In the garden of eatin’

When Pompei opened a new location in Elmwood Park last September at 22 W. Conti Parkway, it was a perfect match. Pompei has been a Taylor Street mainstay for decades and Elmwood Park appreciates good Italian food. Ten months in, the fast casual restaurant is thriving.

Lucian DiPofi is the manager and grandson of the originator, Ralph Davino. For DiPofi, this was his first foray into being in charge of a location. 

“Learning curve for sure,” DiPofi said. “I’ve worked at the Taylor Street restaurant for years, but there things have been absolutely, absolutely steady for 26 years.”

His goal in Elmwood Park was to fine-tune the experience to fit the needs of local diners. 

“We don’t have the identical menus now. It’s a bigger dinner crowd out here, so we added lemon chicken, more salad. We sell a lot of eggplant,” he said. “Out here it’s like I’m ordering more than ever before. It’s one of our most beloved meals eggplant with pasta, in a strudel or on a sandwich. People who are eggplant lovers come in and they say it’s the best eggplant they’ve had.”

The extensive menu offers up 10 house-made pasta options, six with imported pasta, three kinds of ravioli, along with weekly and daily specials. There are 11 salads to choose from and four types of pizza crust with 11 topping combo options, as well as a build-your-own slice. Strudels are a Pompei specialty. For the uninitiated: these are savory delights such as the so-called Poor Boy filled with ham, salami capicola, tomatoes and cheese wrapped in dough and baked until crispy. There are 10 varieties on the menu with the addition of a rotating special flavor. 

This summer two dishes are here to savor the season. The first is a peach and burrata salad. Those are nestled on a bed of field green, sprinkled with pistachios and sunflower seeds. 

“Then a balsamic glaze over the top,” DiPofi said. “It’s a very bright, vibrant salad, fresh peaches mixed with the burrata and then the tanginess from the vinegar. It’s one of my favorite salads.”

The second is lobster ravioli, which will be the Saturday pasta special through the warm months. It’s topped with a tomato cream sauce and garnished with red peppers and seasoned breadcrumbs.

At lunch time, you can walk through the order line and have your meal within minutes. 

“My grandfather likes to say he was a pioneer of fast casual.” DiPofi said. 

Choose from the wide display of savory strudels, sandwiches, soups and pizza by the slice, then you pay and sit down. Your selection is warmed and brought to your table. 

“One of the biggest selling slices is a sun-dried ricotta slice,” he said. “It is a tomato pesto. We take dried tomatoes, blend them with olive oil, with basil, little parsley, bunch of garlic, and then a little bit of Parmesan cheese. It’s nut free. It’s on our thicker style crust. It’s like a double dough that we let rise a little more. And we put mozzarella cheese and then dollops of our seasoned ricotta.”

While the restaurant doesn’t have a full bar, they do have four beers to choose from: Peroni, Coors Light, Sam Adam’s seasonal beers and Cruz Blanca. Red wines (chianti, pinot noir, merlot), sparkling rosé, and whites (chardonnay, pinot grigio) are offered by the bottle or by the glass. And there is a long list of cocktails in cans, including THC- infused options. 

Don’t. Miss. Dessert.

“We hand make all of our desserts, from our biscotti to our lemonade crescent cookies, all the way through to our tiramisu, chocolate cake, brownies,” he said. “Our cheesecake, it’s one of my favorites. I’m not biased at all though.”

Catering is also part of the restaurant offerings.

“We offer great things like bite-sized strudels, pizzas. Our quality is great and our consistency is on point as well. Delivering for your catering needs is one of our special things,” he said.

Building out a new location is aways a leap of faith, but according to DiPofi the risk has been more than worth the reward. 

“Being invited into the community like this has been nothing short of amazing,” he said. “We love our customers so much. It’s like family. Come, sit down, enjoy.”