Bella Bacinos

Cauliflower Soup

We went to dinner at Bella Bacino's in La Grange.  A few years ago we went to its sister restaurant in Lincoln Park on a food tour and had a spinach deep dish pizza.  We were hoping to re-create that here and we wanted pizza because it was national pizza week.  But when we got there we realized they didn't have deep dish only thin crust cooked in brick ovens (so slightly different concept). We wish it were deep dish because there are a few other brick oven thin crust pizza places in the area already.



We ordered:
Cup of cauliflower soup - this was the soup special of the day.  It was creamy and tangy and reminiscent of a cream of potato soup (but different).

Duck Brown Butter Ravioli

Duck brown butter ravioli (also a special that evening) - Natalie is a sucker for duck entrees.  This dish was really good but the only critique is that there was a little too much butter in the sauce.  Otherwise the flavors of the duck, sun-dried tomatoes and basil were great together and the fresh pasta was scrumptious.

Pizza - Capricciosa - tomatoes, mushrooms, ham, artichoke, olives and mozzarella.  The pizza was a little burned looking on the edges (but that comes with the brick oven concept). We were expecting black olives but they were Mediterranean olives that had a strong flavor.  They kind of overpowered the rest of the pizza so we removed them and it tasted much better (more balanced) and ate the olives separately.

Capricciosa Pizza

Final thoughts on Bella Bacino's:
Food - go for the pasta not the pizza
Service - slow night because lots of snow outside so we were served promptly.
Atmosphere - good for families and wine aficionados.  Local vibe.