We recently dined at RPM Italian, excited to try their restaurant week menu. However, when we arrived and realized that the price for restaurant week ($60) was not worth it for the food options offered, we decided to eschew restaurant week for their normal menu. Unfortunately, the food here was extremely disappointing, and they really need to work on describing the food better on their menu, not only here but at RPM Steak as well. It was so bad, that I spent the entire evening after we got home trying to come up with funny things that RPM might stand for: Regular Pasta & Meat? Really Poor Meal? Regret Per Mouthful? Ridiculously Priced Mediocrity? Any of these perfectly describe RPM Italian and our experience there.

RPM Italian is located in the River North Neighborhood of Chicago, and I think stays busy and full of people due to the celebrity owners. The space is designed almost exactly like RPM Steak, and it’s pretty chic and minimal here. We were again seated in a curved booth, which was very comfortable. Service was very good here, and we never felt rushed, which was nice compared to Esme the week before.

RPM Italian has a truly excellent Italy-centric wine list, with a lot of offerings by the glass, and bottles ranging from totally reasonable and even cheap, to mega expensive. We really enjoyed the fact that they had rarer Italian dessert wines like Vin Santo and Recioto. We ordered glasses of white wine (Greco di Tufo) to go with our appetizers and a bottle of Chianti Classico Riserva for the rest of dinner. All of the wines were extremely nice, and it was fun to try a few different ones. This was the best part of our meal here.

Our appetizers, I have to say, were decent. We ordered a Fritto Misto that had not only fried calamari, but also a couple fried shrimp thrown in along with some vegetables to color up the plate. The breading was light and it wasn’t too greasy, and was a solid start to the meal, although Brian was irritated that they included a fried prawn head – you can’t eat that!

We also ordered the ricotta and honey focaccia. The ricotta and honey is a killer flavor combo, and if you’ve never tried it, it’s really lovely because the tang of the ricotta balances amazingly with the sweet honey. The focaccia they served it with didn’t really taste or feel like focaccia though – it was more like a thick and fluffy Texas Toast. I’m really not sure why they call this bread focaccia, but it’s just one thing the menu says to make things sound fancier and better than they really are. Also, the honey was a bit messy and sticky, but they never cleaned off the table, or offered wet wipes for our fingers.

For the mains, I was really excited to try the saffron cavatelli with wild boar ragu. Unfortunately, what I got was not what was described. Yes, there was cavatelli, but the wild boar, rather than being a nicely braised, tender meat with a tomato sauce, was actually super salty sausage of, I’m guessing wild boar, but who can know for sure? This was served in more of a creamy, mush sauce that was over salted and tasted terrible. I actually really despise sausage, and if the menu actually said sausage, which is what it was, there was no way I would order this dish. Also, I didn’t taste, nor see, a single strand of saffron in this dish. It looked like someone threw up on the plate, and then they served it to me. Massively disappointing.

Brian ordered the short rib bolognese. I ended up eating a bit of this since I refused to eat the salty mush laid before me, but this was disappointing as well. The tagliatelle was not al dente and pretty mushy. The sauce was over-herbed with thyme, and thyme was all I could taste. The meat was mushy, and the whole dish was completely imbalanced. Our waiter told us you couldn’t go wrong with any of the pasta dishes, but boy was he wrong!

For dessert, Brian ordered the Chocolate Budino, which I was excited to try, because the versions of budino I’ve had elsewhere were fun and exciting (The best budino in Chicago, I think, is at S.K.Y. They do a killer banana budino topped with all sorts of crunchy goodies). Unfortunately, RPM Italian’s Budino was boring and just more mush. There were cocoa nibs on the top of it, which I was hoping would be a bit more crunchy, but they were just little chocolate balls that looked like rat droppings scattered across the top of the dessert. The pudding itself was fine, and topped with some caramel, but honestly, it could’ve just been Jell-O brand chocolate pudding. They brought the dessert a full 10 minutes before our dessert drinks as well, which was annoying. Note that all of this food cost $95.00, which is $25 less than what we would’ve paid if we got the restaurant week menu. At some places, restaurant week is absolutely not a good deal.

For a place with “Italian” in it’s name, RPM Italian really does not live up to the word at all and is actually an embarrassment to the cuisine. If this restaurant were actually in Italy, it wouldn’t last a month. If you’re looking for incredible Italian fare in Chicago, skip this place and head to Rosemary, Pasta Veneta, or Eataly. I’ll be checking out one of the hottest new Italian restaurants in Chicago, Il Carciofo, next month, and you bet I’ll be reviewing it here! Can’t wait!