Terzo Piano is the smart new restaurant on the third floor of the Modern Wing of the Art Institute of Chicago. Terzo Piano means "third floor" in Italian. And the name connects with noted Italian architect Renzo Piano, who designed the Modern Wing.
(Rich Hein/Sun-Times)
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Cuisine:
Parking: No
Serving: PHOTO GALLERY
• Art Institute's Terzo Piano restaurant
All I can say right now is "Wow!" The Modern Wing is magnificent, the food at Terzo Piano is staggeringly delicious, and the design and atmosphere of the restaurant itself is stunning. Whether you get to the restaurant by elevator from the first floor or by way of the Nichols Bridgeway (it connects the third floor of the Modern Wing to Millennium Park across Monroe Street), the impact is pulse-rattling.
The Bluhm Family Terrace (an outdoor venue for sculpture) is to the left of the restaurant entrance (and perfect for al fresco dining). Straight ahead and you are into the restaurant proper, where it's all white as far as the eye can see. Stark yet beautiful. Minimalist and modern. Celestial. This is how I imagine a dining room in heaven would be.
Heavenly is how I would describe the food, as well. Tony Mantuano, top toque/partner at Spiaggia, oversees the menu ("chef di cucina" is Meg Colleran, and Mantuano's wife, Cathy, is listed as the wine director). Mantuano is a gifted chef. He has a knack for knowing just the right flavor combinations and what works with what. Mantuano has wowed me many times over with his food, and he did it once again here.
The Terzo Piano name might suggest Italian, and there are influences of that on the menu, but overall the culinary direction is more contemporary American (with flashes of modern Italian). By modern Italian, I mean, for example, the Terzo Piano antipasto appetizer. Three types of salumi (cured meats) were thinly sliced and neatly arranged on a maple chopping board along with marinated vegetables and crumbles of nutty Pleasant Ridge Reserve Cheese (handcrafted in Dodgeville, Wis.). The meats were La Quercia coppa (a member of the salami family) and prosciutto (produced in Iowa and making a run at the prosciutto di Parma of Italy) and Russo soppressata. This was a delicious assortment with flavors and textures that ran from silky to delicate to mellow and robust.
Modern Italian, too, as in the "hand-made" spaghetti with earthy morel mushrooms, fresh oregano and house-made lemon ricotta. Digest those ingredients for a minute. Nothing like this has ever crossed my palate before, so it is the joy of a new flavor experience connected with a simple pasta (cooked to perfection) that made this dish so unique and enjoyable.
A smoked whitefish appetizer had overtones of Wisconsin and undertones of Mediterranean. The whitefish was whipped into the consistency of a heavy puree, with extra-virgin olive oil playing a starring flavor role. A rosemary crisp "sail" stuck in the fish was not just for decoration, it was good eating, as were the plump and meaty Cerignola olives from Italy.
There are three salads to choose from, each sounding better than the next, but it was the spring salad that caught my wife's eye and ultimately her total interest. A neatly arranged stack of pea tendrils, pea shoots and "local peas" got it on with crispy planks of La Quercia guanciale (a form of bacon) and aged Ocooch cheese (an intensely flavored sheep's cheese from Hidden Springs Farm in Wisconsin). And all of that fell under the flavor of a well-made shallot vinaigrette. It's an expensive salad at $17, but you would be hard-pressed to find a better one.
"Butterkase cheese filled ravioletto with ramps" was an entree that was totally unique and uniquely delicious. "Ravioletto" suggests one big ravioli, and in the Mantuano version that is just what it was. Actually, this was a big sheet of pasta that got folded around the cheese. The cheese, as the name implies, was buttery and creamy (and rich), and it flowed out of the tender pasta as my fork laid waste to the luscious creation. (Note: Since my visit the cheese has been changed to Crescenza, a rich and creamy Italian cheese.)
And for the fun of it all, the piccolo (aka minis or sliders) burgers are called "uno, due, tre." Restaurants doing boring sliders might like to take a few lessons from Terzo Piano on how they should be done. There was the rich lamb burger topped with a silky and fresh Capriole goat cheese, a beef burger glazed with Wisconsin Colby cheese and a shrimp burger topped with a "Calabrian pepper spread" (outstanding). The house-made organic fries that came with the burgers were just OK (it seems as if the demise of fries continues).
One dessert sampled was an almond financier, which is a fancy name for a tea cake that is similar to sponge cake. It was the almond flavor along with a rhubarb and strawberry "salad" and the creme fraiche sorbet that gave this dessert the oomph it needed.
Keep in mind the menu undergoes seasonal and sustainable changes, so some of the dishes mentioned here might not always be available.
Pat Bruno is a local free-lance critic and author. E-mail brunoeats@aol.com. Listen to Pat Bruno talk about food and wine Tuesdays at 6:23 p.m. and 10:23 p.m. and Saturdays and Sundays at 7:53 p.m. on WBBM News Radio 780-AM.
