Ballo - a fantastic new restaurant

I've removed my review of Ballo, even though I think it's an outstanding restaurant that anyone interested in great Italian food ought to try. I just think that the posting below of one individual's personal political beliefs about ethnic stereotypes, while arguably appropriate for the non-food forum, has no place on a thread that ought to be devoted to opinions about the restaurant experiences of people who actually try the restaurant. My hope is that someone will post a Ballo experience in the future that is based on being there, so that a fair discussion of the restaurant itself may follow.

In the meantime, you might enjoy reading the Chicago Sun-Times' 3 star review of Ballo by Pat Bruno at the following link. He also includes Ballo on his list of his top 10 Italian restaurant picks:

Sun Times Ballo Review

marydon2 wrote:I talked to the owner/chef Joe Farina, and he said he'd be willing to have an LTH event sometime soon (though this was before the Times review, which I'm sure has the place getting even more popular than I could see it getting on each subsequent visit). If even a few of you are interested in a mid-week dinner, let me know.

Sounds great. The best place to get such an event organized is over on the Events board, since such invitations tend to get lost in these sorts of posts.

Cheers,

Aaron

marydon2 wrote:There are also six or seven TV screens that are strategically placed high enough that they're not at all intrusive. You can watch them or not, and if you choose not to, you won't even notice them. They silently play movies like The Godfather and Wise Guys, as well as Sopranos episodes. I'm telling you it works. If you just look up once in a while, it adds a unique sort of atmosphere together with the spectacular food.

I find it really sad and not a little pathetic that a restaurant that seems otherwise to have a fair amount of positive things going for it has to sink to the level of playing up the old and --for many of us -- deeply offensive stereotypical connexion of all things Italian with organised crime. While many others -- including some benighted Italian-Americans -- seem to revel in the notion of 'mob-chic', the fact is the general and continually invoked association of Italians and Italian culture with criminality constitutes a prejudice which is still widespread and detrimental to those of us whose families bear Italian names and have neither ties to nor any warped, pseudo-sentimental affections for extortionists and murderers.

That some Italians themselves engage in the perpetuation of this detrimental association does not make it less offensive: clearly, the person or persons who thought up the silent-mob-movie gimmick expected a positive reaction to it from their general audience which, of course, does nought but perpetuate the unjustified identification of Italianità with organised crime, an identification which is no less ugly than any other negative ethnic stereotype but also one that is disturbingly deep-rooted in this country and unreflectively maintained even by people who -- often otherwise with justification -- think of themselves as liberal-minded and prejudice-free.

I'm very glad to have gotten the heads-up on this repulsive aspect of Ballo and I certainly am very glad I didn't stumble upon it. Shame on the ownership and management of Ballo. Frankly, I hope they wake up and turn off the video players or else fail and close.

Antonius

I have moved the subsequent digression over to Not About Food so as not to stifle discussion of the actual restaurant.

Cheers,

Aaron