RIVER NORTH — Baffo Ristorante, the sister eatery to Eataly, will reopen Wednesday after a week-long closure for renovations that began Sunday.
The facelift to the restaurant's interior was scheduled before the restaurant even debuted in December, because the team anticipated that they would want to make adjustments after a few months of getting a feel for the neighborhood and their clientele's needs, according to Alex Saper, one of Baffo's managing partners.
Baffo reopens to the public Wednesday for dinner service at 5 p.m.
They planned to gut the restaurant at 44 E. Grand Ave. "when business slows down, around August," because the the team "felt the original design wasn't as Italian as it could be," and could be "warmer" and "more homey," Saper said.
Changes included adding a wall to separate the dining area from the bar, changing wall textures and bringing in dark wood paneling to "give the room a warmer feel," Saper said.
"All we kept from before is the floor," he added.
The redesign was led by interior designer Lisa Eaton, who has previously worked with Mario Batali's restaurant group on other projects including Babbo, Bistro du Vent and Il Posto in New York. Eaton partnered with local design group 555 International to source custom woodwork that makes the dining room "feel more like a home," Saper said.
While the redesign removed dining tables from the bar area, it added 10 seats to the previously 65-seat restaurant. Baffo's event space and private dining room is still a work in progress, with plans to install a floor-to-ceiling bookcase on the back wall to make it feel like a library, Saper said.
"We feel like the design of the restaurant finally matches the expectation of the food," Saper said, noting that there have been no changes to the menu, just cosmetic alterations.
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