Life’s a Bice
A Romantic Italian Patio in the Gold Coast

Ah, Italy in the spring. There’s no place on earth like it.

Unless you count Delaware Place. Which, starting tomorrow, you can.

Welcome to an utterly revamped Bice Ristorante, soft-opening in the Gold Coast’s Talbott Hotel this week.

You know Bice. You never go to Milan without stopping in for a quick negroni at the original. Now forget what you know about Bice. This place is different. Good different. Better different. The founder’s grandson is overseeing operations here, and he’s turned the once-tiny Bice Café version into the new flagship.

Sure, you can still sit in the formidable bar—which once was the library of some Italian mansion, where one would have knocked back that negroni with Marcello Mastroianni.

Inside the dining room, however, things suddenly take a turn for the Isabella Rossellini: crisp, white tablecloths, fashion sketches framed on the walls and, waiting for you, way in the back, a perfect table for two, your squid ink tagliolini and Milanese osso buco softly lit via tubular light fixtures.

If you’re thinking about a Memorial Day weekend beach picnic—with less sand and more 16-ounce gorgonzola-topped cowboy steaks—take a seat at the sidewalk café. Lined with flower beds and trees, it’s a pleasant escape from the sweaty Viagra Triangle patios around the corner.

You have the whole summer to get sweaty.