One evening at Bascule Wine Bar, after happily working our way to the bottom of a dish piled with cheesy polenta and braised wild boar, my tablemates and I discovered a Twinkie-size cheesecloth-wrapped lump that had been camouflaged among the shredded meat. Though it appeared to be some variety of medical waste, we quickly realized it was the spice sachet employed in the braise. No big deal, we told our mortified server. That sort of gaffe can occur frequently enough in the young life of a new restaurant.
His menu features things you’ve likely seen dozens and dozens of times at new restaurants over the last few years. There are burgers and flatbreads, charcuterie and cured salmon, kale salad and bone marrow. But for a former corporate-steak-house chef, Burkauskas has a surprisingly subtle and inventive way of bringing these tired cliches to life. He’s curing ribbons of salmon in citrus hops and accenting them with umami-amping cubes of soy gelee that make the fish pop. He tosses Manila clams and chorizo with thin strands of seaweed that bathe in a thick, buttery brew—fun to spool on a fork like pasta once you’ve finish with the mollusks. (There’s seaweed in the Pernod-spiked mussels too.) The intense flavor of whole sardines drizzled with a sharp parsley vinaigrette is reined in by a bed of earthy black French lentils. Slabs of ruby-red tuna are crusted with coriander before searing and are plated around a chickpea-studded bouillabaisse vinaigrette that makes the fish seem like it swam from Morocco. These dishes are all so winning I’d like to see what would happen if Burkauskas devoted himself entirely to seafood.
Correction: This article has been amended to reflect that Bascule serves Hitachino Nest beer.
1421 W. Taylor 312-763-6912basculewinebar.com
