A filling experience

Rosebud Old World Italian

1370 Bank Drive, Schaumburg, (847) 240-1414, www.rosebudrestaurants.com

Cuisine: Italian-American

Setting: Gloss and red velvet in Greater Woodfield

Price range: Appetizers $3.95 to $15.95; entrees $12.95 to $35.95; desserts $8.95; wine $7 to $13 by the glass, $25 to $300 by the bottle

Hours: 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. Monday through Thursday; 11 a.m. to midnight Friday and Saturday; noon to 10 p.m. Sunday

Accepts: Major credit cards; reservations

Also: Full bar; free parking; no smoking; private party room

Everybody leaves with a doggie bag.

Alex Dana opened The Rosebud 30 years ago on Taylor Street in Chicago. At the time, it was a ravaged neighborhood, far from the vigorous Italian neighborhood it had once been and further yet from the vital dining district it is today.

Dana figured that abundant portions of classic Italian-American dishes such as pappardelle (called "square noodles" on the menu) and chicken Vesuvio would draw patrons -- and it did, through half a dozen other Rosebuds and a couple of other places built along similar lines.

The latest is Rosebud Old World Italian in Schaumburg, the chain's first location in the Northwest suburbs. (Besides the several Chicago sites, there are also Rosebuds in Naperville and Highland Park.)

If you've been to one of the other Rosebuds and formed an opinion, that should hold true for this venue as well. While the various locations differ somewhat from each other in design and menu, the basic formula remains the same: bustling, noisy restaurants serving up huge portions of Italian-American favorites. This one's billed as serving up "the most beloved dishes from all of Rosebud's locations in the heart of the Northwest suburbs," so if you like the Rosebud style, chances are you've tried something on the menu before.

But if you haven't had the pleasure, the new Rosebud at Higgins and Meacham roads offers all of the attractions and drawbacks of the rest.

For a raucous spaghetti joint in Greater Woodfield, Rosebud does give itself a few airs. When we walked in at around 9 p.m. on a weeknight, the hostess looked down her nose and inquired whether we had reservations. Since we could see plenty of empty tables, this was obviously her way of telling us she thought we ought to have made some.

The decor's received a little bit of a remake since the tenancy of the site's former occupant, Chicago Prime Steakhouse, but retains the formal look, with red velvet draperies (which do little to soften the din of loud conversation and ringing cell phones), dark woods, glossy accents and white-clothed tables. Waiters dress in traditional style with vests and ties.

They exhibit old-fashioned waiterly skills, too, particularly in the business of serving out shared portions, deftly handling serving fork and spoon to divide things up. Of course, they get plenty of practice.

Nothing on the menu suggests it, but sharing is definitely the way to go at Rosebud. Otherwise, you'll wind up like our party of two -- lugging out four bags of leftovers. It's not as if we went wild in ordering, either. We chose one appetizer, two salads, two entrees and two desserts. That turned out to be enough food to feed six people.

Fortunately, Rosebud servers will happily divvy up dishes among diners with no sharing charges. So come with someone with similar tastes and be prepared to split.

Once you're seated, your server oils up some small plates and piles them with grated cheese. Since this sat on the table for a while before the bread to use it on came out, we jokingly wondered if they were waiting to see whether we ordered more than one meatball. (In fact, you can't get only one meatball at Rosebud. The minimum order, a $5.95 side dish, is two.)

When it does come, though, the crusty, hot-from-the-oven loaf tempts you to eat it all. But don't fill up on bread or you'll take home even more food.

Appetizers run to classics such as shrimp cocktail, sausage and peppers and fried calamari. The baked clams, a half-dozen mollusks mounded with a tasty breadcrumb-vegetable stuffing, would be perfection if the clams themselves weren't quite so chewy and gritty.

Soups and salads fill out the first courses, including minestrone, pasta fagioli (pasta and beans), a Caprese salad of tomatoes and buffalo mozzarella, the Rosebud chopped salad, and the exemplary Rosebud fish salad, a delicious mixture of chilled, plump shrimp, tender sections of baby octopus, rings of squid and morsels of whelk tossed with pickled peppers, lemon and olive oil. A seafood lover could easily make a meal or two out of this salad alone.

The panzanella, however, is slightly disappointing. Traditionally, this Tuscan bread salad focuses on fresh tomatoes, whose juices soak into the bread to create a flavorful, summery melange. But tomatoes are scant in the Rosebud version, otherwise a nice-enough mixture of vegetables and tangy vinaigrette with a little ricotta salata cheese, so that it comes off more like a green salad with soggy, vinegar-sopped croutons.

Pastas, including spaghetti and meatballs, rigatoni alla vodka and fettuccini alfredo, come in massive servings. The signature "square noodles" fill a brimming bowl nearly a foot wide, napped with a light tomato-basil sauce and dolloped with creamy ricotta.

If you intend to dine Italian-style with a pasta course before your meat, you'll want to split these four ways. Even if you have them as your main course, you might want to share them, perhaps with a side of the hand-rolled meatballs, which come fist-sized, two to an order.

A quartet of pizzas; chicken, veal and eggplant parmesan; chicken veal and butterflied-shrimp Milanese; steaks and chops; and a list of "Rosebud Favorites" such as veal saltimbocca, shrimp de Jonghe and brick chicken comprise the rest of the bill of fare.

The chicken Vesuvio from that list epitomizes that Chicago classic: a big, meaty half chicken roasted and braised to moist and golden tenderness, fragrant with garlic and paired with similarly cooked potato wedges and covered with green peas.

Desserts, of course, figure massively, too. The profiterole cake is worth saving room for. Layered like geologic strata, this colossal wedge of confection starts with a base of chocolate cake stacked with custard-filled profiteroles, chocolate ganache, more cake, whipped cream and chocolate icing.

Rosebud offers no desserts sized just for one; even the cannoli come two to an order, flanked by billows of whipped cream. I don't recommend those -- bland, smooth filling and the use of green-dyed peanuts in lieu of pistachio nuts constitute considerable flaws. It would be nice if a lighter choice (sorbetto, perhaps) were offered.