Let’s say things start turning around for the better. Say the president takes a perp walk, and the oft-foretold Chicago restaurant bubble never pops. If things stay on that trajectory, soon you’ll be able to eat at a different Boka Restaurant Group restaurant every day of the month.
First, at the very top, there’s a wooden trencher set with burnished Hawaiian rolls, so light and risen they seem to sway, served with a little dish of soft, country-ham-infused cultured butter mixed with tiny, salty bits of fried ham and topped with soft pumpkin stewed in sweet saba, the grape syrup that’s a clever chef’s stand-in for good balsamic vinegar. Here’s a tip: These will come out from the kitchen before anything else you’ve ordered. The shine on them will put a twinkle in your date’s eye, and your first impulse will be devour them like a starved dog. But don’t lose your mind. Save some, because you’re going to need them to do a proper job on a later course. In the meantime, you might be intrigued by something called “grilled vegetable soup,” an update on classic Italian ribollita, a hearty bread-and-vegetable soup. Here it’s a clear amber-colored broth of charred vegetables and chickpeas bolstered by Parmesan rind and brimming with braised kale, turnips, carrots, rutabagas, flageolets, and grilled sourdough croutons. It’s a bowl that manages to be both light and powerful, the kind of thing that could wake you from a coma. It’s also the kind of thing Papadopoulos was doing to Czech food at his last position.
That’s not the only dish that outperforms a somewhat uninviting appearance. Compressed sections of Cornish hen thigh and breast flesh sandwiching ground forcemeat are perfectly roasty, with none of the hamminess that results from overbrining. These come with mushrooms, apples, and soft potato dumplings that again recall the chef’s winning way with eastern-European food. So too do soft and gently tensile veal sweetbreads carpeted with molasses streusel aligned with thin slices of Honeycrisp apple and served atop “fermented cabbage” (aka kraut) with a brown splat of maple butter on the side.
Cocktails by Lee Zaremba feature a scotch-and-pear soda, complete with a giant ice spear, that’s so subtle—and surprisingly not sweet—I’m sure I’ll be going out of my way for it in the near future. I wish I could forget a sweet, insipid pumpkin-seed milk punch, but also memorable was the To the Point: bourbon, Earl Grey, and chartreuse, the “Elixir of Long Life,” the last tipping this potion up to $18. The wine list is more reasonable, heavy on Alsatians and Italians, with a few priced below $50 and few priced above $80, like an easy-drinking 2013 André Brunel Côtes du Rhône.
564 W. Randolph 312-667-0104 bellemorechicago.com
