Inspired by a love of Italian food and possessed with entrepreneurial moxie, Nancy Brussat ran Convito Cafe and Market in Wilmette for decades while also overseeing two locations in downtown Chicago.
“Nancy was a very courageous, entrepreneurial woman who also had a very strong creative side to her,” said Ed Bradley, a longtime friend.
Brussat, 84, died of complications from ovarian cancer Jan. 19 at her Evanston home, said her daughter, Candace Barocci Warner.
Born and raised in Janesville, Wisconsin, Brussat received a bachelor’s degree in 1962 from the University of Wisconsin at Madison. After marrying, she and her husband lived in Boston for a time before moving to the Chicago area and settling in Evanston. Brussat taught history briefly at Oliver McCracken Middle School in Skokie.
From 1976 until 1979, Brussat lived with her then-husband in London, where he was managing director of an advertising agency’s English outpost. The couple often visited Italy, and she took up cooking with a Milanese mentor. When they moved back to the Chicago area, settling in Glencoe, Brussat reflected on what she felt was a dearth of authentic Italian cuisine on the North Shore, her daughter said.
“She just felt like the Italian food (here) was not really Italian, which it wasn’t,” her daughter said.
So in 1980, Brussat opened Convito Italiano — the word “convito” is ancient Italian for “banquet” or “feast” — in a 1,550-square-foot garden-level shop at 1625 N. Sheridan Road in Wilmette, next to the Plaza del Lago complex. It was a retail food shop that also sold wine and a bit of prepared food, and also functioned as something of an education center for Italian food.
“I was passionate about food and I was passionate about Italy,” she told the Tribune in 2000.
The store was successful, and after two years moved to a larger space at 1515 Sheridan Road that included a specialty market, a bakery and a 55-seat Italian cafe. By that point, Brussat had built a reputation for providing a number of unusual foods that could not be easily found elsewhere.
“There was this great diversity within Italy, but nobody knew what I was talking about,” Brussat told the Tribune in 1987. “I remember when a sun-dried tomato was a joke. I’d like to say I knew I was on the edge of a wave, but originally it was just my love of Italy that made me do it.”
Brussat in 1992 opened an adjoining French bistro, called Betise, A French Bistro on the Lake. In 2007, Brussat consolidated her Wilmette concepts into Betise’s former space and an adjoining former flower shop. That paved the way for her to rebrand it Convito Cafe & Market, with a French-Italian menu while also offering meats, cheeses, wines and prepared foods.
From 1984 until 1993, Brussat ran an additional Convito location at 11 E. Chestnut St. in Chicago. She devised the idea for a two-level location with a variety of shops — a deli, a grocery, a wine shop, a bakery, a space for hot prepared foods, a location for pasta and sauces — after seeing numerous specialty food and wine shops in Italy.
“What I’ve done is put all these little shops under one roof,” she told the Tribune in 1985. “It’s nine shops in one (in the Chicago store). I want to share the excitement of Italy; I’m still teaching in that sense.”
Tribune restaurant critic Paul Camp wrote in 1985 that “not a single sauce for the pastas disappoints. All are full of flavor and have distinctive character, something impossible in restaurants that dip every red sauce from the same stock pot.”
Brussat also opened a combined store and cafe in the Merchandise Mart in 1992, offering a shop, cafe and espresso bar. She closed that location the following year.
Brussat correctly predicted that her business would survive the passing of various Italian food trends.
“The reason we’ll stay is the diversity; there are so many things that people don’t think of as Italian, such variety in its foods and cheese and wines,” she told the Tribune in 1985. “(Besides), it’s fresh ingredients, used simply. I didn’t start out by saying ‘Aha! This is going to be the forefront of a trend.’ I just got so excited about it that I knew other people would, too.”
In 1994, Brussat was honored by the Italian Food and Wine Institute in New York as one of the finest ambassadors of Italy’s food and wine in the U.S.
Brussat also was a member of Les Dames d’Escoffier, a society of professional women involved in the food, beverage and hospitality industries. Through the group, which is known as “Les Dames,” Brussat developed connections with women in her industry from around the country.
“I would characterize her as bringing sophistication to to Italian food in Chicago because she had all the skills that went into being able to import and sort through and choose all different kinds of things as a business owner, and all those things were strengths of hers in Les Dames as well,” said fellow Les Dames member Ann Yonkers, a longtime friend. “She could manage something, look at the future and look at the present and decide if something would be a good move.”
Nancy Harris, a former Chicago restaurateur and a former president of Les Dames d’Escoffier’s Chicago chapter, recalled Brussat’s breadth of knowledge and her gift at providing valuable advice.
“She had an ability to read people and read situations and could evaluate what was being said to her,” Harris said.
In 2012, Brussat and her son, Rob, a New York-based cinematographer, produced a blog series titled “My Italian Journeys.” Brussat wound up penning 60 separate chapters, writing them right up until her death.
Brussat was also a longtime collector of Italian pottery and glassware.
“Design is a big thing in Italy, and pottery seems to be one form of it,” she told the Tribune in 1988. “I love color, and not any one particular color. There’s always something that sticks out in a shop that says something to me.”
A marriage to Robert Barocci ended in divorce. In addition to her daughter and son, Brussat is survived by a sister, Karen Brussat Butler, and four grandchildren.
A memorial service will take place at 1 p.m. March 28 at the Woman’s Club of Evanston, 1702 Chicago Ave., Evanston.
Goldsborough is a freelance reporter.