Quincy's Restaurant

The Restaurant

Quincy's Restaurant has occupied a 1920s converted bungalow on West Jefferson Avenue since the 1980s, and is the longest-running independent fine-dining room in the Naperville old town. The dining rooms — a front porch room, a central dining room, and a fireplace room at the back — seat about ninety in total, each with the wood-and-brass detail of an Illinois country club from a generation earlier. The kitchen is small, the menu deliberately compact, and the cooking unhurried in a way only family-owned restaurants still manage.

The menu is American steakhouse with a few French and Italian crossings. The filet mignon comes with a choice of three sauces (Bearnaise, peppercorn, bordelaise), all classically prepared and properly reduced. The veal Oscar — pan-seared with crab, asparagus, and Bearnaise — is the dish the regulars order and the kitchen has not changed in twenty years. The salmon en papillote, the chicken Marsala, and the seafood pasta round out the menu without surprising it. The Caesar salad is tossed table-side; the bananas Foster is flamed table-side; the room values the small ceremonies.

The wine list is short by city standards — eighty references — but well-selected, with reasonably-priced California cabs (Caymus, Hess, Stags Leap), a few French Burgundies and Bordeaux, and an Italian section that pairs with the veal and pasta. The pricing is the suburb's most reliable value at this level of cooking; the bill at the end consistently surprises first-time guests on the right side. This is the address Naperville's longtime residents take out-of-town family to when Main Street feels too busy.