Monteverde Restaurant & Pastificio — Restaurant in West Chicago Township

What a great experience this was. I can honestly say this was one of the greatest meals I’ve ever had. Portions are generous, presentations are craveably rustic, and taste is just fantastic.

Food: I came during lunch, which I specifically mention because some of these items are not on the dinner menu. I had the following:

Artichoke Sunchoke Crostino: These are large crostinis which you order by the piece for $5. The bread is probably just under an inch think, and is piled high with soft and creamy ricotta and fontina. The cheese is topped with artichoke, sunchoke, and truffle which covers the entire surface. They are rich, have just the right amount of truffle, and are indulgent but not overly so for a snack / starter.

‘Nduja Arancini: To quote my wife, “I want to live in this arancini.” We both agreed that this arancini made us feel like we had never eaten arancini before. Hands down the best I’ve ever had. The outside layer is very crispy / crunchy, but not too thick. The inside is a warm, spicy, soft, melt in your mouth mixture of the spicy sausage, manchego, and risotto. They are topped with an insanely good aioli with a ton of spice/herb flavor and also a perfect tomato sauce. After we finished the aranci, we were scooping up what was left of these sauces with our forks and eating it straight. One order comes with 4 arancini for $8.

Egg Yolk Raviolo: Cutting into this and seeing the yolk flow out was spiritual. It blended so well with the truffle and corn sauce surrounding the raviolo. I have no idea how they accomplish this masterpiece … I am guessing there is some kind of ricotta moat so the yolk doesn’t harden, and I’m really in to the concept of ricotta moats. If you are hesitant about the anchovy, don’t be. The flavor is not overpowering in the least, and the pieces are so small you wouldn’t be able to visually tell there was anchovy in it. The anchovy really has a faint crab-like flavor that goes so well with the sweet corn. For the regular sized pastas, this is the priciest at $24, but it’s absolutely worth it. (All of the others are $15-$20).

Ragu alla Napoletana: Our server was excited to deliver this to our table and explain what was going on since we has not had it before. This is an enormous dish. It consists of a mound of fusilli pasta, 3 full sausages, 4 large meatballs, and a mountain of a pork shank, all covered in a rich tomato sauce. The fresh pasta had a great texture that stood up to all the meat on the plate. It was dense, and had just a bit of a chew to it. The sausages were thick and juicy; you could see the juice when you cut into it. They also had a pleasant little amount of spice to it. The pork shank was huge! As soon as I put my fork to it, basically all of the meat began to melt off the bone. It was braised to tender perfection in that tomato sauce. The soft pork with the dense pasta made for a really awesome bite. Finally, the meatballs. These were the best item on the plate. They are soppressata meatballs, so they have a complex spicy taste. Like the sausage, they were incredibly juicy. I tried to take small bites so I could savor them as long as possible. We ended up having a good amount of this dish left to take home with us. It’s $55, but it’s honestly a really good deal for the amount and quality of food you get. I just ate these leftovers for lunch and everything reheated really well too. (I forgot to mention there was green stuff on this plate too, because I had meat goggles. There was a small salad of warm and salty escarole. I presume this was there to cut into the richness of all the meat, but I have no shame / restraint and just plowed through until I had to roll out of my seat).

Other aspects:

Atmosphere: The restaurant is modern / industrial but cozy, and made me feel at ease. Waiters wear aprons over their outfits. It’s not stuffy and you won’t feel judged if you don’t order super expensive bottles of wine.

Service: Very good, nothing to complain about. We were regularly checked in on by our server or his helper and our water glasses were...

This was our first time trying this place and it was on a Sunday night at 8:45 reservation – earliest we could get with less than a couple days notice. Also please note that their menu does change. This review reflects the menu attached.

--The AMBIENCE Dark and pretty fun. Nothing over the top with lots of wine bottles, pasta being sold and a lot of people having fun. It’s a semi loud spot but it’s fun. The lighting is industrial with high ceilings, fun decorations on the walls like decorated wood. Overall it comes off as really nice but not over the top – almost seems like they want you to focus more on the food than to be distracted by random chandeliers or anything of that nature.

--The FOOD.

It was pretty late so we set on 2 appetizers, 1 entrée and 2 desserts.

We ordered the following:

BPT!

This was the highlight of the night for me. It’s the perfect size, couples with beautiful crunch of the bread with insane butter and just straight up delish stuff! These are tiny little open sandwhiches you could say that are 2-3 bites and simply fantastic! I had a version of these a couple years back at the Chicago Gourmet event where chef Sarah Grueneberg knocked it out of the park!

‘Nduja Arancini

The presentation on these is fantastic but I honestly wasn’t a huge fan. I think the portion could easily be 2 instead of 4. The menu description is fantastic but it just wasn’t my favorite. Felt super starchy to have a fried ball with rice in it. I was hesitant to finish it but did anyway.

Pork cheek tortellini

This is served in a super cute bowl and it really reminded me of a refined chicken noodle soup my grandmother would make – granted this is a whole new level. It’s very comforting and perfect for a rainy night – glad we tried this and wish we had more pasta dishes to try! Overall great dish and love the presentation again!

Baked Apple Crostata

This thing is a beat! It is HUGE! I really wish the portion on this thing was half the size but the waitress did mention it was big. At the same time the dish felt way to sweet for me and wish the sauce that was just on the side could have easily resolved the dish by just being drizzled on top. The sauce is a tart cranberry and easily breaks the sweetness apart but I felt lost as to what I should be doing when it’s just on the side. We didn’t really know where to even start with this thing – it was a beast and sadly did not finish it.

Cookies & Sorbet

We decided to go for the pear sorbet and it was delicious. It tasted as if someone had made poached pears and then turned that into sorbet! Super clean and light and was a great ending to the meal. Meanwhile the cookie was ok – nothing crazy but I appreciate the skill and the craft that went into it.

1 birthday cake slice This had a merengue top toasted with layers of vanilla ice cream with a chocolate moat surrounding the cake piece. I liked this – it wasn’t anything over the top but it was done well and I appreciated this! Liked this more than the crostata.

--ChaChing All of that was around $50 which I think is a fantastic deal! This was for two people and I anticipated we would have paid way more but they didn’t charge for the birthday cake (super nice of them) and we didn’t order too many entrees. Maybe next time we will!

--The SERVICE The service was fantastic! They brought out dishes quickly and spaced them out well. Our waitress was super nice and the hosts were fantastic and set us really quickly. The waitress came off as an individual who was genuinely nice – not the bs nice just to get a tip and because we are there – but almost as if she cared about our experience! I was really surprised and appreciated her feedback when ordering and hope we...

During my research on top Italian restaurants in the United States, Monteverde frequently appears in articles from various sources, so I have decided that this is a must-go when I visit Chicago. After today, I have decided that it was absolutely the right choice as the food was out of this world. Many items were impeccable on every level. I highly recommend every pasta lover give this restaurant a visit when in Chicago, whether as a vistor or as a local resident.

My friends and I arrived at 11:30am when the restaurant just opened. I reserved the restaurant one month in advance as I knew they were really popular. Surprisingly their lunch menu contained almost the exact same food items (and even slightly larger than their dinner menu) for the same price, so I decided that lunch would offer me the best experience. We ordered every available pasta on the menu so we could all share, so yeah, all six of them under Pasta Atipica and Pasta Tipica. Every single item was a hit. The cacio whey pepe was rich and creamy yet not overpowering and not rich to the point of causing a stomachache. The sweet corn agnolotti had great combinations with corn, truffle, chanterelle mushrooms, and goat cheese. All the flavors blended together and every single bite with a fork had the same distinct flavor, which was amazing. The sheep's milk ricotta ravioli contained so many flavor profiles that every bite was fabulously different, which was very pleasantly surprising. The lumache was a solid meat eater's experience with the sugo very clearly tasted and the goat cheese as a nice complement but not too strong. The gnocchetti con pesto was lighter than the rest because of its ingredients and was a nice way to refresh my palate. Finally, the spaghetti al pomodoro's highlight was its fresh pasta. The pasta was very soft and tasteful. The red sauce leaned more towards the ordinary side while everything else was spectacular.

We also ordered five desserts which attracted a lot of other tables' attention, and we collectively agreed on the tiramisu, the citrus dark chocolate sorbet, and the lemon blueberry sundae as our favorites. The tiramisu was gigantic, and every bite was soft, sweet, and melty. I won't say too much about the dessert but just know that whatever you order on the menu will be a hit. But limiting it to one or two will be good enough because each dessert is relatively big in portion.

There was always someone ready to take away our plate, and always someone who was ready to refill water and take away all of our utensils once we were done with all the pasta. As a result, I will say we were served very well, too. Oh, and the best part about eating there was watching through the reflection on how the pasta was made. It was magnificent to watch as the workers swiftly made a bunch of ravioli, as I understand how hard it is to make those things. Truly amazing.

If I am picky, I will say that the pasta is not big in size so maybe one plate of pasta itself will not fulfill a person's hunger. But even then, quality is more important than quantity, and Monteverde got it.

In conclusion, any Italian food lover in Chicago must not...