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The motto of Chicago should be, “Too a lot to do, not sufficient time.”
That’s how I really feel each time I go to. Whether eating places, structure, museums or music, Chicago overflows with great choices, and that actually extends to nice locations to drink wine.
On a current journey that sadly coincided with a biting Arctic blast, I sought out heat refuges with very good meals and intriguing wine lists.
I used to be on the lookout for informal, snug locations that served full meals and provided lists with a transparent persona. I omitted the types of traditional, costly Michelin-starred eating places the place you’d anticipate finding in depth wine lists. These eight locations stood out as distinctive emblems of Chicago’s singular Midwestern character.
I might have included many extra, like Beautiful Rind, a stunning cheese and wine store the place you possibly can pay a small corkage price to open bottles with cheese and salumi; Easy Does It, a wonderful pure wine bar with a modest menu; Bronzeville Winery, a considerate wine bar that celebrates its South Side neighborhood; Daisies, an enchanting restaurant with a small choice of Midwestern wines embedded in its record; and different locations I liked, like Lula Cafe and Avec. Not sufficient time.
Here they’re, in no explicit order.
Dear Margaret
This French Canadian restaurant in Lakeview seems precisely as I image a French Canadian place: cozy and heat, knotty wood flooring, a bit spare. There’s no place I might fairly be on a freezing winter day, although I believe I’d really feel that manner any time of 12 months.
The meals is soulful, the wine record chosen with care and the hospitality gracious. My cold-weather menu included delicate, oceanic fried smelts; Canadian bacon with a refreshing corn relish and great, housemade bread; a crisp, completely seasoned pork schnitzel; and striped bass with brown butter topped with sunchoke chips. To finish, what else however Canada’s favourite dessert, an beautiful butter tart.
The wine record just isn’t exhaustive, nevertheless it’s onerous to go improper. Every bottle was one thing I needed to drink, whether or not a dry riesling from Forge within the Finger Lakes, a white mix from Luis Seabra within the Douro or a teroldego from Elisabetta Foradori in Trentino. Almost each bottle is underneath $100. I settled on a centered, light 2018 Savigny-les-Beaune aux Clous from Louis Chenu Père & Filles.
2965 North Lincoln Avenue, dearmargaretchi.com.
Cellar Door Provisions
This small, spare, amiable restaurant in Logan Square on the northwest aspect gives just some modest but superbly detailed dishes on its ever-changing menu and a concise, well-chosen record of pure wines nearly totally underneath $100.
You would possibly start with a 2021 Le Rose from Ca’ de Noci in Emilia-Romagna, a light-weight, recent glowing malvasia that’s so good you gained’t wish to cease consuming it. That went brilliantly with fried onions tempura-style with romesco sauce and an earthy pig’s head terrine.
We adopted that up with a 2021 riesling from Jean Ginglinger in Alsace, a stony, floral wine that was alive within the glass, very good with tacky gnocchi in a savory ham broth and nutty braised broccoli rabe.
Neither the menu nor the record is exhaustive, however with both, it was onerous to go improper.
3025 West Diversey Avenue, cellardoorprovisions.com.
Obélix
Monday brunch, as this wonderful French bistro in River North calls that day’s noon meal, comes with a bubbly profit: half-price bottles of Champagne. It has one other factor going for it, too. While Obélix seems like a contemporary spot for hushed enterprise conferences, located in a nondescript downtown constructing, it’s truly relaxed and unpretentious, the type of place enterprise folks go to flee uptight places of work.
The meals is traditional French with just a few artistic touches. A superbly composed pâté en croûte was made with wild boar and duck, whereas a beneficiant Lyonnaise salad was topped with a duck egg, crisp duck confit and duck fats croutons. This being brunch, Obélix provided deviations from the usual fare, like merguez served as a scorching canine and Korean-style fried rooster on a burger bun, with wonderful frites.
The wine record is nearly totally French and accommodates predictably costly Burgundies, Bordeaux and different trophies. But it additionally gives loads of bottles underneath $100, together with some gems, like a 2020 Brézème from Éric Texier, a wonderful syrah from the Côtes-du-Rhône, and a 2019 Domaine de Galouchey Vin de Jardin, a scrumptious pure Bordeaux. And if you happen to come noon Monday, Champagne is a deal with and an awesome worth.
700 North Sedgwick Street, obelixchicago.com.
The Village at Italian Villages
Even if you happen to’ve by no means been to the Village within the Loop, you almost certainly know the style. Sinatra ate there. So did Capone. At practically a century previous, lined with photographs of celebrities of the previous, it’s the honest incarnation of the type of place Carbone was meant to parody and increase.
The wine record, nevertheless, is gigantic and astounding. You is not going to discover innovative Italian wines right here, however you will note deep reserves of Italian classics right here, together with older vintages of Brunellos, Barolos and Super Tuscans, a label coined within the Eighties for prime Tuscan wines that didn’t conform to appellation guidelines.
The Village is pink wine territory, however you would possibly begin with a crisp glowing wine like a 2016 Ferrari Perlé Rosé Riserva, with its delicate however pure scent of berries. Where to go after that? I selected a stunning expressive Barolo, a 2012 Renato Ratti Conca, which I believed was worth at $130.
The unsurprising Italian American meals is a combined bag — terrific beef ravioli served underneath an ocean of meaty pink sauce, and candy, tender eggplant parmigiana. But veal marsala was bland and muddy. Stick with pink sauce and revel in exploring the record, with upward of 1,200 bottles.
71 West Monroe Street, thevillage-chicago.com.
Rose Mary
This sprawling restaurant within the West Loop manages to straddle the Adriatic Sea, mixing Italian and Croatian components in what the chef, Joe Flamm, calls “Adriatic consuming meals.” The wine record is wide-ranging, with concentrations from France, Germany and the United States, however essentially the most thrilling component is the small choice of Eastern European wines from Slovenia and Croatia.
These would possibly embrace a energetic glowing refosco rosé from Rodica, an natural vineyard in Slovenia, or a Vinas Mora Andreis, a recent, brilliant, pure Croatian pink made from the babic grape, which tastes like a mixture of pinot noir and gamay.
These wines go superbly with Adriatic dishes like burek, a flaky pastry stuffed with chard and cheeses, grilled clams in a surprisingly inexperienced natural sauce, mezzaluna pasta in a brilliant duck ragù and tender lamb saddle with roasted carrots, stuffed with garlic and herbs and served off the bone like a porterhouse.
Rose Mary is not at all a sedate date place. It’s energetic, perhaps even boisterous in the very best manner.
932 West Fulton Market, rosemarychicago.com.
El Che
Not removed from Rose Mary within the West Loop is El Che, an Argentine steak home with an excellent wine record made up totally of South American bottles.
Yes, you possibly can drink inexpensively right here, with many wines underneath $100 like, amongst whites, a liter of Pipeño Blanco from A Los Viñateros Bravos, a farmer’s mix from Itata in Chile, or an Argentine sémillon from Mendel in Mendoza. But this is a chance to attempt among the higher reds South America has to supply, like a 2020 Concreto malbec from Zuccardi, an excellent, minerally malbec, and even splurge on one thing particular, like a 2016 Zuccardi Finca Piedra Infinita for $360.
Reds like these are meant for beef. El Che’s are all cooked over wooden coals. Options embrace a dry-aged strip, which has all of the funk and tang you search for in dry-aging, or, if its out there, a picanha, a smaller reduce like a rump steak. The crisp beef-fat fries are to not be missed, whereas an endive salad is an archetypal steakhouse salve for the conscience.
845 West Washington Boulevard, elchechicago.com.
Webster’s Wine Bar
This sprawling neighborhood spot with a welcoming vibe is the granddaddy of Chicago wine bars, having opened in 1994 in Lincoln Park and nonetheless going sturdy in its second location in Logan Square.
The wine record, primarily European, is smart, seemingly tempered by years of expertise. It resists the temptation to supply a bunch of trophy labels both too younger or unaffordable to any however the rich. Instead, it’s impeccably chosen, with bottles chosen to drink now.
With oysters, I drank a wonderful biodynamically farmed 2020 Boissonneuse Chablis from Julien Brocard, combining the seashell character of Chablis with the richness of the 2020 classic. The meals extends past traditional wine bar fare to incorporate pasta, seafood and a steak frites.
2601 North Milwaukee Avenue, websterwinebar.com.
Giant
This small, informal restaurant in Logan Square, practices a thought of eclecticism in each its meals and its wine. The meals combos and juxtapositions are unconventional with an overriding aim of deliciousness. The similar is true with wine.
Consider dishes like candy, tangy Japanese eggplant, flavored with South Asian spices and served with pita, or okonomiyaki, eggy Japanese pancakes underneath a pile of greens, a riot of textures and flavors. Chiramonte, a tortelloni-like pasta, is served in a nutty lentil ragù with mint and brilliant Meyer lemon, a brilliantly balanced dish.
The worldly, superbly chosen wine record follows go well with, with loads of versatile, refreshing bottles, the overwhelming majority priced at underneath $100. I notably loved a recent, natural 2021 Sonoma trousseau gris from Jolie Laide, which got here alive within the glass, and a sleek crunchy 2022 gamay from Ochota Barrels within the Adelaide Hills of Australia.
3209 West Armitage Avenue, 773-252-0997, giantrestaurant.com.
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