Provaré Combines Italian, Creole, and Good Time Vibes in West Town
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When a tray of small shot glasses came around after we sat down to dine at the 15-seat marble bar at West Town’s Provaré, we thought we were special. Turns out, everyone (of age, and who was imbibing that night) in the dark, 65-seat dining room was offered a small complimentary shot of the Chicago Avenue cocktail (a tropical mix of rum, pineapple juice, OJ, and grenadine). It’s a signature gesture at the always-packed Italian-Creole restaurant. “We want everyone to try it,” says chef-co-owner Jourdan Higgs. “It’s a staple we’ve had since day one.”
A self-taught chef who hails from Oak Park, Higgs learned to cook by watching the Food Network and cooking shows in college (he eventually appeared on Gordon Ramsay’s Food Stars). As a hobby, he’d entertain friends and family with his homemade pasta and seafood dishes, inspired in part by his Italian roots (his grandfather was Sicilian). Pre-Covid, Higgs also would regularly travel to New Orleans to visit his favorite restaurants, usually during crawfish season. “I’d go at least three times a year, sometimes just for the day to eat and come back,” he says. He’d scour the city for seasonings and bring them back to add to his pasta dishes. “I liked to incorporate things like Ethiopian and Southwestern spice blends that you wouldn’t use in traditional Italian cuisine,” he says.
It was also during Covid that Higgs’ college friend and now-business partner Michael Williams, encouraged him to open a restaurant, leading to the original Provaré, which means “to try” in Italian, which opened in West Town in 2021. While Italian-Creole restaurants are abundant in New Orleans thanks to an estimated 290,000 Sicilian immigrants who arrived there between the 1880s to 1920s, Higgs says he couldn’t find anything similar in Chicago. Still, he bristled at the “fusion” label initially.
“I really didn’t want to label us in the beginning,” he says. “But people search for certain things, so we just thought, okay, what would Italian-Creole look like based on what we’re doing, and the flavor profiles we’re going for?” Higgs’ version of Italian-Creole clearly resonated, and the restaurant outgrew its original space after a year, moving to a larger location up the street in 2023. The menu grew along with seating, and the basement was turned into Privé, a speakeasy and intimate dining room with DJs and live music on weekends. Provaré has since expanded to Houston, and this past September celebrated five years in West Town.
The welcome shots are just the start. From an imported Italian pasta machine to spice blends straight from New Orleans, each detail at Provaré is carefully considered. Here’s everything you need to know before you go.
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Creole and Italian flavors take center stage
Cuisines combine at Provaré in all the best ways, and much of the menu is, in a word, decadent, but housemade pastas, bold spice blends, and fresh seafood balance things out. Higgs, who makes all of the pastas in house on an extruder he purchased from Italy, is particularly proud of the Seafood Trio, which combines Italian and Creole flavors into one. “It’s a basic alfredo, but we make our own Cajun seasoning blend in-house and incorporate shrimp, crab, and lobster,” he says.
The Pasta Mardi Gras is a similarly rich mix of shrimp, chicken, and andouille sausage in a creamy Cajun sauce; while the shrimp scampi swaps a Cognac cream sauce for white wine and adds Fresno chiles and mafaldine pasta. There’s also a popular lamb chop entrée, spiced with citrus, cinnamon, and other seasonings, and a smash burger that gets a layer of juicy lobster claws (because, why not?). Starters are highly sharable and include fried lobster tails in a sweet heat aioli, salmon egg rolls in a corn and cream sauce, and perfect waffle fries topped with crab meat and pepper jack.
But seafood is the true star
Along with pasta, seafood is the focus at Provaré, appearing in just about every dish (although there is steak frites and a vegan Bolognese, in addition to the aforementioned lamb chops). A new addition to the menu is the Royale Tower, stacked high with lobster tails, king crab legs, and jumbo shrimp, served with fries and a seafood cream sauce. An add-on section of the menu offers all the fish in the sea, from crawfish to salmon and broiled lobster tail. “I’ve seen customers go from having a $30 pasta and upgrading it to a $130 pasta because you can pretty much add whatever you want,” says Higgs.
Drinks with local flavor
If you end up loving the Chicago Avenue shot, you can order it as a full cocktail, along with other tropical-leaning drinks named for local streets and neighborhoods. There’s the Randolph, with vodka, amaretto, passionfruit, lemon juice, orange bitters and a red wine float; the LSD, with tequila, pomegranate lime juice, simple syrup, Triple Sec, and blue Curaçao; and the Loop, a take on an Old Fashioned with smoked whiskey, orange, and Angostura bitters and luxardo syrup. There’s a small selection of wine and beer, but cocktails created by bar manager Berdan Lewis are clearly the focus.
Enter through the bookshelves for a nightcap
Provaré is dark and spacious, though if you make your way through the dining room you may or may not notice a bookshelf that doubles as a hidden door leading to the downstairs speakeasy lounge Privé. “The people that don’t know about it are sitting there eating and next thing you know, somebody moves the bookshelf and they’re like, whoa, what’s going on down there,” laughs Higgs. “They get curious and want to know more.” Open on weekends, reservations are available for dinner (the menu is the same upstairs and down), and you’ll find DJs and live music on weekends.
Expect fun vibes wherever you go
Old-school music and a great sound system set a weekend party (but not too clubby) tone upstairs, where classic ’90s R&B and hip hop are on heavy rotation. Expect lots of small groups enjoying birthdays with seafood towers and pasta bowls, girls’ nights, or just a fun Friday, and servers ready to help them celebrate properly. But there are also solo neighborhood regulars bellying up to the bar for lamb chops, cocktails, and banter with the friendly, fedora-wearing bartenders.
Whether you sit at the bar solo, in the full dining room, or with a date downstairs, the staff is welcoming and genuinely looks like they’re having a good time. “Even with us moving to a bigger space, we’re still just a big family,” says Higgs. “ Everyone helps out wherever they can. At the end of the day, we all just want to provide a great experience.”
Provaré: 1523 W Chicago Ave, 60642. Open Tuesday through Sunday, check website for hours.
Liz Grossman has been a Chicago-based writer, editor, and storyteller for 25 years. She’s the former editor-in-chief of Plate Magazine and co-founder of the nonprofit storytelling series, Between Bites. She regularly contributes to Chicago Magazine, Flavor & the Menu, FoodService Director, and more. Follow her on Instagram. Follow Resy, too.
