Merlo
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It all starts with Silvia Marani's handwritten bible. As a teenager in Italy 40 years ago, she started writing down the knowledge from her mother, grandmother, neighbors, and friends. After all, she points out, "cooking is just something people do in Bologna." Gradually her red notebook filled up with homegrown recipes of Emilia-Romagna, organized meticulously by courses, ingredients, seasons, and holidays. Now it is the foundation of the restaurant she, her husband, and their son started two years ago, bringing traditional and authentic Bolognese cuisine to Lincoln Park.

Husband Giampaolo Sassi and son Stefano run the front of the house with aplomb and an almost military-like precision. The dining room is a re-created salon from an Emilia-Romagna villa, filled with furniture brought over from their house in Italy. On the walls are exquisite watercolors painted by Silvia's father, walls themselves painted the yellow ocher color of stone baked by the Italian sun. "It's the color of Bologna, the color I've lived with for over 60 years," she explains.