Michigan Avenue - Niche Media - Michigan Avenue magazine is a luxury lifestyle magazine centered around Chicago’s finest people, events, fashion, health & beauty, fine dining & more!
Issue link: http://digital.greengale.com/i/297393
"We're getting ready for the next 30 years." —TONY MANTUANO PHOTOGRAPHY BY GALDONES PHOTOGRAPHY S piaggia's 30 -year history perched above the Magnificent Mile has been star-studded, literally. From Mick Jagger and Princess Diana to Lady Gaga and President Obama, the stately room has hosted some of the world's biggest celebrities, all the while garnering four-star reviews on a yearly basis. As chef/partner Tony Mantuano—a James Beard Award recipient and star of Top Chef Masters—unveils a freshly remodeled dining room, he raises a glass to Spiaggia's coming three decades and looks beyond Italian cuisine to a new riverside project he's cooking up this spring. What inspired the redesign at Spiaggia? We wanted to do something special for the 30th anniversary, and the [idea] that came out is a refresh—not just the way the room looks, but the whole style of what we're doing. Not that we're going to change anything on the plate or the incredible wine list, but we're getting ready for the next 30 years. One thing we've never had is a lounge, so we're going to have a beautiful lounge with a completely new menu that is a different way to experience Spiaggia. What will be on the lounge menu? Executive Chef Chris Marchino spent the last month in Italy working in the best places. We want to feature the best of the best when it comes to Italian ingredients. The best Parmigiano cheese you've ever experienced, with a drop of 50-year-old balsamic vinegar f rom t he sa me tow n—t hose t wo t h ings toget her a re one of t he most incredible taste sensations. Italian caviar that's farm- raised in Lombardy; incredible langostinos from Sicily cold-poached in the greatest olive oil.... Elegant, beautiful ingredients. How else are you celebrating 30 years of Spiaggia? You're going to see a lot of modern touches to the way things are served, and by "modern" I mean more artful. The whole thing about Italy—it's all about doing things effortlessly and looking good when you do those things, and that's what we're trying to do: create this effortless elegance in the din- ing room, which was a little stuffy before [the redesign]. You'll soon be shifting course with a new concept, River Roast, at the former Fulton's on the River space. What's in store there? It's taking a space that should have been turned into a restaurant a long time ago. No one has that position right on the river like we do. All the cooking will be done right in front of you, and it's not Italian. Roast beef and roast chicken carved tableside— just delicious, old-school cooking. The menu was inspired in part by your travels to London? There's a restaurant in London called Roast t hat's rea lly inspirat iona l, but there are a lot of places we went to in New York that were terrific, or up and down the East Coast, where they do full-f lavored, real cooking. We have a special oven where we can roast chickens in 25 minutes. There's something about roast chicken when it's right out of the oven and you cut into it. We're going to be able to roast chicken to order in a combi-oven that we've tricked out, and it's the moistest, most delicious chicken I've ever tasted. Do new innovations in kitchen technology still excite you? Oh, yeah. Where they manufacture these ovens in Wisconsin, we took a road trip with a cooler full of 30 chickens, and one of the chefs and I went up there and just started roasting all day. It was a lot of chicken! 980 N. Michigan Ave., 2nd Fl., 312-280-3300; spiaggiarestaurant.com MA Still the King THIRTY YEARS AFTER OPENING THE CITY'S ULTIMATE FINE DINING DESTINATION, TONY MANTUANO CELEBRATES A NEW ERA FOR SPIAGGIAAND SETS HIS SIGHTS ON A MAJOR NEW CONCEPT. BY MEG MATHIS RIGHT: For chef Tony Mantuano, resting on his laurels isn't on the menu. BELOW: Squid ink chitarra pasta with lobster, mint, and bread crumbs. 102 MICHIGANAVEMAG.COM SOUND BITES 102_MA_ST_QA_May/June_14.indd 102 4/14/14 5:31 PM