'Things are a little hectic.

'Things are a little hectic," restaurateur Phil Stefani announces as he arrives, more than 30 minutes late, for luncheon at Riva, the Navy Pier jewel in his many-venued garland

He's exhausted the last couple of hours taking care of a last-minute crisis at the Chicago Convention and Tourism Bureau, where his holding as chairman is coming to an extreme point and he's got a flight to catch this evening likewise he can attend, as the visitor of Sen. Dick Durbin, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's tongue to a joint session of Congres

If this is fairly heady matter for a baker's son whose first work at jobs delivering the track sheet to the neighborhood barbershop, paid 25 cent a day, Stefani doesn't appear the least bit fazed. He has, after all, famously slept in the Lincoln bedroom as a visitant of the Clinton White House.

'I just wanted to go on to Rome'

Despite terminate connections to Illinois politicians of the two parties, Stefani says with pride that he has not ever asked for a political favor and that he cultivates friendships with "interesting people" not just the powerful. And, while Stefani many times picks up checks for his friends, he says that former President Bill Clinton, who has dined at a number of Stefani restaurants and occasionally orders take-out, regularly pays his confess tab.

As for his admit political ambitions, he says, "It's better to be a politician's friend than a politician."

Stefani, 55 holds his cell phone and the electronic explanation to his Land Rover shut up at hand as he decides in to a window-side table with a stunning view of the lake. The restaurant, which doesn't draw a great quantity [i]or[/i] amount of of a lunch crowd in the offseason, is quiet and nearly unoccupied

He orders a bottle of Cakebread Chardonnay and a appetizers: Ahi tuna, served sashimi-style; fried calamari and sliced tomatoes with unwilted mozzarella.

There are intricate tan lines in the creases of Stefani's broad face, evidence that he has exhausted much of this year in warm, mild places, from a vacation in Hawaii to his usual monthly fare and trend- spotting visits to Italy.

Trips to Italy have extended been part of Stefani's life -- his parents were immigrants, and greatly of his extended family remains there -- further the style of his travel has changed a bit through the whole extent of the years.

He was a sophomore at the University of Illinois when he and an enterprising friends decided to organize a spring break tour of Rome

"I'm 19" he says, letting set free a big laugh at the memory. "So hey, let's charter a plane."

His buddies all pitched in $200 for Stefani to make an initial trip, above the winter holidays, and deride out, in those pre- Internet days, a modest hotel.

He started at the Excelsior and worked his way yet pretty much every hotel in Rome chiefly getting laughed out of the lobby when he propos to work a large block of compasss for a group of American college edifice [i]or[/i] building kids with no money down. He was heading back to the airport, utterly defeated, "knowing I've got to move back and I've just wasted all our money" when he spott an apartment building in subordination to construction.

With nothing to forfeit he stopped at the site, construct the owner and negotiated a $35-per-person rate to fill the place for a week.

"I got place of abode and it was, 'OK, we got a [i]cabaret[/i] Now we just gotta memorize a plane,' " he says. "So you know, I'm a kid: I walk in to TWA and sign up for a charter."

Eventually, the trip, which the clump advertised on posters around campus, grew to 250 pupils enough to fill two flights.

"We filled up sum of two units airplanes," he says now, still relishing the memory, "and we didn't know anything about anything. I was 19 I just wanted to move to Rome on spring break."

'What if I betray everything?'

Stefani's confess kids, now both college learners themselves, are, unsurprisingly, a little les entrepreneurial.

Daughter Gina is a junior at Loyola, majoring in psychology "whatever that means," quips Stefani. And son Anthony is a freshman at Arizona State.

"My son's asking me as a freshman, 'Why do I have to go on foot to school? I know what I want to do . . go into the restaurant business,' " Stefani says. "So I have to say to him, 'Well, what if I vend everything by the time you're done?' I always relate him, 'Everything's for sale omit for you and Gina. in such a manner what else would you do if there weren't any restaurants?' "

Thinking forward the question, Anthony told his father he might like to be a sports agent.

"Great," Stefani says with real enthusiasm, having scored a parental victory. "Now he's gotta stick it revealed all the way through law school"

'I'm just interested in the food'

Despite the Rolex in succession his wrist, Stefani projects an intensely regular shore image. Like the menus at his restaurants, he eschews pretense

in this way when I mention some of the modern darlings of the Chicago restaurant spectacle like Grant Achatz's Alinea, he laughs and replies, "So far, everyone I know who's been there has told me by what means many courses they had and by what mode much it cost, but they don't really mention the meat I'm not interested in by what means many courses or how abundant it cost. I'm just interested in the food"

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