Tazza Italian Ristorante

Tazza is not far from our house and we visited the original location "Trattoria Tazza" when it was further down on Bell Rd. a long time ago.  This was our first visit to the newer spot.  When I checked in on Yelp, I was very pleased to see a 15% check in offer.

The ambiance in the place is very conducive to the strip mall location it's in - definately not a vibe that will keep people coming back but comfortable and clean.

The service was prompt and attentive - we ordered a few glasses of wine and one of the fish entrees that was on the special menu (which my husband said was very good) and I ordered the Escarole, Sausage and Beans and it was marginal.  The sausage was flavorful but the escarole and beans were overcooked and a pasty, mess just plopped on top of three pieces of sausage.  The side salads that accompanied our entrees were fresh and tasty and of decent size.

All in all, the food at Tazza was ok but there are lots of wonderful Italian options that put the "whole package" (food, ambiance, music, service, wine) together very nicely in the same area as Tazza.  Because of the check-in offer, I might go back and try a pasta dish or their pizza to see if we missed anything.

Okay, here we go again. Saw this place whenever we headed over to Menard's or Home Depot and we could smell it when we parked our car. We always commented that we should try it. The other night we were watching Check Please (A local foodie show on WTTW 11) and I checked out the website for local reviews and saw that Tazza had a review. We watched it and decided to give it a go. We headed over on a Saturday night, worried a bit that there would be a wait. The place was casually busy but we were seated right away. Our server came over after a few minutes and brought us bread. The menu had descriptions of the items which made our decisions a little easier. I went with the pork chops as a baseline for comparison while my wife had the chicken pistachio. We also ordered the fried calamari as an appetizer, something we rarely do.
Looking around the place at first glance, it was low lit with nice colors...until you start noticing all the masks and paintings. They were a little unsettling. Kind of like a dark Mardi Gras with freaky clowns. The lights in the place were different; large chandeliers in the middle surrounded by Asian lantern-style lights. If you looked close enough at them, they had Asian patterns in them! I thought it looked like someone raided HomeGoods and Pier 1 for the decor. I mentioned to my wife that it was like Phantom of the Kabuki in there!
We each took a piece of bread. For an Italian restaurant, the bread was soft but lacked any flavor. They didn't taste home made, just baked frozen dinner rolls that you could get at a warehouse store. My wife tried the oil at the table...it honestly tasted like plastic. Not good.
The calamari arrived and it was quite good. Very fresh, nicely fried and the red sauce went well with a squeeze of lemon.
We each got a salad; I had the house Italian and she had the French. The salads were just "ehh" and nothing that you couldn't get at any other generic family restaurant. They needed a creamy garlic dressing. They only had French, Thousand Island and house Italian. The house Italian was okay but nothing to write home about.
The food arrived a bit after. My pork chops were very good, quite thick and juicy. The broccoli under it was good, with little chunks of garlic in it. The baked potato was good and their sour cream is quite thick.  My wife thought the chicken pistachio was unique but there wasn't enough balance of flavors. She said it was too sweet and not savory enough. We also felt the food wasn't hot enough.
We then asked of a dessert menu. Our waitress said they did not have one written down but she read them off to us. (But never mentioned the cost.) She said that they have home made cannoli. So even though we were stuffed, we thought we would try one. What we got were two TINY little cannoli, about the diameter of your thumb and about as long. The filling only was a squirt on each end, hollow in the middle, tasted like imitation vanilla and had green colored PEANUTS (yes, peanuts) on the ends. Cannoli is supposed to have pistachios on the ends. One waitress mentioned that they are usually much larger but they ran out of the big ones. Why can't we find a place that makes good cannoli?
We talked about it on the way home and thought there wasn't anything that really "popped". The pork chops were good but I have had better, good calamari, the salads were forgettable, the cannoli was $5 wasted, the bread was average, the oil was pretty bad, the chicken cooked nicely but was one note and neither was warm enough, the baked potato was good, but then again, it was just a potato.
Our bill came to just over $50, which we did think the prices were a bit high for what we were getting. Even though it was privately owned, it still felt like a chain restaurant like Chili's or Applebee's.
We'll just stick with going to Parmesan's down in Frankfort for our Italian fix. If you're curious, read my other reviews and tell me what you think!

Tazza is a good Italian restaurant...for the South Suburbs of Chicago.  From the average food to the average decor, you can't help but feel like you're sitting in a restaurant in a suburban strip mall....oh wait, you are.

The fried calamari was very good, especially the sauce that came alongside for dipping.  The side salad was, well, average, as was the Ziti with Vodka Sauce and the Shrimp Diavolo.  If I was in the area and in the mood for the Italian I might stop back in, but I wouldn't go out of my way to return.