Since 1977, Cicero’s—a restaurant and pub—has been a staple of the Loop and a popular venue to Washington University students. Extravagantly decorated for Halloween this year, the busy restaurant was lightened up by its festive atmosphere. If you only need a quick bite to eat, however, you may want to avoid this locale, as I had to wait about 30 minutes for my table of two.

For those of you who can’t make decisions, beware—the menu is unusually long. The servers, however, were calm and polite and gave me more than a few minutes to decide among a wide variety of items, including burgers, salads, wraps or Italian specialties.

The pastas are separated into two categories—those with red sauces and those with cream sauces. I ordered a specialty dish called Shawn’s Favorite, consisting of a pan-seared chicken breast topped with mushrooms, broccoli, ham and cheese on a bed of spaghetti with a white-wine garlic butter sauce. I also ordered the chicken pesto, which included grilled chicken, artichokes, fettuccine noodles and fresh tomatoes in a basil pesto cream sauce with Parmesan cheese. Both pastas came in large portions (think Maggiano’s), and one dish can definitely be shared between two people.

Though Shawn’s Favorite didn’t taste bad, it certainly lacked spark. The large filet of baked chicken was dry and overcooked, adding to its lackluster flavor. The dish was not completely unsuccessful, however, as the mushrooms were well-seasoned and the ham was cut into thin slices and rather tasty. The best part of this dish was definitely the sauce, which gave the spaghetti noodles just a hint of pleasant garlic flavor. It was not creamy but still managed to soak into the spaghetti well.

The chicken pesto, sprinkled with flakes of Parmesan cheese and basil, was significantly better. It consisted of a rich blend of Alfredo and pesto sauce with fettuccine pasta. It’s biggest drawback was that the chicken was cut into small chunks, and the artichokes were very large in size, which made individual pieces a little difficult to eat in one bite. I expected there to be more of the pesto flavor and less of the cream base (since the dish was called “pesto,” after all), but the unique blend of sauce was mouthwatering and enjoyable. I highly recommend this dish—it was hard to stop eating it!

6691 Delmar Blvd.
St. Louis, MO 63130
(314) 862-0009