Nov. 24--"I'm getting my second espresso right now," says Sarah Grueneberg with a laugh as she bustles around the kitchen of Monteverde, her new Italian restaurant in the West Loop. It's a busy morning: Besides the typical dough prep -- most pastas on the menu are made from scratch -- the chef is gearing up for a photo shoot before service.
Yet, get Grueneberg talking about pasta, and it's as if there's nothing else happening in the world. Gnocchetti with basil and ricotta. Spaghetti with really good tomato sauce. Orecchiette crisped in a wok, a preparation inspired by the noodles she enjoyed on a recent trip to Asia.
"I love a big bowl of noodles, no matter where I am," she says. "My vision for Monteverde is to honor the traditions of Italian pasta, but also to bring some of my other experiences into the food."
In practice, that means a menu that offers textbook Italian pastas like tortelli di zucca, a squash-filled noodle from the Emilia-Romagna region ("I'd say the majority of my inspiration is from that region because I've been there the most," Grueneberg says), alongside, say, the wok-toasted orecchiette or a corzetti dish with pecan pesto; the nut is indigenous to Texas, where the chef grew up.
Grueneberg, who led the kitchen at Spiaggia for eight years as executive chef under Tony Mantuano and competed on "Top Chef" in 2012, is running Monteverde with Meg Sahs, the former chef of Mantuano restaurant Terzo Piano. Nonpasta options include several starters -- prosciutto butter toast, a shaved veggie salad -- plus a hulking 23-ounce bone-in rib-eye (don't mess with Texas?) and a few Italy-inspired seafood dishes.
The chef's chief advice for Italian cooking: "Get really good ingredients, and don't screw them up." Pasta dough is made with eggs from a farmer in Fairbury, Ill.; Grueneberg uses milk from the same farmer to make ricotta, then uses the whey left over from that to make the sauce for her cacio e pepe (a simple cheesy, peppery pasta) rich like velvet.
A few shelves behind the host stand offer uncooked pasta to go and a selection of balsamic vinegars imported from Italy.
"I think a lot of people put pasta in one category -- oh, it's pasta -- but fresh-dough is so different than dried," Grueneberg says. "You can taste the difference. When it's really good pasta, a few pieces should be very satisfying."
Monteverde, 1020 W. Madison St., 312-888-3041, www.monteverdechicago.com.
mconrad@tribpub.com
Twitter @marissa_conrad
