Red sauce joints are forever

There's always room for pasta and pizza in Chicago

I’m not a huge pasta person, but when I’m in the mood for it, the craving hits pretty hard.

It’s comforting, delicious, and scratches a very specific carby itch. One thing that’s cool about Chicago is that it’s got some pretty good red sauce places that don’t serve a ton of bullshit. I’m talking garlic bread, calamari, pasta, meatballs, pizza, that all-around homey loosely Italian-type of restaurant that Olive Garden only dreams of being.

There’s sort of a difficult-to-describe aspect about the ones in Chicago, though. You know you’re at the specifically Chicago version when there’s stuffed and thin-crust pizza, ribs, and Italian beef sandwiches on the same menu as the linguine. (I get the gut feeling that you all know what type of place I’m talking about.)

Since Davida and I live on the Northwest side, it’s not easy for us to travel down to Little Italy, where some of those Italian restaurants live, nor do we really like those nouveau Italian places that keep popping up these days, since they’re so expensive (I blame Stanley Tucci). But luckily, we have a cute neighborhood-adjacent place that’s family owned, 100% reliable, and one of our regular go-to spots for multiple reasons.

I’m talking about Trattoria Poretta in Portage Park.

What’s funny is that Davida and I never stepped foot in the place until a few months ago, though we’d had their food many times.

We’re particularly enormous fans of this one meal they have, called the Family Combo.

It consists of a one-topping thin crust pizza (14”), eight pieces of fried (or barbecue) chicken, and a two liter of soda. The price has crept up over the past few years, but for $25.95, that’s still a sick deal. That’s a lot of food, and it delivers quite well.

The pizza is a touch bready and chewy, and despite what food nerds will constantly tell you about Chicago’s pizza being cracker-thin, this is usually the kind most places serve. Cracker-thin crust places are ultra-specialists that you have to know about and seek out. Otherwise you get a more utility crust that’s usually chewier and thicker (yet still relatively thin), but no-less satisfying in its own way.

Because of that, you do want to specify you want it well-done. You want a little color on the bottom and some of that extra mottled caramelization on top. The first time we ordered from Trattoria Poretta, I didn’t ask for it that way (you’ve got to mention it in the special notes section of the order), and I subsequently learned my lesson. The fennel sausage is generous and juicy, the tomato sauce rich and thick, and it’s all-around a very reliable pie.

Then of course, there’s the chicken, which we always get fried. It’s just really solid fried bird, piping hot, crisp, and juicy. The best part about it is that it reheats super well in an air fryer or toaster oven the next day, so even if you barely put a dent in it, you don’t have to worry about it losing too much quality later.

Since Davida and I had historically only gotten delivery, we thought we’d stop in one day to see how Trattoria Poretta was in person. We learned that there’s a specific entrance for takeout and delivery orders, which is only what we’d been getting. The other half of the restaurant is sit-down with proper tablecloth, bottles of olive oil on the table, and exposed brick walls. And when we went, a huge table filled up with gray-haired Chicagoans with thick city accents that made us feel like we were in a movie set in our own city.

It’s very likely that the burrata won’t be on the menu if you go, since it was on special that day, but we loved it.

I’m mostly telling you about it so you know what type of food to expect. It came on top of a fried round of plain pizza crust, which was then covered with an enormous cloud of arugula (which was properly salted and tossed in vinaigrette), along with a drizzle of balsamic vinegar reduction.

You can’t tell by looking at the photo, but yes, there’s a ball of cream-filled mozzarella under the greenery, and holy shit, it was the biggest fucking round of burrata I’ve ever seen. It easily had to be just under the size of my fist, and after we finished it, we’d almost regretted ordering other food. Large American portions aren’t dead after all.

I ordered a plate of a dish that was new to me, rigatoni boscaiola ($15.50).

I had no idea what it was when I ordered it, to be honest, I just thought it sounded good. It was perfectly cooked rigatoni tossed in a creamy tomato sauce with pancetta, Italian sausage, and mushrooms. I was smitten. It was rich and delicious, and the mushrooms were packed full of a wine flavor that I could just not get enough of. It’s hard to tell by the photo, but that bowl is deep, and there was enough for more meals of it later.

I loved it so much that I taught myself how to make it about a week later and hit the recipe right on the head, but of course, it didn’t quite feel the same as being in the restaurant. Oh well. That just means we have to go back.

Davida ordered the Chicken Vesuvio, which is a dish that originated in Chicago.

The original recipe is basically just roasted chicken and potatoes doused in a hilarious amount of garlic, olive oil, and butter. I’ve had it at a Chicago chophouse before (at Gene and Georgetti), and it can be a pretty stellar dish, mostly due to the exorbitant amount of oil and minced garlic in it.

Poretta’s version is a little more on the modest side, since it’s chicken breast cutlets rather than pieces of bone-in chicken. I hesitate to say that it’s lighter, though, since the sauce is still buttery and oily, but you can think what you want. Davida loved it, though hers made me crave a fully-leaded skin-on bone-in version somewhat, so take that how you will.

One thing to note is that the menu for the sit-down portion of Trattoria Poretta features a menu sans pizza, but that doesn’t mean you can’t have it while dining in. You just have to ask for a separate menu. I’m assuming it’s because if you’re there for a night out, you don’t want this to feel like a greasy pizza joint, because despite the helicopter view of its entire takeout menu, it’s not.

So here’s the thing: Is this anything you haven’t had before? No. But that’s wholly beside the point. Trattoria Poretta isn’t a place you go to for something out of your comfort zone. It belongs squarely in it.

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I’ll start to publish occasional comment threads where we can all recommend places to each other, this coming year. Substack’s a cool newsletter platform, but it’s got all sorts of cool conversation options, which makes it way better than arguing with some asshole on Reddit.

Okay, all, happy holidays. I’ll be taking next week off for Christmas and such (we’ll be in Wisconsin), and I’ll be right back at it in January, with a Polish place that’ll be kind to your bank account.

[Oh. And if you want some bonus reading this week, a piece of mine at Bon Appétit dropped last Wednesday with a list of my favorite hotdogs in Chicago. I’m really proud of it.

Plus it’s pretty funny that someone who specializes in fart and ass jokes got published in Bon Appétit.]