Follia

The Restaurant

Follia opened in 2023 at 950 North Western Avenue, a clean-lined contemporary space designed by Santini Studio that occupies a corner suite in the Western Avenue retail corridor a half-mile north-east of the Lake Forest commuter station. The room is deliberately modern — pale terrazzo floors, walnut banquettes, brass accents, a curved bar facing the open kitchen — and seats around eighty across the main floor and a smaller private alcove that holds twelve. Chef-owner Bruno Abate, Naples-born and Milan-raised, was previously behind the well-regarded Tocco in Wicker Park and Tocco Winnetka, and Follia is his most confident North Shore room to date.

The kitchen runs a tightly edited menu rather than a marathon one. Signatures include handmade pici with slow-cooked beef bolognese, a bacon-crusted pork tenderloin with rosemary jus, fresh Mediterranean sea bass roasted over rosemary and lemon, a wood-fired Margherita that holds its own against the city's best, a Pugliese-style burrata with heirloom tomato and basil, and a porcini risotto that the kitchen finishes tableside in winter months. The pasta programme — pici, rigatoni, tortelli, mafalde — is rolled and cut daily in-house, and the bread service holds a focaccia that has become the room's calling card.

The wine list runs to about two hundred and twenty labels with deliberate Italian regional depth — Barolo, Brunello, Etna Rosso, Verdicchio, Friulano — and the by-the-glass programme is unusually serious for a suburban room. Service is warm, captain-led, and trained to the pace of an evening rather than a service turn — the kitchen will hold courses for a slower table. The wood-fired oven runs at the front of the open kitchen and the pizza programme functions as a separate counter for guests who want a lighter format. For a Lake Forest birthday or business dinner that needs to feel like a confident European room rather than a North Shore concession, Follia is the answer.