Tre Dita has become the Chicago home away from home for celebrated chef Evan Funke, but the restaurant as a whole has yet to match the mastery of his pasta. That’s surprising since the new Italian establishment is run by Lettuce Entertain You. The biggest restaurant group in the city made the chef a partner in the concept.
Funke is perhaps best known for his restaurants in the Los Angeles area where he’s based. Their celebrity diners include everyone from Michelle Obama to Beyoncé. Here, the fledgling business features a bar and restaurant on the second floor of the St.
Regis Chicago luxury hotel in the Lakeshore East neighborhood. Bar Tre Dita opened in February, and later in March. Funke said when he initially talked about Tre Dita with Lettuce co-founder Rich Melman, and his son and president of the restaurant group, R.
J. Melman, they talked about a Tuscan steakhouse. Because Tuscany celebrates beef and so does Chicago, the chef said.
Then they realized they wanted a Tuscan experience. There just so happens to be quite a bit of beef on the menu, he added, but there are far more pastas and antipasti on the menu than there is beef. Especially pastas.
There’s a signature Funke pasta lab as you walk toward the restaurant. “All of my restaurants, whether they’re in L.A.
or Las Vegas or Chicago, the through line is always pasta,” Funke said. “Sometimes a bowl of pasta is a bowl of pasta and that’s OK. But what I seek is the connection between the pasta maker an.
