Plume in Rockford brings personal connection to northern Italian food and drink traditions
Rockford Restaurant Week Spotlight | Plume
Rockford Restaurant Week runs Jan. 23-Feb. 2, and we’re putting a spotlight on different locally owned establishments to celebrate the occasion. Today we feature Plume, 1132 Auburn St., Rockford.
By Helen Karakoudas
Special to the Rock River Current
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ROCKFORD — In seven and a half months, Plume has become a feather in the cap of Rockford’s dining scene.
Within days of opening in the old Der Rathskeller space in June, the husband–and–wife culinary duo of Chase Williams and Lia Pennacchi changed the way locals talk about 1132 Auburn St. Gone is nostalgia over German standards; in are raves over fresh pasta — handmade just as in northern Italy — and inventive, inclusive drinks.
He is the executive chef. She is the drink chef. Together, they celebrate food and drink traditions of north-central Italy’s Emilia-Romagna region, where her family comes from. “With all things that we do at Plume, from the food to the cocktails, there’s a personal connection,” Pennacchi said. “Plume” is English for her last name.
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Staff from other destination restaurants can regularly be spotted having a full meal at Plume’s bar. Business leaders blown away on their first visit come back with out-of-town colleagues they want to impress. The nearby municipal parking lot that for years was busy only on Saturday mornings for North End City Market often overflows the six nights a week Plume is open.
The dishes Williams and Pennacchi are featuring for Rockford Restaurant Week are all new to their menu, which isn’t what may come to mind when you think of Italian food.
“We wanted approachable flavors that still showcased our talents and what you get at Plume: Cooking things to order, fresh housemade pasta, smoking things in-house,” Pennacchi said.
A three-course dinner for $35 is Plume’s Restaurant Week special. “We wanted everyone to be able to come in and try us out,” Williams said.
The first course is smoked duck manicotti. House–smoked duck, braised leeks and Asiago cheese are rolled into housemade pasta and baked with béchamel and fontina cheese. The second course is tagliatelle Bolognese, a staple in Emilia-Romagna cuisine that Pennacchi says was the first dish she and Williams had when they first visited Italy together. Long ribbons of housemade tagliatelle are mixed with beef Bolognese and topped with Parmigiano Reggiano cheese.
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Dessert on Plume’s Restaurant Week special is Kaiserschmarren (KEYE-zher-shmahrn), a dish popular along Italy’s border with Austria. The name translates to “emperor’s mess.” It’s a pancake, baked and chopped, caramelized with butter and sugar, and topped with plum sauce, cream cheese and rum-soaked raisins.
“Mmmm, I have to get to the very last raisin,” sighed Jeanne Gropp-Wedig, as she cleared her plate. She and her husband, Frank, were among the guests at the first seating on the first night of Restaurant Week.
“Plume offers the best food I’ve had in my 35 years living in this area,” Gropp-Wedig said later in an email. By “this area,” she doesn’t mean Rockford. The Wedigs live in Woodstock— an hour away. They learned about Plume from a mention in The Buzz section of Midwest Living magazine’s fall issue. The couple’s Restaurant Week visit was their seventh in four months.
“It’s not just the food. It’s the atmosphere. There is a magical synergy that happens there,” said Gropp-Wedig, a retired flight attendant who worked on international routes and has dined around the world. “We’ve never eaten in a restaurant where patrons cheerfully ask one another for recommendations, where the staff is so responsive and energetic, and each detail fits together to form a seamless whole.”
The Wedigs already have reservations for Plume’s four-course Valentine’s Day dinner.
Plume also has beverage specials for Restaurant Week: Cherry Potter, a mocktail for $8, and Ca-Peach, a cocktail for $9.
For the mocktail, Pennacchi makes an elaborate series of infusions to create a nonalcoholic gin. For the cocktail, the silky froth of toasted milk syrup is a labor-intensive flourish. Her passion for labor-intensive drinks shows in the hot chocolate on the winter menu. Virgin or with bourbon, it’s a rich blend of Valrhona cocoa and Noel chocolate Pennacchi vigorously mixes to order.
A notable part of Plume’s beverage program is Pennacchi’s growing collection of amaro, an herbal Italian liqueur. She has nearly three dozen bottles and is starting to offer flights for after-dinner sipping.
“Amaro as a digestivo is a part of me culturally and using amaro as an ingredient in cocktails is a part of me as a bartender,” Pennacchi said. “There’s such complexity to it and it really fell in line with what we wanted the entire Plume experience to be: unique.”
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Gropp-Wedig talks about the contentment she and her husband feel on the drive back to McHenry County, knowing a place with the intensity, warmth and quality of Plume exists.
“I’d like Rockfordians to know Plume is a true gem, and they’re extraordinarily lucky that it’s there. As Woodstockians, we’re extraordinarily jealous.”
Fast facts | Plume
What’s the special? A three-course dinner menu comes with smoked duck manicotti, tagliatelle Bolognese, and Kaiserschmarren (a caramelized chopped pancake) for $35. A specialty cocktail (Ca-Peach) is $9. A specialty mocktail, Cherry Potter, is $8.
Restaurant week menu: See it HERE.
Location: 1132 Auburn St., Rockford
Hours: 4 to 9 p.m. Tuesday-Thursday; 4 to 10 p.m. Friday, Saturday; 3 to 8 p.m. Sunday; closed Monday.
Reservations: exploretock.com/plume-rockford
Opened: June 19, 2024
On the web: plumerockford.com
On Facebook: Plume Rockford
On Instagram: @plumerockford
E-gift cards: Get one HERE.
This article is by freelance journalist Helen Karakoudas. Email feedback to news@rockrivercurrent.com.
