By David A. F. Sweet
Bruno Abate recalled recently the words his father, Alfredo, shared with him before he passed away about 30 years ago.
“I asked him, ‘Dad, what should I do for my future?’ He said, ‘Don’t ever open a restaurant.’”
“I never wanted to be in the restaurant business,” says Bruno Abate.
Dressed in an elegant suit and sporting a colorful pocket square while repeatedly greeting passersby, Abate mentions this outside a restaurant, Tocco, in Winnetka that he opened in 2019 (he also licensed the name Tocco to a restaurant at O’Hare Airport). And this past June, he opened another one, Follia, in Lake Forest.
What happened to listening to his father’s advice?
“I never wanted to be in the restaurant business,” said Abate, adding that Alfredo’s comments were based on an unsuccessful restaurant his grandfather had opened in Naples. “I’m a chef. It was a folly for me to open a restaurant 25 years ago in Fulton Market in Chicago, so I called it Follia. Everyone was telling me I was crazy. Now that I have an established restaurant in Winnetka, it was a folly to open another in Lake Forest.
“But I kind of need a challenge in my life, and I have so many friends in Lake Forest who wanted me to open one. I found a wonderful family – the Altounian family – who showed me around and helped me find the space (at 950 N. Western Ave.).”
The chef, Dominico Acampora, is from Italy and worked at the original Follia. In fact, Abate pointed out that everything at the restaurant is from Italy — including the glasses, created on the island of Murano off of Venice.
Follia opened recently in Lake Forest.
Abade said his restaurants can make 400 different dishes apiece and can create more than three dozen sauces daily.
“Every time you come in, you find something new,” he said. “Our kitchen is continually in movement and creating new flavors every day. The big challenge in Lake Forest was to find the right people for the kitchen. No one knows exactly the food we do before they work here.”
Raised in Milan, Abate was passionate about food and fashion.
A company he owned there sold caviar to high-end restaurants and hotels. His restaurants on the North Shore are marked by a sleek, modern design.
Despite his acclaim as a restaurateur, Abate is best known for teaching prisoners about healthy food and quality cooking.
“In 2010, I got a call from God,” Abate began. “I wake up at 3:30 a.m. My television goes on. There was a documentary about kids. There were more than 2,000 kids in prison then for life without parole.
“I went to the restaurant at 7 a.m. A guy who worked at St. Charles Juvenile Detention Center was at the bar. I hadn’t seen him for six years. He said, ‘How did you remember me?’ In two weeks, I was in the prison there to teach the kids.”
Abate started Recipe for Change in Cook County Jail in 2014.
The program eventually closed, but Abate opened a new one in Cook County Jail in Chicago in 2014. Called Recipe for Change, it also includes a music production arm as well as an art studio. Abate – who visits the jail twice a week — said that out of about 6,000 detainees who have been involved with Recipe for Change, fewer than 60 have returned to prison. He has raised about $10 million to run the correctional program and received a $50,000 MacArthur Foundation grant to help build a professional kitchen at the jail.
“It restores what is broken inside you, gives you hope, gives you back your self-esteem,” Abate said of Recipe for Change, which has been featured on 60 Minutes. “If you have a recipe from your grandma, you can make it.”
When he met Pope Francis at The Vatican, he gave him artwork of the Virgin Mary created by a prisoner.
Abate meets Pope Francis at the Vatican.
“He was kind of in tears,” Abate recalled. “I said to the Pope, ‘Does God call everyone?’ He said ‘Yes, but not too many people answer the phone.’”
Unsung Gems Columnist David A. F. Sweet can be reached at dafsweet@aol.com. This story was first published in Lake Forest Love.
