Ascione Bistro, a pretty expected Italian eating place, has opened at the Hyde Park Shopping Center, 1500 E. 55th St., presenting both traditional and modern Italian dishes organized using Chef Gaetano Ascione.
The bistro is in a “gentle commencing” mode with a confined menu now whilst a team of workers is being employed and skilled. However, Chef Ascione expects that to exchange within the next few weeks.
Ascione is from Naples, Italy, but he has labored in Chicago for five years. He becomes a chef at Gioco, an Italian eating place within the South Loop placed at 1312 S. Wabash Ave., earlier than it closed in 2018 after 19 years.
Before he devoted himself to Hyde Park to open Ascione Bistro, the chef changed into steered far away from the South Side.
“Everybody who comes from out of doors constantly says, ‘Don’t go to the South Side. It’s risky.’ So, for five years, I by no means got here to the South Side,” said Ascione.
Ascione changed his thoughts once he acquired an invite from an administration reputable on the University of Chicago to visit the location on a cold day almost years ago. “I came down here, and I walked around, and it jogged my memory of a bit city back in England,” he said. “It becomes very comfortable and very fashionable, especially the fashion of the buildings. I said, ‘Man, a person has been lying to me. This is a nice area.’”
After he goes to, Ascione knew that he wanted to run a restaurant in the neighborhood. Hyde Park reminded him of his domestic and his studies growing up in a small metropolis, he said.
“I come from a little city, and all of us always knew every other,” he stated. “We ought to in no way get in hassle due to the fact there has been constantly a girl who pointed to me and said ‘I will inform your mother.’ That’s what gives me the feeling round right here – anybody knows each different.”
In addition to the small city feeling of Hyde Park, Ascione believes that it’s far a superb business opportunity because of new traits occurring in the vicinity, and he noticed a want for an Italian restaurant.
Hyde Parkers can assume some classic and modern Italian cuisine from Ascione Bistro. Ascione is the sort of chef who does not worry about sticking to a recipe but is invested in cooking a meal with clean ingredients. His style is straightforward, however fashionable.
“The aspect is that Italian consuming; it’s hazardous. It may be very subjective to substances, to weather, to people. You can adapt it to that. So, I actually have some dishes which can be very convenient, and I will in no way alternate because it’s conventional,” he said. “But there are lots of other dishes that I like to prepare, or I want to test. That’s what Italian cuisine supply us, a manner to expand, to do matters, to use all of the substances which are produced around the arena without bastardizing it.”
Even though the texture of Ascione is upscale, the chef wants to welcome the community and their families into the restaurant. He enjoys seeing youngsters around the eating place, speaking to customers approximately the meals they like, and he expects his waiters to be casual. The most effective factor that he would love no longer to do in his eating place serves ketchup with the Kennebec truffle fries because he feels that it’d break the entire revel in for customers. However, Ascione believes that his dishes will please citizens in the network.
The menu capabilities gadgets for all diets, consistent with Ascione’s “50 percent of Italian food is vegetarian.” Appetizers run between $8-$16, Pasta dishes value between $14 and $25; Entrees will run upwards from $25. They also have a bar wherein you can purchase an assortment of alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks.
