The One Who Keeps the Book Chicago
How to Book a Table at DeNucci’s (and What to Order Once You’re There)
Since 2009, Ballyhoo Hospitality has been building upon its flagship Lincoln Park restaurant, Gemini, with a dependable stable of restaurants around Chicago and the North Shore suburbs: Coda di Volpe in the Southport Corridor, Sophia Steak in Wilmette, and Petit Pomeroy in River North, among many others, demonstrate the dining group’s culinary range and ability to create welcoming atmospheres. In 2023, the team opened DeNucci’s, an Italian spot just across the street from Gemini, and the concept has proved so successful that in 2024, Ballyhoo opened a second DeNucci’s location in Highland Park.
Though the menu sounds straightforward, with traditional Italian American fare such as garlic knots, chicken piccata, and a chopped salad, DeNucci’s brings an attention to detail and a skill for deepening flavors within each dish. “Our chefs constantly look for ways to make things better,” says Jaysen Euler, Vice President of Culinary.
We sat down with Euler, as well as Director of Operations Jonathan Putman, to learn more about how to score a table at DeNucci’s, how to approach the menu, and how to enjoy the restaurant to the fullest.
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How far out do you book your reservations? Are any of the seats in the restaurant held for walk-ins?
Jonathan Putman: We’re three months out in our available bookings, and we try to keep some seats for walk-ins. We always know there’s going to be a certain level of day-of cancellations, so some of the walk-ins are just inherently built in. We try to book as much as we can, in terms of the tables on Resy, leading up to that particular day, so it’s not like we hold, say, exactly 10 tables for walk-ins. It’ll be built in by people not being able to make it, or parties of four dropping to two, or whatever it may be. We always keep our bar open for walk-ins as well. But we’re looking at it on the daily. We’ve got a pretty robust management team that’s constantly moving around the Tetris board.
Jaysen Euler: We do a great job of following up right away with those cancellations and hitting the Notify list. If you’re on that list, odds are that you could get a call. Our team does that in a timely manner to make sure that we’re accommodating anybody who’s trying to get in the door.
How long does the Notify list get?
Putman: Totally depends on the day. I think we have six on the Notify list for today [a Wednesday], and I guarantee we’re going to get those six in if they still want to come, because we could move some things around. But on a Friday or Saturday, it can get up into the hundreds. Obviously, some people just jump on the Notify list weeks out, and then they’ve already made other plans, so a certain percentage of that list is no longer interested.
But even with walk-ins, some people will call when they see it’s totally booked online, and we can still find a way to get them in. If we happen to know the party at one table has to catch a movie soon, we can use our two-hour turn time to fit someone else in as well. It’s really about communicating with guests about their needs, knowing the space, and knowing how you can manipulate it.
How many seats are at DeNucci’s? How about for large groups?
Putman: In Lincoln Park, it’s roughly 150, just indoors, not counting the patio. In our new Highland Park location, there are 184. In Highland Park, we’ve seen a huge request for groups of six and above, eight-tops, ten-tops. We do get some of that in Lincoln Park, but we have limited space there to accommodate larger groups.
How would you describe the menu for a newbie?
Euler: The menu itself is warm and comforting. It’s a “red sauce joint,” right? You get a lot of very big, bold Italian American flavors on the plate, and there’s a lot on offer that encompasses many different palates. As a guest, there’s a lot of different ways you can navigate the menu to create a different experience each time you’re in, which I think is fantastic.
Some dishes might read very simple, but the complexity is there because of the quality of the ingredients. Being an Italian American restaurant, we use some imported products, and we also source local produce when we can. Our extra virgin olive oil is 100% direct from Sicily, and we finish every pizza with it.
Everything we do in-house makes it special, too. Our handmade pastas are fantastic, as well as the little things, like our hand-pulled mozzarella sticks. We make our mozzarella in-house; we don’t buy it and bread it, or buy it pre-breaded. We start from scratch and take the long route, the quality route.
How often do you change the menu? Do you run a lot of seasonal specials?
Euler: We do some specials here and there, and we offer our Speciale Del Giorno, or daily specials. But really, the core of our menu is built around being that annual menu, and it works in most seasons—plenty of people want to come out in the summer and order lumache! It seems to play well all year. It all goes back to the style of cuisine. To me, it’s happy food.
What is the most popular dish?
Euler: It’s funny, because what’s popular in Highland Park is not always the most popular in Lincoln Park and vice versa. A lot of what I’m seeing in Highland Park is the piccata-style preparations on the veal and the chicken — they’re very well-received, as well as the marsala preparations on both. Our branzino piccata is a home run, and one of my favorite dishes to eat. It eats light, if you want to go light, but it’s also very warming. I see a lot of those ordered as well.
Putman: The tagliatelle is always a winner.
Euler: Yes, the tagliatelle bolognese is high on the list at both locations. I’m also seeing a lot of orders for the spaghetti limone, which is a great light pasta, and there’s a lot of interest in the spicy crab campanelle, which honestly might be my favorite pasta on the menu.
The pizzas are going out as much as anything else, and the pizza piece of our business is doing very well. Sal Lo Cascio, who oversees the pizza, takes a lot of pride in the pizza dough, and the overall execution of that—we’re treating it as an art, because that’s what it is.
Are there any dishes that a first-timer should definitely not miss?
Euler: You know, one of the things that I think is really exceptional on our menu, and that maybe is not always a go-to—maybe it just doesn’t read as exciting?—is the hot sausage and peppers. It’s an absolutely great dish, and maybe not what people would expect. The sausage that we do is not like the typical cased Italian sausage. You get a coil of sausage with a warm vinaigrette over the top, with roasted peppers, some pickled banana peppers, peppadew peppers, and shishitos. The overall combination is not your typical sausage and peppers, in a really fantastic way.
What’s the scene like during the busiest dining hours?
Putman: That’s what we’re all striving for. You want it to be full, because that adds to the whole atmosphere and the vibe and the experience for the guests. More mistakes are made when we’re slow than when we’re busy. When everybody’s busy, everybody’s having fun, everybody’s locked into what they’re supposed to be doing. That’s the best: that 7:00, 7:30 p.m. moment, when the restaurant is full and people spot each other across the room, and people are stopping and chatting.
Euler: It’s exciting, chaotic, and stressful all in the same breath, but all in the best ways possible.
What does the future hold for DeNucci’s?
Euler: Ballyhoo Hospitality as a whole has several different things happening in 2025, with a few outposts opening up in Glenview. We’re staying up on the North Shore; the neighborhoods up there and the clientele have been absolutely fantastic to us. As far as DeNucci’s, it’s a great concept — there’s nothing on the docket yet, but I would bank on [Highland Park] not being the last new DeNucci’s.
