Flashback 1997: Italian eatery unafraid to dish out stereotypes

     Ah Buca di Beppo. There was a time when the crazily over-the-top Italian eatery was part of my life — there was one on Clark Street, a few blocks from where we lived on Pine Grove Avenue. I'd stop by for a glass or two of wine, back in the day, and we'd eat there, or try to. The portions were so huge, hese huge family sized platters, it was difficult for a couple to find something to order. Later we went back with the boys, who liked the chaotic decor. Ross had his bar mitzvah lunch at the Buca in Wheeling. I still remember a guest, a prominent chef, looking around tentativelly, as if thinking, "They're having it HERE?" 

     The Wheeling Buca shut down abruptly last year after more than 25 years in business, and the chain declared bankruptcy this week, trying to structure a debt of up to $50 million. That doesn't mean it's closing any of its 44 locations, necessarily. But it ain't doing well. 

      The lede is a reminder that "Big Night" was originally a cult classic that only gained in popularity as Stanley Tucci's star rose.

     You probably didn't see "Big Night." It was one of those small films that plays in theaters for about two weeks before a single copy is sent to video stores.
     In the movie, a pair of brothers devoted to good Italian cooking open a little restaurant and are crushed by the owner of a garish, sprawling spaghetti-and-meatball place that is filmed in shades of red and presented, none-too-subtly, as the culinary equivalent of hell.
    Cut to a few weeks ago. I'm walking up Clark Street. Suddenly, I'm standing before a red and green vision calling itself Buca di Beppo. Around the entrance are strung red Christmas lights.
     Inside, deep red walls. More Christmas lights. Loud, full-throated Italian chestnuts such as "It's Now or Never" blare from speakers. All sorts of weird framed photographs leer down from the walls: a nun in habit watching "Wheel of Fortune", Al Capone's mug shot, a giant portrait of Joe DiMaggio, lots of Sophia Loren and a photo of a drunken man trying to lift a strand of spaghetti off a woman's ample cleavage. Italian-Americanism seen through a post-ironic, MTV lens.
     "Wow," I said to myself. "Someone opened the hell restaurant from `Big Night.' Incredible!" I couldn't have been more astounded had I looked out the window downtown and seen the African Queen chugging up the Chicago River with Charlie Allnut at the helm.
     My wife and I returned for a meal. We saw the portions were huge — stupendous — back-breaking platters of steaming pasta, covered in red sauce, topped with meatballs the size of grapefruits. Portions so huge, so Swiftian, we couldn't order anything we wanted — isn't that how it would be in hell?
     We ordered a small Caesar salad, split it between us, with bread, and were content. The food in fact was very good, and I resolved to meet the people behind this curiosity.
     It wasn't that I was offended, personally. I like to see cultural pieties poked at. If there was a restaurant called "The Talmud" with waiters in beaver hats and framed scholarly writings and portraits of famous rabbis, I'd go, provided they knew how to pickle herring.
     Rather, I was intrigued. It takes a certain kind of courage to offer up the mild blasphemy of Buca di Beppo, from the phone number ("Dial 348-POPE") to the unashamed stereotyping of Italians as mobsters, movie stars and priests. What I didn't expect was sincerity.
     "I'm from southern Italy," said Vittorio Renda, a vice president for Buca Inc., based in Minneapolis, where the restaurant got its start four years ago. "We wanted to do something southern Italian immigrant. Quality. Tradition. Just homemade cooking."
     The place is designed for family dining, Renda explained, proudly noting that the chicken cacciatore platter weighs in at 7 pounds, two of which are garlic mashed potatoes. Another Buca di Beppo — the name means "Joe's Basement" — has just opened in Wheeling.
     When I asked about the walls, he proudly explained how they travel to Italy every year to pick up decorations. "We go to the Vatican, to all kinds of shops," he said.
     With that, he led me to the "Pope's Room," a circular dining area festooned with yellow papal flags and a table set for 20 diners, who no doubt would argue over who gets to sit on the throne.
     "It's like being in the Vatican," Renda said.
     My biggest surprise came when I mentioned — very gingerly, to one of the partners, Cliff Spence — how Buca di Beppo reminds me of the hell restaurant in "Big Night."
     He smiled, proudly, and said that the movie's producers toured the Buca di Beppo in Minneapolis. "That must have been part of where they got the idea from," he said. Of course, art imitates life.
     Regarding complaints, Renda gave a Mediterranean shrug and said, "You always get a call here and there." But Spence said the photo of the woman having a strand of pasta plucked from her meloni prompted hundreds of protest calls in Minneapolis, particularly after they ran the picture as a quarter-page advertisement.
     "We got calls for two days," Spence said. "They called and said it was a gross misrepresentation of women."
     I expressed admiration for the fact that, having received all those complaints, they nevertheless included the photograph, big as life, in their new restaurant in Chicago.
     "The owner said the biggest mistake he ever made was not taking out a full-page ad," Spence said.
     I suppose the photographs might bother some people. But as the sign in Buca di Beppo's kitchen says: "Se non sopporta il calore, vattene dalla cucina."
     In other words: If you can't stand the heat, stay out of the kitchen.

            —Originally published in the Sun-Times, June 25, 1997