Chef Vito Barbanente is ready to relax. After 48 years as the owner and chef of the popular Pescatore Restaurant and Banquet Hall in Franklin Park he took off his apron for a final time in earlier this month.
The restaurant will continue to operate under new ownership but with a different cuisine, he told Pioneer Press.
Closing Pescatore “is bittersweet” for Barbanente.
“I’m happy in ways so I can spend time with my beautiful family,” he said.
But he’s not happy to lose touch with his many faithful customers, he said.
Barbanente got an early introduction to cooking as a 5-year-old in his hometown of Mola Di Bari, Italy.
“My uncle had a restaurant and I started to make some pizza there and watch my grandma’s recipes,” he recalled.
He came to the United States in 1972 – when he was 17 years old – “with an ambition to succeed” because he had been told it was the land of opportunity, he said. His brother, who already lived in the U.S., found a job for Barbanente as a dishwasher in an Italian restaurant the day after the then-teen arrived.
As he washed dishes, Barbanente recalled, he would watch the chef cooking and write down the recipes.
“I used to go home and tell my mother, ‘Mom, we’re going to make these recipes,’” he said. “She went to the store and bought some ingredients and I would make it at home.”
The owner of the restaurant, who would drive Barbanente home every night, was upset one evening because the chef had quit and he didn’t know what to do. Barbanente said he told him, ‘Use me as the cook.”
Barbanente cooked there while he finished high school and attended Triton College in River Grove where he studied restaurant management. He graduated from the community college in 1977.
In 1976, a year before graduating from college, Barbanente opened Pescatore with his brother.
They named the restaurant “Pescatore” because the family comes from a fishing village in Italy, and the name means “fishermen” in Italian, he explained. The menu was based on the recipes he had learned from the chef during the time Barbanente worked as a dishwasher.
But he soon began adding his own recipes to the menu.
“I used to dream every night about recipes,” Barbanente said.
In 2000, Barbanente became the sole owner of the restaurant.
The restaurant has always specialized in seafood because “I love seafood,” Barbanente declared.
“Where I come from is all about seafood,” he said.
One of the most popular items on the menu is a seafood soup. An Adriatic grill mix with a variety of seafood is also a customer favorite. Pasta and pizza are also popular menu items.
Barbanente said that they have made “whatever people like.”
The banquet room that Barbanente added to the restaurant has been a popular event location for decades. He said some couples who had their wedding ceremony or reception in the banquet room have returned for the Christening of their children. And, he said, when their children grew up, they also were married in that facility.
“For me, it’s something very special. It’s like my family,” Barbanente said.
Numerous Italian celebrities have dined at his restaurant, he noted. One special friend from before he achieved fame, superstar Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli, has come into the restaurant every time he has performed locally since 1999.
Barbanente’s family has been involved with the restaurant through the years, including his wife, Rose, and his three children – who are now married: Marisa Biegelson, Roberto and Stefania DePinto. He also has five grandchildren with whom Barbanente has shared his passion for cooking.
He said that he didn’t want his children to pursue his career, though, because of the long hours and difficult work.
Retirement will mean that Barbanente can spend more time with those five grandchildren, who always ask him to come to their sporting events.
But first, “I’m going take a couple months to meditate and think [about] what I want to do,” he said.
Because he loves soccer, one of his plans is to get licensed to teach high school and college soccer. He is also planning to be a consultant for restaurants that are having problems.
Traveling is additionally in Barbanente’s retirement plan. He will, of course, be traveling to Italy but admitted, “Aruba is my favorite place. My kids learned to walk in Aruba.”
In addition, Barbanente plans to write a book about his life, as well as a cookbook he plans to title, “Simplicity Cooking in 30 Minutes.”
His children have plans for him too.
Barbanente said that they have been asking him, ‘Daddy, when you retire, are you going to teach us some of your recipes?’
That will definitely happen.
“It’s time to teach them,” Barbanente declared.
Myrna Petlicki is a freelancer.
