Sylvia Guido describes herself as a “restaurant nomad.” At 67, after nearly 50 years in the business, the owner of Bella Domani in Lincoln Square is operating her seventh food-related enterprise. She launched her first, a small grocery store in Cicero, at age 19. Both of her parents were Italian immigrants–her mother from Palermo and her father from Foggia, near “the heel of the boot.” Guido took what she’d learned in her family kitchen and began to supplement the packaged products she sold in her store with fresh food like pastas and sausages.
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In 1974, by then married to Simon Peacock and raising four children, Guido moved her household to the west coast to be closer to her husband’s family. She found a space for sale in downtown Los Angeles, and restaurant number one, the Friendly Cafe and Coachroom, was born. In 1978 the family moved back to Chicago, where Guido and Peacock opened Cardozo’s in the Loop. In 1979 they bought La Fontanella, at 24th and Oakley, from the original owners; they ran that until 1986, when they moved to Palos Park and opened Sylvia’s (which new owners have renamed Hobnobs). “I like opening new locations and creating new menus, as well as redoing and rebuilding a restaurant and making it successful,” says Guido. “After a while, I’ve sold the restaurant and moved on, but all of my restaurants remain in business.”
At Bella Domani, Guido offers a number of non-Sicilian options, including veal parmigiana, caprese, and calamari, which she says customers seem to expect. The rest of the menu, though, is made up of comfort food from her mother’s homeland, like the house specialty of arancini, a lightly breaded and fried rice ball stuffed with meat, peas, raisins, cheese, and tomato sauce and spiced with cloves. “It’s a dish commonly sold on the streets,” says Guido. Other Sicilian-style preparations include shrimp Leah–named after one of her daughters, it’s a light saute with plum tomatoes, peppers, and red onion, served with polenta–and a seasonal artichoke starter stuffed with bread, cheese, eggs, and spices. “I boil the stuffed artichoke in olive oil and garlic, producing a broth that can be drunk almost as a soup,” says Guido. It’s so popular that customers often call ahead to find out whether it’s on the menu.
