New downtown Mount Prospect restaurant aims to be ‘an experience’

A new restaurant slated to open this spring in downtown Mount Prospect’s 20West apartment building will offer diners “an experience” that can’t be found anywhere else in town, one of its owners says.

“This is not going to be like anything that currently is in Mount Prospect,” Nick Papanicholas Jr. said of The Prospect, which he owns with his sister, Gina Bertolini.

Located at 20 W. Northwest Hwy., The Prospect will offer a combination of casual and fine dining on two floors, with outdoor dining on the top floor.

Papanicholas and Bertolini also own Big Fish Icehouse in the Mount Prospect Ice Arena. The new restaurant will be operated by the Big Fish Hospitality Group, with Garrett Supples as general manager and Chef Mauro Berruti serving Italian fare with an Argentinian flourish.

“We’re trying to bring an elevated level of hospitality and really wow our guests,” said Supples, who has been managing restaurants for 20 years. “Everybody that comes in, we really want to get to know them. We’re really big on family, so we want to treat all of our guests like family.”

Berruti, who grew up in Argentina and now lives in Mount Prospect, said he will dip into his Argentinian roots by having a wood-burning grill and oven.

“Every house (in Argentina) has that,” he added.

The Prospect also will have an open kitchen and a chef counter with 10 seats.

“We’ll be doing all the butchering and dry aging all the steaks in house,” said Berruti, whose background includes stints with Gibson’s Italia, Bazaar Meat Chicago and Chicago Cut Steakhouse.