32-Year-Old Mia Francesca Spruces Up With a Remodel in Lakeview

Thirty-two years to the day after its debut, a red-sauce Italian stalwart is aiming to reintroduce itself to Lakeview. Mia Francesca, the flagship restaurant that anchors prolific restaurateur Scott Harris’ city and suburban chain, will on Tuesday reopen to reveal new menu items and a major remodel at 3311 N. Clark Street — and for the first time in 20 years, Harris will don his chef whites for work.

“I’m excited to put my chef coat on and show my team what I’m about,” says Harris. “I want to make it back into one of the best Italian restaurants in the city — we lost that. It’s my fault, I blame myself.”

Until recently, Francesca’s, as Chicagoans affectionally called the restaurant, served as a rare fixed point in an ever-changing hospitality universe. Founded in 1992 on the premise of enormous portions of saucy pasta, affordable tumblers of wine, and a dedication to pleasing the masses, it was known throughout the decade as an unpretentious (if very noisy) destination that was perpetually heaving with patrons.

Scott Harris Hospitality

Scott Harris Hospitality

Over the following decades, however, little changed inside the space, save for the notable absence of Harris, who turned his attention to dozens of other restaurant projects including Davanti Enoteca, Glazed and Infused Donuts, Vasili’s Mediterranean, and numerous outposts of Francesca’s across the city and suburbs, including the shuttered Francesca’s Fiore in Wicker Park. In Lakeview, wear and tear in the dining room grew increasingly evident, and as the city’s Italian restaurant scene got larger and more competitive, Mia Francesca’s culinary approach remained suspended in time.

“I want to focus on bringing it back to how I started,” says Harris, returning to simple, rustic dishes drawn from Rome, Tuscany, Umbria, and Lazio. Contemporary tweaks include the addition of gluten-free pasta and a greater emphasis on vegetables, with new dishes including funghi del bosco, seared sea scallops (anchovy, walnut vinaigrette), and seared hearts of palm Provençal.

New dishes make up about 40 percent of the opening menu, Harris estimates, while the remaining 60 percent is devoted to Mia Francesca classics such as pollo arrosto alla Romana, rigatoni alla melanzane, and linguine al’ arlecchino. He doesn’t want to alienate regulars (Harris says he was roundly scolded by customers for knocking off longtime favorites in suburban St. Charles) and is open to making changes based on feedback in Lakeview.

Scott Harris Hospitality

That same balance of new and familiar extends to the restaurant’s remodeled interior, which balances its core identity as a trattoria with contemporary dining room aesthetics. This strategy is perhaps best encapsulated by a refurbished antique bar, originally built in 1927, where bartenders will continue to make moderately priced wines a priority. Italian elements are present, but not painfully overt — faux plaster wall treatments give a nod to the country’s architecture, and antique mirrors are meant to evoke the aperitivo bars of its northern region. Wall art is kept to a minimum, save for a few black-and-white framed photographs and an original Mia Francesca menu from 1992 (Harris notes that at the time, the priciest menu was veal for $14.95).

Harris hopes that his presence in the kitchen will help to restore the upbeat, bustling energy that once characterized the restaurant and “pump up” the staff, including chefs and managers from Francesca’s dozen locations who will cycle through for training through the summer in Lakeview. He’s especially looking forward to mingling with customers and possibly slipping bites of antipasti to customers on their way back from the restroom.

Francesca’s and Harris have roots in the Chicago restaurant scene. He was a partner at Purple Pig, the award-winning restaurant that was once off the Mag Mile. Francesca’s was the standard in the ‘90s for date nights and special occasions, an approachable place that wouldn’t break the bank without a boring menu. The son of a waitress and a carpenter, Harris began his hospitality career at age 14 as a dishwasher. After nearly half a century, he says his affection for the industry has never dimmed. “I’m never going to retire — no golf, I hate that game,” he says. “I don’t have any hobbies. This is my hobby, my passion.”

Mia Francesca, 3311 N. Clark Street, open 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. Monday through Thursday; 4 p.m. to 10 p.m. Friday and Saturday; 4 p.m. to 9 p.m. Sunday, Reservations available via OpenTable.