants have been in that space at the Seneca Hotel, as I know I've been in there before. The room is fairly classic, with windows on two sides, and B&W photos from Italy as the main decorative element.

I was somewhat surprised that all their locations have the same, fairly limited, menu ... we split some appetizers, the fried calamari (which was as good as we'd read), and the "Quattro Stagione" pizza. I liked this (which comes with prosciutto, artichoke, mushroom, olive, and egg) well enough, but my kids (14 and 18) were kind of grossed out about the egg ... it's one of those things that might have a good reason for being there in a "regional cuisine" sense, but there was no "story" with it to explain why it was there, so it was just odd.

We each ordered pasta dishes, and I had the special, Orecchiette with ham and peas in a tomato cream sauce. This was good, but was oddly overpowered with a smoky flavor ... I don't know if this originated with the ham, or something in the sauce, but it was, while not unpleasant, like the egg on the pizza, notable without being expected/explained.

Most notable in the "good surprise" column was the very aggressively seasoned olive oil that was served with the bread, having a nice balance of herbs with enough garlic to give it a pronounced edge. I wonder if they bottle that!

Anyway, the meal was good, but not so good that we're dying for a return visit. It will definitely be on our radar when looking for "nice" places to eat in the neighborhood, however.