Positano Ristorante
By Naperville Magazine
February 2026 View more Table for Two
By Phil Vettel
A tale of two restaurants
If you’re contemplating dining at Positano Ristorante (17W460 W. 22nd St. in Oakbrook Terrace and 120 E. Liberty Drive in Wheaton)—and in my opinion, you should—the first order of business is deciding which atmosphere you prefer.
Looking for a rustic, classic interior of dark wood, tan walls, and white tablecloths? Head for the original Positano, which opened five years ago in a strip mall in Oakbrook Terrace. Feeling more contemporary, as in high ceilings, glass-and-steel exterior walls, pinpoint lighting, and upholstered chairs, along with a sultry marble-look bar with white-leather seating? Then head to the Positano Ristorante that opened nine months ago in downtown Wheaton.
Either way, you’ll be eating straightforward, no-gimmick Italian, presented with professional, detail-oriented service.
“Good, solid, old-school Italian,” is how owner Bill Burris describes his restaurants. “We pride ourselves on incredible customer service. Because even if you have great food, if you don’t have the service to back it up, your time [as a restaurant] will be limited.”
Burris’s background is in the corporate world, not the food industry, and his connection to il bel paese is tangential, though meaningful. “I’m a Naperville guy, have been forever,” Burris says, “but I married a first-generation Italian [that is, a first-generation American of Italian heritage], whose parents are extremely particular about food. They’d rather cook themselves and eat in the basement. And one day, my father-in-law said, ‘You should open a place.’ ”
A pair of chefs—industry veterans, according to Burris—handle Positano’s kitchens, one per location. Burris’s culinary input is minimal. “I don’t cook,” he says. “I can’t boil water. It’s not my thing. But I know what’s good, and [the chefs] are very talented; they’ll take a dish and make it their own.”
The menu abounds with classic Italian dishes; nobody’s trying to reinvent the Parmigiano wheel here. (“There will be no surprises,” Burris likes to say.) And if you can’t find something appealing on this massive menu—there are more than 40 entrées alone—you simply aren’t trying.
One could argue that the menu is actually too large, a suggestion that Burris easily dismisses. “I like a menu with a lot of choices,” he says. “It works for us and gives customers lots of reasons to come back. I love it when customers say they see dishes here they don’t see anywhere else.”
Good starters include the salsiccia Italiano, a hearty sausage-and-peppers dish in a rich white-wine sauce, and very good grilled calamari, striped with balsamic vinegar and served over gently dressed greens. Thin-crust pizzas are a plus (these are soft, slightly puffy crusts, as opposed to cracker-thin), particularly the quattro stagione (four seasons) pie with prosciutto, olives, artichokes, and mushrooms.
Among the noteworthy entrées, I strongly endorse the rigatoni Baragiano, the al dente pasta fleshed out with pieces of veal and beef in a tomato-basil sauce, topped with fresh mozzarella. Roasted whitefish swims in a pool of caper-butter sauce, accompanied by a side of roasted spinach. Such classics as veal all limone benefit from the same lemon-caper sauce (choose linguine or spinach on the side), and pollo francese arrives as thin-pounded cutlets smothered in mushrooms, along with a mini-mountain of mashed potatoes.
Portions, I should point out, are substantial. “We do a lot of to-go boxes,” says Burris, with pride.
The menu includes a half-dozen steaks and chops, most with Italian accents (filetto marsala, filet vesuvio, pork chop romana), including a big-boy edition of that sausage-and-peppers appetizer, enhanced with brandy sauce and linguine.
If you have room for dessert (we didn’t, but duty calls), there’s a very good tiramisu and a delicious apple crostata with caramel sauce and vanilla ice cream.
The happy hour menu (it’s the “social hour” in Wheaton), available 4 to 6 p.m. Tuesday to Friday and all day Sunday (in the bar only), justifies an early arrival with discounted beers, cocktails, and wine (glasses and bottles), plus a short selection of bar bites.
One of those bites is the toasted Burrata, an item available only at happy/social hour. It’s a breaded-and-fried hunk of Burrata cheese (the size of a baby’s fist), served over a terrific marinara sauce. I’d go back just for that (well, that and the Positano Manhattan, a drink so good I didn’t mind that it wasn’t on the discount list).
Photos: Positano Ristorante; Phil Vettel (Oakbrook Terrace interior)
