Tre Dita from Chef Evan Funke and Lettuce Entertain You Restaurants is Now Open at The St. Regis Chicago
New ‘Cucina Toscana’ Features Funke’s Signature Pasta Lab and Bar Tre Dita
Tre Dita (401 E. Wacker Drive, 2nd Fl., Chicago, IL 60601) and Bar Tre Dita are now open at The St. Regis Chicago. A collaboration between award-winning Chef Evan Funke (Funke, Mother Wolf, Felix) and Lettuce Entertain You Restaurants, Tre Dita marks the Los Angeles-based chef’s first Chicago restaurant. Italian for “three fingers,” Tre Dita is a nod to the precise thickness of a properly cut bistecca Fiorentina, which the “cucina Toscana” serves from its open-hearth, wood-fired grill, along with handmade pastas and more. Located on the second floor of The St. Regis Chicago, designed by award-winning architect Jeanne Gang, Tre Dita offers sweeping views of Lake Michigan and the Chicago River in Chicago’s Lakeshore East. Tre Dita is open for dinner service seven nights a week with reservations available through OpenTable.
At the heart of Tre Dita, which Vetrina Toscana has designated as the first certified Tuscan restaurant in the United States (more info here), is Funke’s renowned temperature – and humidity – controlled “pasta lab.” As guests pass through an arched walkway leading into the restaurant, they will catch a glimpse of chefs hand-making pasta in the lab before entering the main dining room.
The Menu
Tre Dita draws inspiration from many areas within Tuscany, including lesser-traveled towns like Pontremoli, Pienza, and Chiusi. The menu highlights Antipasti and Insalati, traditional, handmade Tuscan pastas, specialties cooked on the wood-fired grill, plus a selection of steaks.
“When you visit a restaurant in Florence, Lucca or Livorno, you meet a constant in themes and traditions – handmade pasta, wood-fired cooking, and bistecca. Tre Dita is a place where those traditions can live in full illustration,” says Funke, Chef/Partner, Tre Dita.
Menu highlights include Chef Funke’s signature Schiacciata Bianca, a house-made rosemary and sea salt focaccia toscana, Fiori di Zucca, squash blossoms with ricotta fresca and Parmigiano Reggiano, and Gamberi in Salsa Verde, Prawns in a fresh Italian Salsa Verde. Additional highlights include Tagliatelle al Ragù, with pecorino grande and finocchietto and Tortelli di Zucca, handmade parcels filled with winter squash dressed with melted butter and sage. The centerpiece of the restaurant, an open flame, wood-fired grill, boasts specialties such as Pesce Spada alla Ghiotta, an on-the-bone swordfish, Pollo alla Toscana, a whole garlic roasted Green Circle chicken and the namesake Bistecca alla Fiorentina.
The Italian-inspired dessert menu is from The St. Regis Chicago Pastry Chef and Netflix “School of Chocolate” winner Juan Gutierrez.
The Wine
Tre Dita’s menu is paired with an exclusively Italian wine list, crafted by Wine Director Kat Hawkins as “a love letter to Italy.” Home to more than 700 wines, the list explores regions all across Italy with a focus on Tuscany, small producers and a curated collection of vintage bottles. Hawkins adopted a storytelling approach in curating the list, offering guests the opportunity to try several pours from the same producer as they move through their meal, get acquainted with Italian grapes not typically found on traditional American wine lists, and end their visit with one of the extensive variety of dessert wines, including more than 30 types of Vin Santo and grappa.
The Space
Designed by the award-winning interior architecture practice David Collins Studio, Tre Dita and Bar Tre Dita encompass 8,600 square feet across two levels. Clad in sienna, terracotta, maroon, white and gray Tuscan marbles, the arrival lobby and gastronomic tunnel welcome guests, setting the tone of the space. The restaurant features architectural columns, arched portals, dark-stained timber chequerboard flooring, walnut timber paneling, and wrought-iron light fixtures. These elements imbue the double-height, 3,200-square-foot main dining room, which seats 130 guests, with a modern Tuscan aesthetic. Banquettes upholstered in forest green and deep blue leather and floating four-top tables enhance the Tuscan vibes. Above the restaurant, a private dining room on the mezzanine seats 40 guests and overlooks the restaurant below, and opposite, 40-foot-tall navy blue sun-bleached linen curtains and floor-to-ceiling windows frame city views. The restaurant offers 2,500 square feet of flexible private and semi-private dining space across five rooms and two floors, accommodating 6 – 65 guests.
Bar Tre Dita
Adjacent to Tre Dita is Bar Tre Dita, which serves as one of two bars in The St. Regis Chicago. With a focus on Italian spirits and whiskies from around the world, Bar Tre Dita serves St. Regis signature cocktails, Italian wines and specialty cocktails crafted by Bar and Spirits Director Diane Corcoran. The bar offers a variety of seating options for 120 guests, including 14 seats at the bar, lounge seating and more.
The selection of nine signature cocktails includes the Tre, an homage to Tuscany that blends Italian gin, grappa and bianco vermouth, the Dita, an amari- and vermouth-driven Manhattan, The St. Regis Chicago’s signature 1871 Bloody Mary, and more. Bar Tre Dita also celebrates often underappreciated Italian spirits, including 30 types of amari, 20 selections of grappa, and more than 20 varieties of vermouth.
Bar Tre Dita’s walnut-timber paneled walls and cream and maroon chequerboard marble, and honey tobacco carpet floors complement the velvet banquette seating in navy blue, deep red and ochre gold, along with basket-weave textured leather bar stools in tobacco. The 96-foot-long hand-painted mural by American artist Dean Barger, draped above the bar, depicts an abstract interpretation of Chicago’s skyline, river, and iconic architecture. The bar, crafted from polished walnut and white, pink and green Cipollino marble, features a bronze, mirrored back bar showcasing Bar Tre Dita’s robust selection of more than 400 spirits from around the world.
Limited table reservations are available for Bar Tre Dita’s lounge area, where guests may order from Tre Dita’s comprehensive wine list and a menu of small plates of antipasti, meats, cheeses and bar bites.
Tre Dita is open for dinner seven days a week from 5:00 PM – 9:30 PM. Bar Tre Dita is open Sunday-Thursday from 4:00 PM -10:00 PM, with the bar remaining open for drinks until midnight, and Friday-Saturday from 4:00 PM -11:00 PM with the bar remaining open for drinks until 1:00 AM. Reservations are available by calling 312-725-1724 and on OpenTable.
About Chef Evan Funke
Chef Evan Funke is a two-time James Beard-nominated chef who brings two decades of experience to the Windy City, along with international acclaim from the success of his restaurants in Los Angeles – Felix Trattoria on Abbot Kinney in Venice, Mother Wolf in Hollywood and Las Vegas, and eponymous Funke in Beverly Hills. Felix, which opened in 2017, features a menu focused on the time-honored techniques of making pasta fatta a mano organized by various regions of Italy; at the Mother Wolf, Funke pays homage to the Eternal City of Rome and La Cucina Romana – a concept that has just expanded to Fontainebleau Las Vegas; while eponymous Funke is a culmination of all of chef’s culinary experiences as a three-story love letter to Italy. Funke, a culinary storyteller, is a custodian of Italian tradition and a master of the old-world techniques and culture of handmade pasta. His critically acclaimed cookbook, American Sfoglino, was published and released in fall of 2019. The book won the 2020 IACP Award for Best Cookbook, Chefs and Restaurants and received a James Beard Foundation Award for Best Photography in 2020. Since 2022, Funke has served as the official chef of the Vanity Fair Oscar Party. On the small screen, Tastemade produced a feature-length documentary film titled ‘Funke,’ which recounts his journey as a chef through to the opening of his restaurant Felix in Los Angeles. The film premiered at the Los Angeles Film Festival in 2018 and is now streaming on Tastemade, as well as Amazon Prime and Hulu. In the spring of 2020, the eight-part docuseries, ‘Shape of Pasta,’ produced by Ugly Brother Studio, features Funke’s journeys throughout Italy as he works to preserve the rare and obscure traditional pasta shapes of Italy. ‘Shape of Pasta’ is currently available to stream on Roku.
About Lettuce Entertain You Restaurants
Lettuce Entertain You Restaurants is an independent, family-owned restaurant group based in Chicago that owns, manages and licenses more than 120 restaurants in Illinois, Minnesota, Maryland, Nevada, Texas, Virginia, Florida, and Washington D.C., with Tennessee coming soon. We were founded in June 1971 by Richard Melman and Jerry A. Orzoff with the opening of R.J. Grunts and today, thanks to the creativity of our partners, we proudly serve guests at more than 50 concepts ranging from fast casual to fine dining restaurants. For more information, visit www.lettuce.com or follow us on Instagram and Facebook.
About The St. Regis Chicago
The St. Regis Chicago stands at Chicago’s best address spanning 11 floors of the 101-story architectural marvel designed by award-winning architect Jeanne Gang. Ideally located in the heart of the Lakeshore East neighborhood, the hotel marks the tallest building in the world designed by a female architect and boasts 159 luxuriously appointed guestrooms and 33 exquisite suites offering unparalleled 360-degree views of the Chicago River and Lake Michigan. Guests of The St. Regis Chicago will discover St. Regis’ legendary Butler Service, an expansive St. Regis Spa – the only Forbes Five Star Spa in Chicago, over 11,000 sq. ft. of event and meeting space and world-class dining including Miru and Tre Dita – two signature dining concepts from Chicago-based Lettuce Entertain You Restaurants. Connect with The St. Regis Chicago at @stregischicago on Facebook and Instagram.
