Rocco's Cafe & Pizzeria
As he's perfected the art of boozing, man has acquired loads of invaluable info, like beer before liquor makes you sicker, and eating before drinking keeps you from repeatedly *67ing your ex to insist you've totally changed. Helping with the latter, Rocco's Cafe and Pizzeria.
The first foray into resto-hood from a pair of bar veterans (Bucktown Pub and Estelle's), Rocco's is a 200-seat exposed brick and dark wooded hangar embellished w/ 23 flatscreens and hundreds of Italian-inspired pics, from ads for Spumanti Martini and Posti beer to shots of Pacino, De Niro, and a Saturday Night Fever'd out Travolta, who now blames said fever on aliens. The menu leans heavily on classic recipes passed down from one owner's Sicily-born parents (four-layer lasagna, penne with shrimp, fresh tomatoes and pesto broth, chicken scallopine), plus pizzas (Margherita, BBQ chicken and a sausage/mushroom/onion/roasted pepper "Rocco's Special") available in either thin crust or double-dough, also the name of Evanston's morbidly obese jump rope squad. To wash down the sauced-up comestibles, they're pouring 16 drafts (Peroni, Brooklyn Brown, Matilda), a heavily Italian list of 16 wines by the glass, and appropriately themed specialty drinks like a basil-mint mojito and house made red wine sangria, which comes by the pitcher, like Alyssa Milano.
Additional space to eat, drink and revel will come in the form of a newly constructed 150-seat patio made intimate via wrought-iron railings and trees that are mature, meaning if you drink too much, you'll be hitting on them like they weren't.
