Davanti Enoteca River North

I’m not going to lie I didn’t have a full meal here. What drew me in was the dessert. My best friend and I are exactly a like and she told me I would love the Brown Butter Blondie. She was right! We both sat in silence devouring it. The Maple Gelato on top was really the icing on the cake. I’ll be back go try the food soon, but the dessert alone was 5 stars in my book.

High quality Italian food in a comforting environment, even a private room for 15+ if you need it. Sampled many things, and every bit of it was delicious. Vasi (bread with ricotta and honeycomb) delicious, and you can ask for more fresh-​toasted bread. Truffle egg toast had limited truffle flavor, was overall bit bland since no strong flavor to carry the dish. Insalata Cavolo Verde (kale and orange salad) pretty good, served warm, slices of pecans and grated cheese, unusual take on a salad and accomplished well. Pizza con Prosciutto e Rucola very light and yet flavorful, good prosciutto and generous arugala. Paccheri con Salsiccia e Pomodoro very good sausage rigatoni, lots of flavor in meat. Riccio Di Mare (sea urchin and crab linguini) was very good and didn’t smell fishy. Bistecca con Patate was well seared with lots of flavor trapped in the beef, rare center. Desert Trio included Tiramisu (oh so delicious), bread pudding with a scoop of ice cream (decadent), Torta Bacio (just too rich and chocolatey, but if you like mouse then you’ll like it).

I was not excited by the menu. The owner was very friendly. He greeted us and asked us for our feedback. We were honest and in exchange he offered a complimentary dessert. Very limited menu for gluten-​free diets.
I would not choose to return, however I would not refuse to go back if a friend wanted to eat here.

I’ve been to the Taylor St location a couple times, but this was my first time at this location.
You can’t go wrong with the ricotta and honey comb to start. Don’t forget to ask for extra bread! This time I had the fettuccini e rosa gamberetti. This dish was very underwhelming and the shrimp were quite small. I couldn’t finish the pasta, but I didn’t care to take it home. My bf had the paccheri con salsiccia e pomodori. This dish was also so-​so. We had the torta bacio for dessert, which was good.
I’d go elsewhere for pasta.

Came for a late lunch. They have half price antipasto platters and pizzas but you have to order it from the bar. Shared pizza dela terra and a veal meatball platter. Portions are great enough to share.

Davanti Enoteca was decent, but I struggled to find anything special enough (such as an amazing atmosphere like il Porcellino’s, especially inexpensive prices like those at Quartino, a trendy vibe like RPM Italian and Siena Tavern, etc.) to differentiate it from the plethora of Italian restaurants in River North. My friend and I ordered the Bruschette, Cacio e Pepe pasta, and Pizza delle Terra. All of the food was quite good, and we also enjoyed our wine. The service was also kind and prompt. Overall, I would come back, but I won’t be rushing.

Great food, good service
The foccaia bread is a must. And the burrata salad is delicious. The chocolate torte dessert is outstanding.
Good wine list.
Good vibe.
Really like this place!

Nice location.
Service started a little wonky with a miscommunication among waitstaff on whose table it was. Took awhile to get service but they made up for it with a round of drinks and comped apps. I’ve worked in many restaurants in my life and it’s not how you start but how you finish and they recovered beautifully. Great food and Richie was a great server once the beginning was fixed.
Meatballs are tremendous and they’re huge.
Brie and honeycomb is a must have
Also the rigatoni with sausage and the octopus entrée are spot on
Wine was nice. Had a glass of montepulciano and also a glass of Sangiovese.
Only drawback was they serve Pepsi products instead of coke products.
We’ll be back.

I came here with a small group of friends for dinner on a Saturday night. It was pretty busy, but the service was excellent. I expected to wait a long time after the server took our orders, but was pleasantly surprised when the food came out soon afterwards.
We decided to order a couple of dishes and share family style so that we could sample more type of food. I found the truffle toast and the octopus especially tasty. The octopus was flavorful and perfectly tender; it was not at all rubbery like other octopus I have had before.
However, while I did enjoy most of the dishes I tried, my main complaint was the small portion sizes. We ordered a good number of dishes to share, but I still left feeling unsatisfied. Now I know that if I end up going again next time, I will order a dish of octopus just for myself!

I think this one is better than the other location!
I have only ever been to the other location when travelling to Chicago and since I was in town for a conference, I had to make this place a stop. Luckily, I was able to get a hotel right nearby and it was such a great decision!
There are many more people that seem to frequent this one and as an added bonus, there’s a Glazed and Infused (doughtnut place) attached to it!
The last time I came to chi-​town was last year around the same time and a couple of the staples that I always get are the ricotta and honeycomb and the uni pasta. It was not as good as I had remembered and I was actually disappointed and didn’t know if I could get it the same anymore.
Thankfully I came here because it was amazing! The uni pasta had that great flavor that I had been craving and the ricotta with honeycomb came with a generous portion! We also were able to ask for additional bread with the dish and it was complimentary AND still had the oil or whatever it is they put on there that makes it more delicious! (the other place gives you extra bread but it’s plain).
I went with another friend this time and he got a pasta dish that was also pretty good though i can only remember that it was some time of piece pasta (not spaghetti) and like marinara sauce. I also got a glass of wine that i guess did not pair well with my dish because it was super bitter and they were kind enough to replace it with another that was much better.
It was so good, I decided to make another trip to get it for lunch before my flight home. It was equally as good and very convenient! Wish it was able to stay for the duration of my commute back home to Brooklyn…
I will make it happen!
Definitely recommended!
p. s. I tried to make a reservation on a Thursday and they didn’t take reservations before 8:30pm — not sure if this was an everyday thing.

I had the pleasure of eating here during a recent stay in Chicago.
I had the option to dine in or have room service at the Marriott deliver the food to my room… I opted for delivery. It was early and I really didn’t want to sit in a restaurant alone and who wouldn’t want breakfast in bed?
The delivery was rather fast… about 10 minutes and there was a $ 3 delivery charge and I believe a 10% or 20% gratuity added. I didn’t mind since it was convenient and I always tip. It came to a total of $ 51 and some change. Pricey, I know but it didn’t matter to me
I ordered the steak and eggs and French toast. DELICIOUS! Everything tasted good. I’m picky about my steak and it came out perfect. The meal I got wasn’t really considered authentic Italian food lol but good food is good food. I’d like to go back the next time I’m in town and have dinner.

I had the octopus and it was one of the best octopus dishes I’ve ever had. Our server said its the staff’s favorite this on the menu and it’s easy to see why. For dessert I had the blondie which was way too good.

This review is based on the Easter Buffet.
Since I had to work at 3 pm on Easter, I had noticed Davanti had availability at 2 pm through
, which would give me plenty of time to enjoy a quick lunch.
I had arrived few minutes early and I was seated right away. The restaurant was still steady but not crazy. The server had greeted me within a few minutes offered me a beverage and went over the buffet.
The buffet was not the largest buffet I’ve been too. The salad bar consisted of three bowls of various salads and very few salad bar items. The main table consisted of scrambled eggs (luke warm — even after stirring them up to), french toast (soggy — the bread was just warmed up), peppered bacon (very good), pasta entrée (didn’t try), mashed potatoes (little gritty — bad box mix), asparagus (good), ham (very good) and prime rib (very good).
The dessert area had about five items mostly cookies and brownies. The brownie that I had tried was dried, The cookie was okay. The buffet was $ 38 per person. Was it really worth it???
Since buffets are extremely hard to rate, I look forward to an actual sit down meal. The restaurant is close to where I work so I look forward to do a retry. I will say the staff members and managers were very visible.

I enjoy big city dining because of the sheer variety of cuisines choices available, and Chicago is no exception — on a recent business trip a couple of colleagues and I could be seen debating between a tapas joint, an Eastern European gastropub, and a Southeast Asian restaurant, all highly rated on Unilocal.Predictably, we didn’t go to any of these as we didn’t have reservations and didn’t fancy a 45 – 60 minute wait (on a Wednesday!). Instead, I kept calling till I found a table available for immediate seating at the Davanti Enoteca, not too far from the street corner where we were having our animated conversation.
The Davanti is situated inside a Courtyard Marriott, which took us a while to figure out (it didn’t help that we were all pleasantly toasted from pre-​dinner drinks at the Trump International Hotel and Tower earlier that evening) — once seated we ordered another round of drinks (of course!) and then settled down to peruse the menu.
We decided to eat family style do we could sample the menu, and my colleagues ordered the seared octopus and tuna Crudo respectively. Not having the foggiest about what to order, I asked the waiter for help — and the guy rattled off almost every item on the menu! Just to be perverse, I ordered the only item he skipped, which happened to be the Pappardelle Cinghiale (wild boar over pasta) — though I was really intrigued by the Orecchiette with sausage.
The dishes arrived one by one — as they were prepared (to be fair, we’d been warned that would happen).
* The octopus was first, one big tentacle, perfectly seared and delicious, over fingerling potatoes and marcona almonds. Hands down 5 star dish.
* Tuna Crudo followed — while it was thinly sliced, nothing spectacular here. 3 stars at best.
* Then came the dish I had ordered out of spite — the wild boar over broad pasta. This was spectacular, and my dining companions thought so too. The pasta was al dente, the wild boar was delicious without any gamy taste, and the sauces held everything together beautifully. It was close to (but not quite) one of the finest meals I’ve ever had in my life — wild boar over penne pasta at a tiny restaurant a couple of minutes downhill from the Duomo in Siena, Italy. Another 5 star.
* We were still hungry after these three entrees (they didn’t bring us any bread) so we decided to order one more dish — and I convinced the others to try the Orecchiette I was originally leaning towards. This took a while longer to arrive (the kitchen was on the slow side that day), and was ok — the pasta was cooked well and the sausage flavorful and juicy, but the vegetables and sauce tasted a bit sour and didn’t complement them as well as I’d expected. My colleagues, however, enjoyed it thoroughly. A polarizing dish for sure — 3 stars.
So all in all, a 3.5 star experience (ambience and service were mediocre) but rounded up to 4 because the octopus and wild boar were so good. I will certainly come back to try these two dishes again next time I’m in Chi-​town.

My friend recommended this place to me, and I have to say I’m glad she did! I haven’t found a good Italian place that I’ve really enjoyed yet, and this is definitely my new go to. We were seated and our waitress came to our table almost instantly. We ordered the ricotta and honeycomb with was AMAZING and the pasta was so delicious and rich, you could definitely tell it was hand made. We ordered the little ear pasta and the one with sausage and red sauce (I forget the name) but both were amazing. Side note-​we ordered that app and two entrees and it was the perfect amount of food. Our waitress recommended we get 3 pastas, but I’m glad we didn’t because otherwise they would be rolling me out of the restaurant.

Just landed in Chicago and decided to try this place out as we walked near the hotel. Great service! The server was attentive (cups of hot water was always full) and checked in on us. Food was good! We ordered the truffle egg toast, marguerita pizza, raviolo, papardelle with wild boar, and the uni and crab pasta. The bill was around $ 60 for 4 people — a good deal — especially for the quality.

My hotel recommended Davanti because it was nearby. I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone. Meal was OK. Service was so grouchy that my business partner repeatedly apologized for even basic interaction. Like filling up a coffee cup. Morning was slow so it wasn’t a demand thing. Servers are just completely disinterested.

Great meal with the family. Came here with my wife and two girls. For a Friday nigh it was not full even though we had reservations.
The service was excellent and friendly.
Menu was fantastic. Had the Arugula Salad as a starter. It came with a nicely salted vinaigrette, just salty enough to overcome the bitterness of the arugula, and nice campari and cherry tomatoes to add savoriness.
The main was a pappardelle with wild boar. WOW! It was fantastic. Pasta was a little too al dente to the point where you could tell it was dry originally. But still excellent overall.
Wine was a Nebbiolo. It was light bodied but very oaky.
Dessert was a chocolate mousse with a very delicate wafer crust. Ordered that with a glass of supreme grappa.
Great meal overall. Priced for a family of 4 with tip at $ 200. Would come back!

Cozy atmosphere. Dimmed lights, brick walls. Friendly service. Was here for a wine tasting second city tour. We were in a private back room. Friendly service. Great time. Looking forward to coming back for their food.

Davanti is not what I remembered it to be. Based on this experience, I won’t be returning.
To start, valet service was odd… the sluggish valet told me that he was leaving in an hour, so he had me pay upfront and literally drove my car up 10 feet into the loading zone right outside the restaurant. I asked him if that was ok since the sign said no parking until 2am, and he said the loading zone was for Davanti’s valet (but I have a friend who’s gotten ticketed in a situation like this and was unaware of the ticket because valet had driven his car out of sight into a loading zone). It took over 5 minutes to get change, and no, I wasn’t going to let the valet keep the extra $ 6 for hardly doing anything.
Service during dinner was poor. The waiter pretty much tended to us as minimally as possible, and by the end of the meal, he disappeared for long periods of time, not even spottable in a restaurant that was much less than half empty since we ate past 8pm. After we ate our main dishes, he gruffly asked if we wanted dessert. All six of us ordered a sweet offering, and the waiter went around the table, one by one making eye contact to jot down what each of us wanted, but for some reason, he totally skipped over me, avoiding eye contact, until I interjected. Wth?
Food-​wise, I felt it was hit or miss on this visit. The orecchiette pasta was chewy. While it needed more sausage, it did not need that lemon seed I found in my mouth. Prosciutto pizza and the veal meatballs were ordinary. The clear stars of the meal were the light, fluffy, creamy polenta and chunky, flavorful homemade pork shoulder ragu. And while I’ve never been a fan of grilled octopus, the dish here with the fingerling potato salad and aioli was executed well. I had comforting memories of the brown butter blondie from past visits, but this time, the blondie wasn’t as crusty on the outside and chewy on the inside as before. It was also shy on the almonds. One of us ordered coffee too, and it was served cold. How is that even allowed to happen? That’s JV! Much like the coffee, I am left with cold memories of this place.

Davanti is local to Chicago and branched out to San Diego some years prior… My first experience with them was actually in San Diego, and it was 5 stars hands down… The loss of a star at this particular location in Chicago is due to it being connected to a hotel and losing some of that special atmosphere because of it.
The food is excellent. The octopus is superb, the ravioli is melt in your mouth delicious, and the flatbread with ricotta and honey comb is simple and outstanding.
Another reason for the loss of a star was the customer service. It felt rushed, and they kept checking on our plates before we even finished our meal. This happened multiple times and was not appreciated at all. He even reached over us to grab our unused plates and it just felt a bit OCD, and rude.
That being said, the food was good enough to make this a four star experience, and we did sit for awhile and chat without feeling like we needed to leave. I’m interested in checking out the other Chicago location next time.

Davanti Enoteca is attached to the Marriott Courtyard hotel and I’m thankful for that when I arrive in the city late on a weeknight. It’s a sold place to have dinner.
My first visit was their specialty (polenta slathered on the board — tons of pics) and it was just «ok».
Most recently, I dined on some appetizers of chicken liver pâté — excellent! Was great with the little pickled side, don’t eat your pâté without it ’cause chef put it there for a reason, peoples! Additionally, I had the tuna tartare — it was really crazy how it came super flat and spread out on the plate. The taste was very good, but as I mentioned to the bartender/​server they should really say that black pepper is all over the tartare and not once called out in the menu. If someone was sensitive to tons of freshly cracked black pepper, they’d have no choice but to send this back for another dish item or ask for a new one without it.
The wine list is great, but it’s so pricey and ends up being the majority of my check. I guess I did order the 8oz pour… so $ 15 a glass is in some people’s worlds «fair». Gosh, why does it never look like that much?

This review is only for drinks. Original plan was to stay and have dinner but sadly this location was very quiet. We were in the mood for something more bustling. Only one table with patrons and a couple at the bar. The original located on Taylor, in my experience has always been busy, both for lunch and dinner. The food was always great, too, some inventive items, not just classic Italian.
But I digress, the service was immediate and very friendly. I spoke with the bartender and she said they were adding new items to the menu. I will be back to try the food but for now the drink that I had which was the house spritz was very good.