Oh my goodness Chicgal, I look to YOU for help with Chicago restaurants. Did you feel your ears burn when we toasted you at Coco Pazzi, a place we never would have found on our own?

Chicgal,the Tribune reviewed Osteria in the Friday section today. I was wondering why the address sounded familiar and then realized it was at the former home of Papagus, another Melman venture.

We have reservations for Osteria Via Stato for New Year's so I can report back if you are not going before then. Rick Tramonto of Tru is one of the people behind it so I am expecting it to be good.

We were at Osteria Via Stato for New Year's Eve and we thought the food was really good. It is a 3 course set price menu of antipasti, pasta or risotto, and a main course for $35.95. You only have a choice of main course but they will modify the other courses if you do not like or are allergic to something. For antipasti, we had a radicchio salad, salmon cured in lemon, another type of salad with fresh shaved Parmesan, sautéed fennel which was delicious, fresh buffalo mozzarella in olive oil, fresh olive focaccia, olives and bread. There were two types of pastas which were both very good. I had the short rib main course and my husband had the pork shank. Both were excellent.

I think they are still working out a few kinks in the service - it was not bad by any means, it just sometimes seemed like the right hand did not know what the left hand was doing. Since it is a new restaurant, we did not find this unusual at all and it seemed like everyone was trying very hard to do a good job.

For the price, they give you a LOT of food. I was so full when we left.

One minor thing, they have a program called Bring Me Wine where you can have wines matched to your food. They give you several price options. My husband splurged on the $50 option (they also have two less expensive options - I think $16 and $28 and a $100 option). He did not think that it was worth it. It was three modest pours of wine which averaged out to over $18/glass. They did not bring out the bottles for you to look at and none of the three were superstars. We do a lot of wine tasting and are fairly knowledgeable about wines. We definitely never skimp when it comes to ordering a nice wine with a meal but we just felt it would have made more sense to order a bottle. That's just my opinion, other people might prefer the Bring Me Wine option.

The atmosphere is festive and it is a great place to go with friends. Oh, and the "gelato" is not really gelato - it's just regular American ice cream. In sum, the food was delicious, the service was good (and will get better with time), and we are looking forward to going back.

We were seated at a table by ourselves and I did not see anyone being seated "communally" although I had read it is communal dining as well (I don't know if this was different because it was New Year's Eve?). It is a lively restaurant but you could still hold a conversation. I really could not hear specific conversations at other tables.

Our dinner took about an hour and a half but we also ordered dessert, coffee and after dinner drinks. The staff is eager to please so if you told them you were under a time constraint, I am sure they would move it along. The first two courses (antipasti and pasta) came out in quick succession with a short wait for the main course.