Now My Neighbor Can Stop Yelling at Me: Dinner at Roseangelis

When we moved to Chicago a couple years ago, one of our neighbors took an immediate interest in telling us about the city and recommending places to eat and shop. Her favorite Italian restaurant in the city is Roseangelis and from very early on in our relationship she was encouraging us to go there.

Well, people get busy, other restaurants come up, and a year passed without us trying Roseangelis. Our neighbor scolded us for missing out on such great Italian food. Win and I really did want to try it, but we heard that they can have very long waits and our Lima Bean isn't usually able to cope with long, drawn-out waits for her dinner. So more months passed and our neighbor continued to chide us whenever the subject came up.

Finally, after close to two years of living in Chicago, we made it to Roseangelis and I'm glad we did. Roseangelis is an unassuming Italian restaurant, tucked away on a quiet residential street. Hidden behind its low-key facade, however, is some really quality food.



For my appetizer, I ordered the Pizza del Giorno pictured above. That day's creation was a delicious pie topped with artichokes, mushrooms, olives, shredded cheese, fresh tomato and loads of other delicious vegetables. While it was billed as an appetizer, it was quite large and we ended up taking a lot of it home with us. The flavors were great and the thin crust was delicious.

As his appetizer, Win ordered the Panzarotti con Pesto e Gorgonzola which is sauteed cheese ravioli served with a pesto gorgonzola dipping sauce. Perhaps you can see a bit of it behind the pizza in the photo above. While the pizza was excellent, this panzarotti was amazing. The pesto gorgonzola dipping sauce was really rich and flavorful. I think we'd both highly recommend this appetizer.

For my main course, I ordered Raviolini alla Maria, which was salmon-filled raviolini in a basil pesto cream sauce with chopped kalamata olives. Check out the photo below. Yes, this dish is as rich and creamy as it looks in the photo. The salmon flavor came through nicely and wasn't overwhelmed by the pesto. The raviolini had a terrific blend of textures and flavors and was so, so rich that I ended up taking most of that home too.



Win ordered the Pollo al Vesuvio for his entree. This dish is roast chicken, cooked with wine, lemon, herbs and other seasonings to make it tender and flavorful. Oddly enough, it was the only dish on the menu that required any special length of time to prepare. Boring old roast chicken? Needing extra time? Pollo al Vesuvio required 45 minutes because they slow roast the chicken and use the time to allow the flavors to seep in thoroughly. Remember how I mentioned that our Lima Bean can't tolerate long waits for dinner? Well, she wasn't with us this time around (thanks to my parents being in town and babysitting for us) so Win decided to live it up and order the Vesuvio.



This chicken was really special. Moist, tender, and perfectly roasted with wonderful flavor. It was worth the wait.

Roseangelis' portions are large, so as I mentioned above, we did end up taking quite a bit of food home with us. As such, we passed on dessert. Their dessert menu looked good, but we were simply too full.

Roseangelis is known for excellent food and long waits during peak hours. They apparently don't take reservations. The night we went we were seated immediately and didn't have any wait, but most of the tables in the restaurant were constantly full and the restaurant was doing a booming business that evening.

I'm happy we finally listened to our neighbor and checked out Roseangelis. It's a charming neighborhood Italian place with helpful, friendly service and delicious food. Don't wait as long as we did to try it.

Roseangelis
1314 W. Wrightwood
Chicago, IL
USA
Telephone: 773-296-0081
Web Site: http://www.roseangelis.com