Faithful Chicago Foodies readers may know I'm drawn like a bee to honeysuckle to any place that serves unusual animal parts, and I've read much of the recent press around Bucktown's The Bristol around its menu offerings. I called today to make sure that I could get stuff there that was unavailable elsewhere.
Now, as for the place: near Damen and Webster, a stone's throw from the Kennedy Expressway, the Bristol, which does not take reservations, had us go upstairs to wait. The first thing I noticed was that there wasn't a packed crowd on the bottom floor waiting for a table. What they did was had us wait upstairs, in a spacious layout where we had lots of room to spread out while we ordered a wine and appetizers.
We had plenty of time to decide, as we did not get a server for roughly ten minutes, and when she came by she asked to hold our credit card, something I don't see often at a restaurant. For my wine I ordered a Provence rose, and I had an appetizer of head cheese with horseradish mustard and what looked like beans. My wife ordered duck fat fries (ode to Hot Doug's, perhaps?) with housemade ketchup and aioli. The duck fries were decent, though it is hard to mess up fries. I preferred the head cheese (do I hear Publican?), which I thought was delicious on its own. Not knowing how long it would be before I saw a server I asked for the check.
For our dinner (ode to Avec--pardon the capital "A"), we ordered a series of dishes worthy of sharing in tightly packed quarters. The English Pea Crostini (thanks also to Avec) with feta and lemon was good, but probably could have used more feta, and it wasn't as good as Avec's. The apple salad with manchengo was good, though I guess the expectation was set high for this dish, which was decent but not memorable. It was actually the bone marrow, served inside cross-sections of bone, out of whichyou had to scoop it, that excited me the most. The delicious fatty marrow was paired with shallot jam and parsely, and its distinctive taste was fun to indulge in. The flatbread on the menu also brings back flashbacks of Avec.
As it was summer, I paired it with a delightful Moschofilero, a Greek white wine=). Kudos, by the way, for their wine list specializing in unusual grape varietals, which again reminded me of Avec's wine list. The most memorable part, though was the homemade Nutter Butters that were much better than the real thing, served with a chocolate "saboyon", called a fondue but perhaps more like a pudding, complete with a sea salt touch. I wanted to stick my tounge in the glass to get every last morsel out. I paired it with an acceptable glass of tawny port.
Service overall was good in the surprisingly noisy and packed-yet-orderly downstaris, in contrast to the sparse-but-chaoitic upstairs waiting area. As we were watching the dishes being served the Bristol's $18 halibut seemed more appealing than the small $35 (but excellent) serving at Publican.
Critics, from Chicago Social to Phil Vettel's two stars, gushed about the place, but I guess as excited as I was to go here, didn't quite get all the hype once I arrived, and maybe that's because I didn't order the "monkey bread". This restaurant seems to borrow heavily from Avec, but nonetheless, the key word is value in these tough economic times, where there are far too many overpriced restaurants,in Chicago, and I expect to be back someday. Case in point: As we were watching the dishes being served the Bristol's $18 halibut seemed more appealing on a dollar-for-dollar basis than the small $35 (but excellent) serving at Publican. And if you live in Bucktown it certainly is a bonus.
The Bristol
2152 N. Damen
773-862-5555
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