When Venetian-born Dario Monni moved to Chicago in 2016, he noticed two things: pasta tasted bland and seemed void of texture, and the egg yolks were pale yellow, with a flavor that varied vastly from the tasty reddish-hued ones found in Italy.
So Monni applied his foodie skills—honed during stints at the Gritti Palace in Venice and Michelin-starred L’Anima in London, plus summers spent in Sardinia with grandparents that worked as cheesemongers and butchers—to upping the pasta game in Chicago, opening Tortello, a cozy pastificio (fresh pasta shop) and restaurant in the lively Wicker Park neighborhood. But he was still missing one prerequisite for superior pasta: robust eggs. So, he did what any flavor-obsessed Italian chef would do. He called his grandmother.
“As a kid in Venice, I ate pasta twice a day, every day,” Monni recounts. “I woke up to the smell of simmering sauce, and watched my nonna roll out fresh dough for each meal. To recreate these flavors in the USA, I knew that I had to find rosso d’uovo, the premium quality eggs required to make authentic, Italian style pasta. Since shipping Italian eggs to the USA was cost prohibitive, I needed a plan B.”
Turns out that his grandmother fed the chickens in her yard a steady stream of beta carotene-filled squash and carrots. Monni and his partner, wife Jill Gray, set out to find an open-minded poultry purveyor willing to partake in a yolk experiment. Wisconsin’s Yuppie Hill Poultry partnered on the endeavor and began to introduce marigold seeds to its grain-based feed. The yolks became a deeper shade of yellow. Then, to get to the orange-red dimension, they added paprika to the mix. Bingo. The addition of this vibrant spice delivered yolks that seemed dead-ringers for Italian ones.
The resulting dough—crafted into lesser known pasta shapes like reginette, lumache, trottole, and the gnocchi-like chiusone—has been drawing crowds since the space opened in July of this year. Sauces, too, speak to the power of fresh, pristine ingredients. Monni imports a bounty of cheeses, olive oils, honeys and spices from Italy, and also relies upon produce from select local vendors. Highlights of the shop’s offerings include airy, burrata-stuffed tortelli topped with brown butter, toasted hazelnuts and fresh sage (that could easily double as dessert); casarecce twists layered with saffron, sausage, onions and cream; and agnolotti filled with sweet potato, mozzarella and prosciutto. The dishes, of course, can be enhanced with a wonderful array of Italian wines.
To underscore the artisan nature of hand-crafted pasta, the restaurant’s storefront windows serve as a stage for passers-by to appreciate the process, showcasing a team of sfoglinas (pasta makers) as they roll and cut dough into fantastical shapes all day. Guests can either dine in the cheery, family-friendly restaurant or purchase pasta and sauces (pomodoro, pesto alla genovese, and ragu alla bolognese) to take away.