the Restaurant
Merlo began with Silvia’s flash of inspiration. She realized that she wanted to bring authentic Bolognese cuisine to Chicago when she was visiting the city in 2001.
In January of 2002, the first restaurant opened in Lincoln Park and became the original studio for her myriad ideas.
A glowing review by Pat Bruno in the Chicago Sun Times led to two years of success for the former Lincoln Park location.
Merlo on Maple, in the Gold Coast, opened in February of 2004, and here we’ve been serving an average of twenty thousand patrons per year for the last decade.
