Tre Dita

The story

Crafted with passion, served with love

Tre Dita sits inside The St. Regis Chicago at 401 E. Wacker Drive, and the address alone signals a certain ambition. The restaurant is the Chicago chapter of chef-partner Evan Funke's ongoing project: preserving and translating the traditions of Italian cooking for American tables, without softening what makes those traditions worth preserving.

The Chef Behind the Concept

Funke is a two-time James Beard-nominated chef whose reputation was built in Los Angeles through Felix Trattoria in Venice, Mother Wolf in Hollywood and Las Vegas, and his eponymous Funke in Beverly Hills. He is, by any measure, one of the most serious practitioners of handmade pasta working in the United States today. His cookbook American Sfoglino, published in 2019, won the IACP Award for Best Cookbook in the Chefs and Restaurants category and earned a James Beard Foundation Award for Best Photography in 2020. His docuseries Shape of Pasta — available on Roku — documents his travels through Italy in pursuit of rare and disappearing pasta forms. That same obsessive attention to Italian culinary heritage is what he has brought to Chicago.

What Tre Dita Is About

In Funke's own words, the menu draws from a specific tradition: "When you visit a restaurant in Florence, Lucca or Livorno, you meet a constant in themes and traditions — handmade pasta, wood-fire cooking, and bistecca. Tre Dita is a place where those traditions can live in full illustration." The restaurant offers separate dinner, steak, dessert, wine, and cocktail menus, with a rotating Pasta del Momento — currently Taglierini con Piselli Freschi — that reflects the kitchen's commitment to seasonal, technique-driven Italian cooking.

The wine program earned Wine Spectator's Best of Award of Excellence in 2024, a recognition that speaks to the depth and curation of the list rather than its size alone. For a contemporary Italian restaurant, that kind of distinction matters: it means the cellar is genuinely equipped to complement a menu built around the flavors of Tuscany.

Bar Tre Dita

Adjacent to the main dining room, Bar Tre Dita operates as its own destination, with a cocktail program that runs later into the evening than the kitchen. It offers an approachable entry point into the Tre Dita experience — the same setting, a more informal pace.

The Setting

The St. Regis location places Tre Dita along the Chicago River, with valet parking available and private event capabilities for groups. It is a Lettuce Entertain You restaurant, which brings operational depth to Funke's creative vision — a combination that, in practice, means the experience is both carefully considered and reliably executed.