iL-CHIANTI OVEST

A meal at iL-CHIANTI OVEST often starts with a salad tossed in the restaurant's signature grated-vegetable dressing. Offerings like the Forest Salad, heaped with sautéed mushrooms, or the Caribbean Salad, laden with mussels, prawns, and squid, allow the rich, gently sweet dressing to cling to every ingredient, putting the produce squarely in the spotlight. The dressing has earned such a following that some guests buy bottles to take home.

The antipasto selection highlights crisp, flavorful soft-shell crab, available fried until entirely crunchy or wrapped in thin Italian piadina flatbread to eat by hand. The crisp shell texture and concentrated crab flavor make an easy match for a cold beer or a glass of white wine to kick off the meal.

For the main course, pasta takes center stage. A perennial crowd-pleaser is Midnight Spaghetti, served piping hot in a mildly piquant garlic-and-tomato broth with tender squid, alongside seafood-rich pescatore and velvety carbonara. Portions are generous, with spaghetti offered in both medium and large sizes so tables can easily share several plates.

Located on the 2th floor of a building by Ikebukuro's west exit, the dining room combines soft indirect lighting with a lively, casual hum, especially during dinner when groups of friends and coworkers gather. Between all-you-can-drink party courses and weekday lunches, it makes a convenient, convivial stop for sharing platters and carafes of wine.