AWARDS/REVIEWS

Chicago Tribune – Phil Vettel

Lunch is a challenge. Not the food, which is terrific, but the traffic. It's Friday, and seemingly half the population of Naperville has decided to lunch today. It takes me 10 minutes to find a parking space, which means by the time I walk into La Sorella di Francesca, my wife is tapping her foot and checking her watch. Luckily, she's already claimed a table; the place is packed.

La Sorella di Francesca ("Francesca's sister") is the very first sequel to Mia Francesca in Chicago. These days, Scott Harris has Francesca clones from Lake Forest to Frankfort, but the expansion started here, in 1994.

I'm a big fan of Harris' cracker-thin, blistered-edge pizzas, so we split one topped with tomato sauce, eggplant and ricotta cheese. Great stuff. We follow that up with a nice slab of roasted salmon (the waitress actually asks my wife for her temperature preference, which more restaurants should do), and soft, fontini-filled gnocchi pillows bathed in tomato-cream sauce with roasted peppers.

My wife takes off, leaving me with two doggy bags and no partner. Feeling conspicuous, I skip dessert, which is just as well, but the two ladies on my left are splitting what looks like a very good creme brulee. I could tell that the broiled sugar crust is properly glassy. For all I know the creme tastes like asparagus, but I doubt it.

Zagat Guide, Chicago

Mia Francesca's Downtown Naperville spin-off dishes out "awesome", "addictive" Italian fare that's "actually worth the long lines" (which may shrink now that reservations are being accepted); the space is "small" and "loud", but champions of the "wonderful" cooking consider it "well worth the trip."

Chicago Tribune – Phil Vettel

Harris' food is uncomplicated, unpretentious & generally quite good. Also, remarkably well-priced. La Sorella gives every indication it will be just as popular as it's city sibling... La Sorella is good news for everyone in town.