Yes, Tre Dita Is Worth the Hype

When Tre Dita opened in March 2024, getting a table required the kind of planning usually reserved for concert tickets and flight deals. The buzz was real and the reservation was nearly impossible. That window has passed. You can get in now without engineering your entire morning around it, which means the best argument for going just got a lot simpler.

The restaurant sits on the second floor of the St. Regis building, Jeanne Gang's tower at the top of the Chicago River and the tallest building ever designed by a woman. Floor to very high ceiling windows run along the room with panoramic views of the lake and the river. There is genuinely no bad seat in the house. That's a claim most restaurants can't make and Tre Dita makes it effortlessly.

The interior is large and manages to feel intimate anyway. Deep comfortable chairs and booths give every table its own sense of privacy inside a room that could easily feel cavernous. The lighting is exceptional. The design details are the kind you notice without being able to articulate exactly why everything feels so considered. It just does.

The food is pristine Tuscan cooking. Pasta is made by hand and you can watch it being rolled out as you walk in, which sets the right expectation before you've even sat down. The bistecca comes from the wood-fired oven and is exactly what it should be. The burrata is the kind of simple thing that only works when every component is right, and here every component is right. Get it with the focaccia. The focaccia is dangerous in the way that bread is dangerous when it's this good — you will eat too much of it and not regret a thing.

Allen has strong feelings about cacio e pepe that trace back to a trip to Rome. Tre Dita's version made him feel like he was eating in Rome again, only alongside the Chicago River. That is not a small thing to pull off. Nothing missed on our visit. Not one dish.

This is the right place for a date night, an anniversary, or when someone is visiting from out of town and you want to show them what Chicago can do. It is also just a very good reason to treat yourself on an unremarkable Tuesday if the mood strikes. The hype was earned. The reservation is now available. Go.