To summarize that era: It was a period of
transition when real traditional French cuisine became more popular in Chicago.
The highlight of that decade was the introduction by Jovan Trboyevic in 1967 of
a new contemporary approach in the use of fresh ingredients, vegetables and
fish, and lighter sauces. He was really the first restaurateur to launch “ La
cuisine du marché’’ here.
French Restaurants in
Chicago: A 75-year Retrospective. 1924-1999
Part 3. 1970-1979: The Fantastic Decade.
It was during that
period that most of the greatest French restaurants ever in Chicago were
launched. But only a few are still in operation in 2019.
Starting in the mid-seventies
new cooking concepts of ‘’Nouvelle Cuisine’’ became serious competitors to traditional
“classique” (ex-grande cuisine), “bourgeoise”, and bistro French cuisine in
Chicago
When we arrived from
Paris in January 1970, we had a few suitcases, a 6 month- old child, no jobs,
and only a temporary place to live in the house of my sister in law. And I did
not speak more than 10 sentences of English. But after a couple of months I was
lucky enough to find a good job in a large publishing and audio-visual production
company on Michigan Avenue, downtown Chicago.
So we moved to a
comfortable apartment in Evanston where we tried to organize our new American
life on the model of what our life was in Paris. This is when, as a Frenchman
married to an American woman who loved to eat and drink good stuff at home and
in restaurants as much as I did, my problems to secure the same good products
we were used to in France started. As far as food, wine, and small inexpensive
bistros are concerned, I quickly discovered that Chicago in 1970 was not as
resourceful as Paris.
Besides, with my working full-time and my wife
taking care of a very young child, and our entertainment budget being very
limited, we were not in a position to fully explore the restaurant scene in
Chicago.
I was also progressively discovering the
American way of eating lunch downtown, meaning lots of sandwiches, burgers,
fries, pizza, hot dogs and bratwursts, fried chicken, chili con carne… the
whole thing. And beer was the drink of choice for lunch. No wine.
Then, at that time, my
wife started to cook more often typical American recipes for dinner provided by
her mother, sisters, and friends. But after one year of this regimen I started
to cry for more interesting lunches and dinners. So, with a French-speaking
Swiss colleague of mine and later some other French-speaking friends and
colleagues we started to explore the world of small ethnic bistros, mainly
Greek, German, Italian, Yugoslav, Chinese and Thai.
First it was within
walking distance from Michigan and the river where my office was located. Then
when I learned from word of mouth or by reading the newspapers of new
interesting places I would venture to other neighborhoods by way of public transportation.
At that time, I did not realize that
several French bistros and restaurants existed in Chicago. There were very few
reviews in the local press that I read (mostly the Chicago Daily News) and most
of my American friends and acquaintances were more into steaks or ethnic food.
The few French friends I had lived in
Evanston and did not go to French restaurants in Chicago. Besides my wife
started to cook French dishes at home, especially when Julia Child’s became one of her favorite TV shows. So, I ignored the existence of most French
restaurants such as La Cheminée, L’Auberge, Le Bordeaux, L’Escargot, or Le
Bastille. Fancy places like Maxim’s
or Jovan that I did not know
anything about would have been out my reach anyway from a purely budget standpoint.
Everything changed when in early 1975 when
I was hired by the Midwest regional office of the French Trade Commission, a
branch of the French Embassy. Suddenly I was in a completely French
environment, surrounded by French colleagues and American business contacts who
liked to eat French food. So, I started to patronize French restaurants very
frequently, especially since we had to take visiting business
executives, or
were invited by them, to lunch or dinner quite often.
Also, in 1973 I discovered the
resourceful Chicago Guide Book edited by
Allen Kelson and its very good extensive listing of very diverse
restaurants in all kinds of neighborhoods. This guide that was first published in 1972, revised in 1973
then again in 1983, was going to greatly expand my gastronomic hunting grounds
over the next 10 years.
Last but not least, within the framework
of my new job I had the opportunity to establish good connections with a good number
of chefs, restaurateurs, and hotels managers during functions, receptions,
luncheon-seminars, or when I had to plan and organize parties or receptions
during trade shows for visiting French exhibitors and officials. I continued to
have this kind of contacts when I managed my own small consulting company between
1993 and 2008 that assisted French businesses and trade organizations.
During the whole decade of the 1970s I
often traveled back to France, about 4 times a year, either on frequent
business trips or for vacations, and it allowed me to dine in a very large
number of restaurants both in Paris and
in major French cities, and to observe the evolution of French cuisine from
traditional to ‘’Nouvelle’’. And it
was fascinating to be able to compare that movement over there with the slower
but quite evident same pattern of changes, starting in the mid-seventies, back
here on the Chicago dining scene.
“Nouvelle Cuisine” was an expression
defining a new culinary movement that was invented around 1973 by Henri Gault and
Christian Millau, two prominent food and restaurant writers and critics who
created the famous Gault et Millau
Restaurant Guide in 1975. But long before that time, in 1962, they were already
the co-authors of the Guide Julliard De
Paris, who helped me a lot to get familiarized with the food shops and
restaurants of the French capital when I moved there from Provence n 1963.
It is difficult to decide who really
started that new cooking approach in restaurants called gastronomiques.
Many professional critics and chefs would say
that its real precursor was Fernand
Point at his La Pyramide restaurant
in Vienne.
But some of the well-recognized early representatives
of this movement were Paul Bocuse in
Collonges au Mont d’Or near Lyon, Les Frères Troisgros in Roanne, Alain
Senderens in Paris, Alain Chapel in Mionnay, Roger Vergé in Mougins, and Michel
Guérard in Eugénie Les Bains.
The
bases of this mini-revolution were:
No more sauces, meats, old-fashioned
dishes, cooked for hours and reheated before serving.
Priority to seasonal and if possible
regional vegetables, fruits, herbs, fish, poultry and meat chosen by the chef
himself.
All dishes should be minimally cooked.
No more use of flour as binder in sauces
that should be light and based on broth, natural jus, and spices.
Smaller portions.
Artistic presentation on the plate. Fewer garnishes.
Cooking techniques more often involve
steaming (sometimes in ‘’papillote’’), light poaching, double-boiling,
grilling, short roasting, than stewing or slow braising. Generally speaking
cooking times are greatly reduced.
Different cooking utensils are commonly
used such as steamers, non-stick pans and pots, plastic poaches, freezers,
mixers and robots, micro-wave and later vacuum cookers and ovens.
It took a few years, towards the end of
the 70’s, for these new trends to become more popular in Chicago restaurants
kitchens.
Nowadays,
many American chefs who have been trained either in France, or by French chefs
here in Chicago are commonly using techniques often indirectly inherited from the
Nouvelle Cuisine.
Chronology
of some of the most noticeable French restaurants of the 70s in Chicago
For this period, contrary to what I did
in the precedent chapter, I will consider as French any restaurant serving real
French food and preferably employing some French people in the kitchen and (or)
the dining-room. But these restaurants were not necessarily owned by a French
person.
Such places will be mentioned in Notes and the
name of the restaurant will be in italics and underlined.
1970:
THE
NINETY- FIFTH
The 95th owed its name to the
fact that it was located on the 95th
floor of the John Hancock center, a skyscraper that had just been completed
in early 1970 at 975 N. Michigan Avenue.
But to access the restaurant you had to take a
superfast (a 39 second ride) dedicated elevator that was located at a special
entrance of the building on Chestnut. On sunny days, the view from tables
located near the windows was spectacular.
I remember that once I had lunch at one of these tables on a very snowy
day and all you can see down below was a sea of clouds. But the vast and beautifully appointed dining
room was bathed in sunlight.
Curiously the first French restaurant to
be opened at the beginning of this new decade during the summer of 1970 was not
owned by French people but by the Philadelphia-based company Davre, the restaurant subsidiary of the
Automatic Retail Association
The first 3 years this restaurant was un-mistakenly
French with a very good rather classic French menu, a kitchen where the head
chef, and most sous-chefs were French, and the management and service in the
dining-room were French. The number of staff members was over 100. It was a
really big operation.
The first
chef, Michel Grobon, who was young and gifted, was trained in such famous
Paris restaurants as La Tour d’Argent,
Lasserre, and Maxim’s, and had already worked at Chicago’s Maxim’s.
In the
early 1970s you could have a complete à la carte dinner for $ 15 to $18 per
person without wine and tip. For that time, it was quite expensive. But the quality of
food and service was generally very good.
Grobon was replaced in 71 by equally
talented Pierre Orsi who stayed
there until 1974 when he went back
to Lyon, France to take over the
kitchen at his family`s eponymous restaurant.
He was replaced by a tall Belgian chef, Willy Maes, who was coming from the
Hotel Bonaventure in Montreal.
Also, at that time the banquet manager
was Louis Retailleau who eventually
would have his own successful French restaurant, “Louis Bon Appétit”, in Crown Point Indiana between 1976 and 2003.
The first General Manager was Louis
Laulhère assisted by Room Manager Pierre
Schmied, a French-speaking affable Swiss who was already well known in
Chicago, and some of the Maître D’s such as Jean-Claude Berger (Les
Champs-Elysées, La Grenouille) were also veterans of the Chicago restaurant
scene.
I will keep fond
memories of their very tasty’’duck terrines’’ and ‘’ saumon à l’oseille’’.
I also loved their fruit ‘’tartes’’.
There wine list was very extensive and
included some quite good Bourgogne.
A funny little known fact: The wine cellar was kept at ground level so
that wines would not be affected by the wind-caused swaying movements that you
could actually feel sometimes in this higher part of the building.
Unfortunately, the quality of the food
and the service decreased considerably in the late 70s. At that time, I would
not consider the 95th as a French restaurant anymore.
LA CHAMPAGNE
Opened in October at 3172 N. Sheridan in what was at the
time called the Belmont Hotel, this
relatively large and well-appointed restaurant was launched by Georges “Kiki” Cuisance from Le Bordeaux
and 3 other partners including the chef Michel Laurent.
Once again it was a perfect mix of
traditional French fare such as brains in black butter, veal kidneys, rack of
lamb with tomates provençales and pommes dauphine, or coq au vin, and dishes
made to please a more American client base. I am thinking about trout in a
champagne and cream sauce, minestrone, cheese cake or the fact that a salad
with Roquefort dressing would be served before the main course. And most
entrees came with soup and salad.
Both décor and service were more comfortable
and elaborate than at Le Bordeaux, but the prices remained modest. You could
have a complete lunch including a small carafe of house wine for $ 8.50 or $
9.00. Unfortunately, La Champagne never found a solid base of regular customers
to sustain financial stability and closed after one year.
LE BISTRO
In November, 7 years after she opened
Maxim’s Nancy Goldberg decided to launch
this much more modest French restaurant in the space formerly occupied by Gus, an Italian restaurant at 420 N. Dearborn. Managed by André Portal, a French alumnus from
Maxim`s, it was a typical French bistro, at the same time spacious and intimate,
relaxed but sophisticated, traditional and very contemporary in its décor and
very eclectic furniture. The fare was typical for this kind of eatery: Quiche
Loraine, Cassoulet, Rognons (kidneys), filet of sole, Coq au vin, Daube (Provencal
beef stew), Steak au poivre, and crème caramel. You could also enjoy freshly opened oysters
and have a sandwich in the bar. A dinner would cost you about 10 dollars including
a glass of wine.
I do not know when this restaurant
closed and who was its chef, but I believe he was French.
LE
BASTILLE
Also opened in November at 21 W. Superior.
This was a delightful bistro that at the beginning
was partially owned by Raymond Soubrier who had been very successful at La Chaumière until it closed, and René Martin, who had been involved in
various French restaurants in Chicago. This charming restaurant was comprised
of 2 separate,, attractive in their simple and almost rustic elegance, dining
rooms, the first one with a very welcoming bar. The Prix-fixe dinners at under
10 dollars were quite popular in 1972. The place became even more popular and attractive
when George Badonsky (Tango, The Brewery, George) bought it
in the mid-seventies. It was always packed with regulars, including many French
locals, as well as out- of- town visitors.
On Bastille Day Badonsky would organize
very lively parties on a lot in front of the restaurant that lasted until the
closing of the restaurant in the mid-eighties. I will never forget the
fantastic French fries served in paper cones, and the simple but well-sauced
standard bistro dishes such as duck terrine, steak au poivre, rabbit stew, frog
legs Provençale, or coq au vin. The Beaujolais and young Bourgogne were always
coming from good producers and decently priced. I remember that around 1976 we
were able to have great lunches with some house wine for $ 15.00 or $16.00
Service by either young and enthusiasts
American, or older professional French waiters, was almost always very
pleasant, especially when they knew you. I remember that François would bring me my Morgon at the right temperature,
slightly chilled, without my even having to ask. But many occasional patrons complained of slow
and indifferent service.
The problem with that restaurant was
that it was plagued by a major flaw: Inconsistency. One day the meal could be
spectacular. One month later, perhaps because of a change in the cooking line
in the kitchen, the whole experience could be borderline disastrous. It
happened to me a couple of times in the late seventies or early eighties.
But nevertheless, I will never forget
how, most of the time, after eating at Le Bastille I would leave the place in a
very optimist mood after a good lunch or dinner.
Also in November, THE FLYING FRENCHMAN at 25
East Chestnut, which since its
opening in 1969 by Bill Contos, had
been better-known for its crepes, quiches, and sandwiches, became a
full-fledge, and quite good, French restaurant.
Under the astute management of Jean-Paul
Weber, in 1970 , a young and
talented French chef named Jean Banchet
took over the kitchen , for a few months and contributed to create this new positive
image..
I also want to say that the FRENCH INN in the Country Club Hotel on
South Shore Drive (and 70th St.) was for a while a popular
French restaurant that was employing several French nationals both in the
kitchen and the dining room.
1971
Le
PAPILLON
Opened at 5978 N. Lincoln Avenue by a French couple, Raymond Maistri, a chef from
Nice, and his wife Régine, this small unpretentious bistro was nevertheless
the first authentic French restaurant to take the risk of offering real French
dishes in a simple décor so far north from the Loop and the Gold Coast. In
those days the area around Lincoln and Peterson was a culinary desert, but their
gamble worked and the place became rapidly well-known for its omelets atl lunch, and for its relatively sophisticated
dishes on the dinner menu, such as Veal Cordon Bleu or Veal Provençale, filets
of Sole Mornay, great soups and fresh vegetables. A rich dark chocolate mousse became also very
popular.
Régine
Maistri had
also a serious fan club for her cheese cake.
It was also nice to be able to order
very decent French wines in small carafes.
In 1972 you could have a complete dinner
there for less than 10 dollars.
The Maistri sold the place to another
French couple in 1978, but its business slowly declined and the place closed in the late seventies.
I do not think that I could name another
French establishment opened that same year. But I would like to mention Le Gourmet a French carry-out and
catering operation started in the early part of summer that year in Glencoe by Jacques Grelley and Edmond Peyre that was designed to provide good
take-out dinners to Ravinia concert
goers. They already had a gourmet shop
with the same name at 659 N. State Street.
1972
LA
CREPERIE
Crepes in France are often associated
with the region of Brittany. No wonder then that a young man from that area, a
“Breton”, named Germain Roignant,
along with his Joliet-born wife Sara
whom she met in Germany where he was waiting on tables, opened that intimate storefront
bistro at 2845 N. Clark on June first.
The big specialty of course were crepes, thin and very well made both in
traditional sweet wheat version with fruit, or preserves, chocolate, or
flavored with Grand Marnier, and topped with whipped cream. But many people at night came to eat savory buckwheat crepes with fillings of ham, cheese, spinach, and seafood
or chicken. The place which was very cozy and rustic, with a few antiques and
posters on the wall became rapidly popular and attracted a crowd of young
people who enjoyed the romantic feeling on dates, and regular patrons who loved
the very attractive prices. In the early seventies you could have a complete
dinner there for 8 dollars, or eat a couple of delicious crepes for 2 dollars. Years later the place offered more complex
traditional Bistro dishes such as Coq au Vin, or Boeuf Bourguignon, but remained
BYOB. Nowadays this bistro has expanded
a bit, but is still very popular at the same address. It serves a full bistro
menu with very moderate prices and has a nice wine list with inexpensive
well-chosen French wines.
LE TITI
DE PARIS
In June, Christian Zeiger, a former Maitre D’ at Chez Paul, and his wife Agnès opened this small but really
charming and nicely decorated restaurant at the improbable address of 2275 Rand Road in Palatine.
Many in the trade had doubts about its
success. They were wrong. Zeiger was a great professional and a very friendly
host and manager. This place became one of the most durable and successful
French restaurants in the whole Chicago area. His first chef, Jean-Pierre Pellet was very good but
his cooking was quite traditional. With the arrival in 1974 of Pierre Pollin, a very gifted and
creative chef native of Normandy, who had a fantastic “tour de main” with sole
and other types of seafood including scallops and lobster, the restaurant that
was open for lunch and dinner, acquired rapidly a national reputation.
Pollin who did stints in some
of the best kitchens of Europe, including Lucas-Carton
in Paris, had a very classical training and a great respect for the quality and
integrity of good products.
He also used cream,
mushrooms and Calvados in a very inspired and delicate way. And he had a knack
to create inventive and delicately spiced sauces and to use lesser known small
vegetables as garnishes. In fact, he trained himself many young apprentices who
in 2011 were well-recognized on the Chicago Restaurant scene, such as Bill KiM.
Dominique Lejeai, who eventually launched D&J Bistro and Retro Bistro was a waiter and a Maitre D’ there for a while in the
mid-seventies. If I remember correctly he was wearing a very colorful plaid
vest over his white shirt.
In 1978 Pierre Pollin and his wife bought Le Titi from Christian Zeiger,
and in 1987 purchased, and moved to, a larger and fancier place in Arlington Heights with the help then of
another French chef, Jean-Marc
Loustaunau, where it was still successful in 2011 under Michael Maddox, his chef de cuisine for
many years, who bought the restaurant in 2004 upon Pollin’s retirement.
I have very good
memories of lunches in Palatine, and later on even better ones from dinners in
Arlington Heights, especially of marvelous duck and lamb dishes.
It is interesting to note that a couple
of months before Zeiger opened the first Titi on Rand Road in Palatine, Pierre
Dousson, who used to be the chef and co-owner of The Champs-Elysées, also opened
LE GOURMET on Rand
Road in Arlington Heights. I have no information about what happened with
this restaurant. But I think it had no connections with the Gourmet carry-out
operation in Glencoe mentioned above.
LA GARE
SAINT LAZARE
it was initially opened at 858 W. Armitage by David Gevercer and in those days, that section of Armitage, West of
Halsted, was not the fancy shopping hotspot it became in the late 80s. In fact,
it was a relatively poorly maintained, under developed and certainly not
gentrified, neighborhood. Very few restaurants dared to open in this
gastronomic desert at that time.
Many Chicagoans, like me, are still
having moments of warm nostalgia when they remember that rustic and slightly
“bohemian” bistro, especially after it was acquired by the very competent and
pleasant chef Francis Leroux in early 1975
.I was seduced by the simplicity and
refreshing lack of pretension of some of the French comfort food served there at very reasonable prices, such as
very flavorful pâtés, great fluffy omelets, poulet aux fines herbes, rabbit, or
boudin au pommes.
Leroux could also be quite creative with
fresh fish preparations that were often the ‘’Plat du Jour’’. The ambiance was
very relaxed with candles and fireplace; the French wines were simple and
cheap.
And you could finish your meal with very
good crepes.
Unfortunately, the restaurant was
destroyed by fire in November of 1987.
Leroux did not try to rebuild it and instead opened CAFÉ DU MIDI on Damen in 1989. (See later).
In October 1980 he would also open a
slightly funky bistro called CHEZ CHOSE
on Diversey Pkwy, Both restaurants no longer exist..
LE
PERROQUET
So many articles have been published
about this quasi-mythical restaurant and his no less iconic owner-manager, Jovan Trboyevic, since it opened its doors
in November of 1972 at 70 East Walton
St. that what I am about to write on this place and its creator and soul
will probably sound redundant.
To learn a little more about his life,
go back to what I wrote about him in my piece on JOVAN in the precedent chapter on the sixties on that same blog.
No other French restaurant in the U.S.
has ever left such an unforgettable imprint in my memory. And when Jovan passed
away in January 2010, here is what I wrote about him on the LTH forum:
“I'm sad that we have lost such a great
man and at the same time a bit disappointed that so many stories written in
both the press and on the web have been focusing too much on his rare
expressions of reject towards some customers who had not the faintest clue
about what the standards of this very stylish, and perfectionist, restaurateur
were all about.
He was neither arrogant, snobbish, or
haughty, but simply in a permanent search of precision, innovation, and
perfection. To summarize, he hated anything mediocre, vulgar, or phony, both in
his personal and professional life.
In fact, I would say that Jovan was the first restaurateur to
bring and even improve the ways of cooking and presenting food of La Nouvelle Cuisine in France to
Chicago. In some ways he played as important a role in renovating French
cuisine in the Midwest as Henri Soulé
did in New York in the late 1940s. James
Villas mentioned that comparison in a very vibrant tribute to Jovan in his
book Villas At Table.
It is true that Jovan was very attached
to certain European traditions, both having an important impact on the behavior
of people working in the kitchen and in the dining room, as well as of the
customers. He was very demanding as far as respecting them was concerned. After
all, even though he loved this country, he remained all his life a European
himself, who had an incredibly rich portfolio of personal contacts with so many
important and "real" celebrities of the high society in most European
capitals. He also had been trained in one
the best Cooking and Hotel Management schools of Europe in Lausanne,
Switzerland, and worked in some very classy establishments.
No wonder that the idea of running a
mediocre place for the average Joe, just to make a few bucks, was not exactly
his American dream.
And it is true that, for the same reason
that he was always very demanding of himself, he was expecting a lot from his
staff, to the point of being sometimes considered by them as being a tough
boss. But he was in fact at the same time a very tolerant and generous human
being. And many cooks, some of them quite famous in this town, and waiters who
worked in one of his restaurants could testify that they learned a lot from him
at Le Perroquet.
I remember the pleasure I had, in the mid-seventies,
when I was sitting at a table on the South side of the room at Le Perroquet,
and therefore facing the entrance of the restaurant where he stood and managed
everything from there, to observe his very minimal facial expressions and
gestures to direct a busboy, waiter, or Jean-Pierre
Nespoux the Maitre D’ and his brother
Gérard a very competent sommelier, to a table where he had noticed that a
customer looked either perplexed, or missing something. He reminded me of Pierre Boulez directing a French orchestral
piece.
And his most gracious way to welcome you
was unique.
What a marvelous memory I will keep of
that extraordinary man who led an extraordinary life.”
Everybody will remember forever the
rituals observed in this temple of gastronomy and elegance: The slow ascension
to the 2nd floor restaurant via a tiny elevator, after being checked in the
lobby by some man, who could have been an off-duty policeman. The bottle of
mineral water from Mountain Valley that was on every table and was poured in
your glass as soon as you were seated.
I felt very at ease in the incredibly
peaceful environment of the dining room, and the restrained elegance of the
settings and décor created by Jovan’s wife, Maggie Abbott. It
included of course many parrot-themed pictures, murals, vases, lamps and other
artifacts
They contributed to make you feel every
time as if you were a special guest invited to participate to a world of
distinction and pleasure. Everything was at the right place on the table, and
the routine of the presentation of the dishes, as well as the pouring of wine
was perfectly orchestrated.
Between my first meal there in 1975 and my
last lunch in May of 1984 when Jovan
sold the place to Jean-Pierre Nespoux,
I never noticed a single service error. In 1974 you could have a complete prix
fixe dinner there for $ 17.50 which could include one of their famous mousses,
especially the salmon one, Poulet au Vinaigre or rack of lamb, and of course
the marvelous soufflé au chocolat or au Grand Marnier. I have marvelous
memories of great terrines of duck with pistachios, the canneton in a sauce poivre,
the unique grilled Blue fish that I have never seen before in any other
restaurant outside of Boston, the Quenelles de Brochet Nantua. Once I was
served the very tasty Truffe en Feuilleté that I am not ready to forget. And of
course, all vegetables were treated with lots of respect. The sauces were very
light and delicate, but their aromatic personality was powerful.
In fact, it is at Le Perroquet that
Chicagoans experienced in the early seventies the best new approaches that the
French Nouvelle Cuisine had to offer: lighter sauces, vegetables freshly picked
at the market cooked just enough, first quality seasonal fish and meats that
were not overcooked or killed by an excessive amount of starchy sauces, clean
and pretty presentation on the plate.
Jovan
Trboyevic loved to remind his good customers of his commitment to the principle
that “less is more”.
But sometimes we could not resist having
more and more of the good stuff at this place.
I had an incredible experience there
once when we went there for a long and beautiful lunch with some French
visitors, and they enjoyed the experience so much, with the help of a few
bottles of Pape Clément, an excellent
Graves, that they decided that we should stay for an early dinner. And that is
exactly what we did.
When Jovan Trboyevic was still the owner
the Perroquet, a very large number of cooks and chefs worked in its kitchen either
officiating at the piano or working at the prep counters. Among them Gabino Sotelino who was the executive
chef there for 3 and ½ years, Michael
Foley, Michel Beck, Alain Sailhac, Pierre Poubelle, Carrie Nahabedian, Elaine
Sikorski, Hans RockenWagner, Mary Sue Milliken, Frank Lee, and many others.
The restaurant closed its doors in January 1991, 6 years after Jovan sold it to the
Nespoux.
It was reopened in 1992 by Michael Foley, who had been very successful for
many years at Printers Row and had
worked previously at the Perroquet. The menu was still attractive and less
expensive and a good chef, Didier Durand
(formerly chef at La Bohème), was in charge of the kitchen. I had some very
good meals there during that period, and the place was still quite elegant and
refined.
But the spirit had sort of been
different since Jovan had left, and the old customers had found new avenues
serving more adventurous styles of fine cuisine in Chicago. Le Perroquet closed its doors forever in 1994.
1973
LA
FONTAINE
This elegant but unpretentious
multi-room restaurant was opened in January in a very nice looking 3 story brownstone
building at 2442 N. Clark St. by a
very dynamic trio of French men. The
leader of the group was Jean-Claude
Poilevey, who was one of the 6 French “cuisiniers” recruited in France to
work in the kitchen of the Playboy Club
in Lake Geneva. He had a solid experience of traditional French “Lyonnais”
cooking style and had been an apprentice at the legendary Greuze restaurant in
Tournus. His 2 partners were the chef, Daniel
Gautier, and Eric Krohmer. I
will never forget Eric and his impressive mustache who always greeted you with
a sort of mischievous smile. But it was
obviously Jean-Claude Poilevey who was in charge of operations.
In the very beginning the restaurant was
only opened for dinner. But starting in 1975 I remember many delicious business
lunches that we had there, at our favorite table near a window on the lower
floor. I have great memories of their savory mousses, rack of lamb, salmon in
champagne cream sauce with mushrooms, delicious steak with a great shallot
reduced sauce, sauté de veau à la Normande, and an extra light trout soufflé.
I remembered that the presentation of
the main dishes was also quite sophisticated, like a very fragrant kind of
Boeuf Bourguignon that was served in a copper sauce pot.
I do not have any memory of what the
desserts tasted like but I remember that once one my regular dining partners
raved about a very good strawberry cake.
The wine list was rich in good Burgundies
and Beaujolais, where Jean-Claude knew many producers personally.
The prices were not cheap but
considering the quality of both the cooking and the service, they were totally
justified. For a long time they also had very attractive prix-fixe menus for
around 13 dollars...
It was certainly one of the best French
restaurants of that decade.
Everybody loved the elegant but somewhat
fancy-rustic décor, with its brick walls and fireplaces and its tiny fountain,
which reminded me of a chic modern provincial French restaurant.
Jean-Claude, who was an active member of
the new Vatel Club of the Midwest,
an association of French chefs, since it was launched in 1986, bought the
shares of his 2 partners in 88 and went solo, as chef-owner from 1989 to 1993
with JEAN-CLAUDE after extensive renovations
at the same location. At one point he also tried in the same building a simpler
bistro formula that was called CAFÉ DU
PARC.
LA
FONTAINE was sold in 1993 and a little bit later Poilevey opened a very good bistro, LE BOUCHON on Damen. A few years later he opened another one, LA SARDINE, on Carpenter St.
Both are still very successful nowadays.
We will talk about them in the 90`s chapter. Sadly, Jean-Claude Poilevey died in s stupid car accident in 2016.
LE
FRANCAIS
When Jean Banchet and Henri Coudrier, two authentic French chefs with
already solid professional references in their resume, along with their
respective wives Doris and Danielle,
opened this marvelous place in March in an old German tavern at 269 South Milwaukee avenue in Wheeling,
a few miles North of O’Hare airport, they probably had no idea that this place
would rapidly become a Mecca for gastronomes from all over the United States.
Nobody could have guessed that so many diners would drive so far away from the city
to eat. It was very unusual in the early
seventies to open such an opulent gastronomic restaurant in a distant and not
really fancy suburb. In fact, 3 years later, rich Texans would fly there for
dinner, landing their private jets at the nearby Palwaukee airport. Probably no
French haute cuisine restaurant in the U.S, outside of New York City, since the
days of Le Pavillon, La Côte Basque,
Lutèce or La Grenouille, had reached such a national and even, later on, international
notoriety so rapidly. Except of course Le Perroquet mentioned earlier, but at a
very different level.
At his zenith, in the early 80’s Le Français
would be named ‘’Best restaurant in
America’’ by Bon Appétit, and get 5
stars from the Mobil Guide.
Henri
Coudrier who was a chef at Chez Paul in Chicago before joining Banchet
unfortunately was forced to give up his partnership there after a few months
due to illness.
Jean Banchet was not exactly a newcomer
tom Chicago. In 1968 Arnie Morton
had recruited him, along with some other chefs and cooks from France, to work
in the kitchen of the Playboy Club in
Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. He would work there for 16 months and become the
executive chef. But he decided that this kind of mass-production type of
cooking was not what he liked to do and was too far away from the traditional
French haute cuisine that he had been trained to do. So he moved to Chicago and
for a while worked in restaurants such as the Gaslight Club, Les Champs-Elysées, and the Flying Frenchman. Later
he opened Le Français, perhaps according to a French newspaper article with
some financial help from his friend Pierre
Orsi, an also well-known French chef from Lyon who had worked in Chicago
for a while.
Born in 1941 in Roanne, a city proud of being home to Troisgros, one of the most
famous restaurants in Europe for many years, Banchet started its apprenticeship
at age 13, not with the famous brothers that he knew personally but they did not have a job for him at the time, but at
the more modest Terminus.
I believe that he also had a brief stint
at Troisgros. Then in 1955 he got the chance of his life: to continue his
training at the famous La Pyramide,
the restaurant of the legendary Fernand
Point who had just died. His stint there marked his destiny as a great
chef. He also developed a strong friendship with Paul Bocuse, another great chef from the Lyon area, who played a
major role in the evolution of the new French cuisine, and with whom he learned
a few techniques.
Bocuse never failed, when he
came to the U.S to spend some time with Jean Banchet and dine at Le Français that he listed as one of the 3 best restaurants
in the U.S. the 2 others being Le
Perroquet where Bocuse would also have meals while here, and Lutèce in New York.
In fact
when Banchet celebrated his 50th birthday in 1991 in Chicago, Paul
Bocuse, Pierre Orsi, and André Soltner came along for a series of glorious
breakfast, lunch, and dinner, prepared by Roland Liccioni and Fernand Gutierez (Ritz Carlton).
He then worked at the Eden Roc and at the Hotel De Paris in Monte
Carlo, and later he was lucky to do his military service in Algeria for 28
months, not fighting, but cooking for a general. Next stage was opening a new
restaurant in a big casino in London, The Sporting Club. He met his German wife Doris in London. So
when this already quite experienced chef became executive chef at the Playboy
Club, he was only 27 year old but had a cooking experience that many old pros
could have envied.
It is strange but I never had an
opportunity to eat at Le Français when Jean Banchet, whom I have met many times
since the mid-Seventies, was there. I had to wait until 1992 or 93 when the
restaurant was leased to another great French chef, Roland Liccioni, and his then wife Mary Beth. I had two great
dinners there but Liccioni’s style, all in finesse and discrete creativity, was
very different from Banchet’s almost flamboyant mastering of spectacular eating
events. I am saying that based on the descriptions that many friends and
colleagues who ate many times at Le Français in the seventies gave me of their
experiences there. And of course, from what I read in the press, the place was
richly decorated and settings were extra-comfortable.
As I said earlier success came very
rapidly. But in 1975 the restaurant burned and while Banchet was waiting for
the place to get rebuilt, which took a whole year, he accepted some consulting
assignments with Arnie Morton and the newly opened Ritz Carlton.
In1989 he needed a change and after
leasing Le Français to the Liccionis in August , he went down to Atlanta and opened Ciboulette in 1992 and La Riviera 4 years later.
But eventually, when the lease was over,
Banchet came back to Wheeling in 1999 and after renovating and modernizing the
kitchen and the dining room reclaimed his job as owner-chef of Le Français,
with the help of David Sanders. He remained at his post until his retirement in
2001, when he sold the place to
restaurateur Phil Mott (North Pond Café) and Chef Don Yamauchi (Gordon). The
restaurant, for a while got good reviews for its more contemporary type of
cuisine. Then it suffered from bad post 9-11economic times and closed in June 003.
It was purchased and reopened in November 2003 by a former regular customer, Michael Moran, who had a trucking
company.
He called first Michael Lachowicz, and later Roland Liccioni back to manage the
kitchen and try to boost a failing customer base. It worked well for a while and
the ratings and reviews for the restaurant were getting back to a high level.
But eventually Moran found out that he was losing money in this venture and closed the place without warning in late
May of 2007.
What will remain in culinary history
books is that Jean Banchet’s Le Français was arguably one of the most
impressive French restaurants ever to gain so many raves from both critics and
diners outside of New York. Jean Banchet was an incredibly gifted, inspired,
and demanding professional chef de cuisine who was lucky to have the perfect
partner to manage the front of the house: his wife Doris.
I heard so many stories from regular
customers, as well as from other French chefs and waiters who either worked
under him or had him as a friend, and I read so many articles about his
creativity, his way of managing a brigade and of taking care of his favorite
clients, that sometimes I wonder what part of all this is authentic and what
part is mythical.
It does not matter. All I know is that this
perfectionist workhorse always had one obsession: To get the best products
anywhere he could source them, and to create gastronomic fireworks out of them
that no one could forget.
During
his first 10 years in Wheeling, he very often complained about the difficulty to find many typically French ingredients in the U.S
marketplace, such as the fresh extra-small haricot vert, the real raw
truffle or cèpe, good-textured Bresse-style poultry, good quality fresh goose
liver, the perfect sea urchin, mussel or snail, French nutty butter, the right
herb or spice that he needed for a specific preparation. Finding locally-produced
sophisticated high quality meat, seafood, dairy products and vegetables was obviously
an often frustrating task and that was the main thing that he regretted from
his cooking days in France. Since he traveled often back to France he managed
many times to bring back some of these special components, either in his
suitcase, or hidden somewhere, or through other channels, not necessarily approved
by U.S authorities.
When he opened the restaurant his
cooking was rather classic, and the prices, though not cheap, were relatively
reasonable considering the quality that he offered.
Similar dishes to those offered on his
1973 menu could have been found in any good restaurant of ‘’cuisine
bourgeoise’’ in Lyon:
Bisque
de Homard $ 1.95
Les
Terrines et Pâtés $ 3.50
Escalope
de truite à l’oseille $ 8.75
Quenelles
de homards Nantua $ 8.50
Côtes
d’agneau Vert-Pré $ 11.00
Chateaubriand
Bouquetière $ 23.00
Caneton
Bigarade $ 8.50
Soufflé
Glaçé aux fraises $ 3.00
And of course, you could ask for a plateau de fromages de France
It is after the fire that damaged the
restaurant in 1975, once it was re-opened in more opulent settings, that
Banchet jumped forward to a much more elaborate and creative cuisine, and to a
more theatrical and luxurious way to present the food and to seduce the
customers. Every dish and specials of the day were presented in beautiful
porcelain plates or mini copper pots on a serving cart rolled to your table,
and each preparation was explained by the waiters. The elaborate decoration on
each large plate was in itself a work of art with its ribbons of sauces,
reductions, jus, aspics, truffle shavings, etc.
The sommelier would help you to choose
wines from what was perhaps, at the end of the seventies, one of the most
expansive wine cellar in a U.S. restaurant. I was told that at one point in the
early 80`s the content of that cellar was worth perhaps close to $ 800,000.00.
Many of the ‘’signature dishes’’ of the
great period from the late 70’s to the mid 80’s, are still capable to bring
tears of nostalgia and gratitude to the eyes of old customers who were regulars
there at the time:
Double duck consommé Bocuse, Saucisse de
Lyon en croûte aux pistaches, Mussel soup with saffran, Quenelles, Mousses of
salmon, frog legs, lobster, or Saint-Jacques, Poularde de Bresse with quenelles in shrimp sauce, Foie gras d’oie, Lamb Wellington, Lobster raviolis
with truffles, Rabbbit saddle, Sweetbreads Fernand Point, Endive and watercress salad with bacon, Ice
cream Soufflé au grand Marnier. And all those incredibly rich and
complex sauces: Champagne, Périgourdine, with Tarragon.
But in
1999, when a much thinner Banchet came back to Le Français, his style had evolved
a lot. Its cooking had become much
lighter, but it was still as creative and perfect as ever.
Unfortunately some of the old customers
did not like that new style it as much. A page had been turned.
It is very unlikely that such a grand
symbol of “haute cuisine francaise” will ever be recreated in Chicago. So,
let’s keep Le Français`s memory alive for future generations of gastronomes.
Jean
Banchet passed away in November 2013.
CAFÉ
BERNARD
When my wife and I discovered this
marvelous cozy restaurant in 1974 at
2100 N. Halsted St. we were so happy to have found a place that reminded us
of the small bistros we frequented in our Paris neighborhood of Saint- Germain
Des Prés until our departure for Chicago in January of 1970. Everything we
loved in this kind of eating establishments was there. The big bar counter with
high stools, the small wooden tables and banquettes with their red and white
checked ``toiles cirées`` (oil-cloth table covers), the individual lights with
their funnel-shaped shades hanging low above your table from the high ceiling
creating an intimate and quasi romantic atmosphere, the daily menu chalk-
handwritten on a big black board. And as we soon discovered the very warm
welcome extended to regular patrons by the very ‘’sympathique’’ chef-owner Bernard LeCoq. After dinner we would
sit at the bar and drink good Calvados (apple brandy from Normandy) and have
lively talks with either Bernard himself and a great bartender whose name I
forgot, or many French waiters or cooks who would show up to have a beer after
work.
Bernard was from Brittany, and even
though he had been in the U.S and worked all over the country in other
restaurants, he still had the typical accent of his native province. He was an
avid biker and loved nature. I remember that once, back from a trip to Wisconsin,
he had picked some wild watercress still covered with spring snow and had made
for us a beautiful salad with a great vinaigrette.
When he opened the restaurant in May 1973 that part of town was a very
unattractive neighborhood with ugly and often boarded small wooden houses. Many
shady characters were roaming the street and there was no apparent sign of the
upcoming gentrification that would start in the late seventies and bring a huge
number of fancy shops, bars and restaurants between North Avenue and Fullerton.
So it was a bold move by former “Playboy
bunny”, Sue Ling Gin, and Bernard to
buy the attractive but a bit shabby 3
story corner building with a lovely turret
at the corner of Dickens, and to transform the street level, that used to
be a saloon, into a French restaurant. But Sue Gin was also an astute real
estate agent with a vision of what this neighborhood could become, and she
eventually acquired a substantial portion of buildings in that area.
And she loved food and France. Her
father used to have a restaurant in Aurora when she was young. So, along with another partner, Marty Shuster,
they launched themselves in that risky bet that proved to be successful over
the last 38 years of the restaurant`s existence. Eventually Marty Shuster and Bernard opened another
Café Bernard in 77 in Northbrook with Willy Maes and later Yves Schmidt as chefs
de cuisine. Finally, in the 1990’s, he created a smaller but locally
popular wine-bar and café, the Red
Rooster, around the corner from the main restaurant on Dickens. In that
same neighborhood Sue Gin and Bernard Lecoq
also started a bakery on Armitage and a café-fishmarket on Halsted. Both have
been closed for several years.
Bernard
Lecoq was
an experienced chef who had been cooking
in some other French restaurants in Chicago before, such as the prestigious
dining room of the Whitehall hotel, and
the more rustic La Chaumière.
Bernard in the early 70`s did most of
the prep, including some of the butchering and the actual cooking himself.
Eventually he hired chefs and some “commis”. Some of these chefs sometimes
impacted a few specific ethnic touches to the overall French bistro menus. Such
was the case with the Haitian cuisine of chef Marc Delphonse in 1978. Or when 10 years later Bernard Lecoq recruited
Mohamed Mchabcheb, who stayed there
3 years and who brought North African touches to some of the dishes. He
eventually opened his own Morrocan restaurant, L’Olive, on North Sheridan, that was popular for several years.
During
the early years of the café, the cuisine of Bernard was simple, unpretentious,
and traditional.
We really enjoyed such classics as a flavorful
house veal and pork pâté, a good steak Bordelaise with shallots, a decent Boeuf
Bourguignon, and I loved the Poulet à la moutarde. If I remember correctly, it
is there that I found for the first time in Chicago a good veal scallop with a creamy
Calvados sauce. Many regulars though came for the baby-beef liver. His crème
caramel was deliciously addictive.
The wine list was limited but nicely
priced. It offered a small but perfectly drinkable petit Saint Emilion for less
than 5 dollars a bottle. And on lean days you could buy cheap wines in half
liter carafes.
I think
that around 1975 you could have a good complete dinner with some wine for 12
dollars.
Our only complaint was that he refused
adamantly to serve French fries. But I do not remember the reason.
Nevertheless, we still have very
pleasant memories of many comforting dinners in winter there.
Note: TANGO,
That beautiful restaurant, launched in the
summer of 1973 by George Badonsky in the
Belmont Hotel on North Sheridan, was more a very contemporary and often one
of the most audacious American seafood restaurants ever in Chicago, than a
French restaurant. But during its 13 years of existence it had many serious
accents of French cuisine. For some time in the late 70’s its kitchen also
benefited from the experience of the very good French chef Henri Coudrier (Le Francais, La Reserve).
I loved its exciting décor, atmosphere
and vitality. And I will never forget some memorable evening shows by the
magnificent BRICKTOP who was brought
in Chicago by Badonsky to sing there. In spite of being 80 years old she made
the whole beautifully appointed dining room (with art from Andy Warhol and
Peter Max on the walls) vibrate.
The
restaurant closed in 1986
1974
LE FOND DE LA TOUR
The name of this small (70 seats) but
elegant restaurant means in French “The Bottom of the Tower”. And that is exactly
where it was located, at street level of the Oakbrook Apartments Towers building at the junction of Butterfield Road and Meyers in Oakbrook, a 18 miles ride west of
Downtown Chicago. Owned by ANVAN, a
hotel management company, its nicely appointed formal dining room and charming cocktail
lounge was originally nicely managed by Herb
Smith, a good restaurant professional, formerly at the 95th...
The very polished service was under the watchful eye of another good
professional, Maitre D’ Hans
Lautenbacher, who stayed for a while at the French Room and at the 95th.
In spite of his German name I believe
that he was French, probably from Alsace,
The first year the chef was Jean Regnier, a Haitian trained in a French
restaurant in Montreal. But in 1975 he was replaced by a French chef, Bernard
Dervieux, who I understand
prepared very good classic French dishes such as Velouté Vychissois, Red
Snapper in tarragon sauce, Breast of capon stuffed with goose liver pate, Sweetbreads
Provençale, Rack of Lamb with small vegetables, Tournedos au poivre, Chateaubriand Bordelaise, and Mousse au
chocolat. At that time they had really managed to create a decent French classy
bistro ambiance.
For years the quality of both food and
service of the restaurant was affected by many changes in ownership and in the
kitchen. I remember of a terribly mediocre lunch I had there in the early 80`s.
But its popularity among local
businessmen, especially at lunch time remained pretty high for several years...
I ignore when this restaurant closed
CLAUDE’S
Opened in June in a condo building at 1 East Scott this small intimate and
rather fancy dining-room, turning after 9:00 PM into a private club, was
occupying the space left open by the departure of its 2 predecessors, Don Roth
and Barcelona, a Spanish restaurant. The new restaurateur, Jean-Claude Berger, formerly at Les Champs-Elysées and La Grenouille, kept most of the original
décor but added elegant settings
including nice crystal glassware, silverware, and china, white table
cloth, chandeliers, and fresh flowers on
the tables. But since Berger was doubling as manager and chef de cuisine, the
service and the food were definitely classy French. A review in the Chicago Tribune at the time
mentioned that, the à la carte menu included Moules (mussels) à la crème,
Quenelles de Brochet (pike dumplings) sauce aux écrevisses (crayfish), Poularde
en croûte, Escalopes de veau à la crème et au Calvados (veal in a cream and apple brandy sauce), Cœur de
rumsteak sauce Choron, and brochettes de rognons de veau ( veal kidneys). A soufflé au Grand Marnier
was the star desserts. And they served espresso coffee. At the time a complete
dinner without wine would cost around 15 dollars which was not cheap.
I believe that the ‘’club’’ at night was
a very popular discotheque with frequent sightings of celebrities.
I am not too sure but I think that the
restaurant did not survive more than 18 months.
LA
RESERVE
When Henri Coudrier left Le Français in 1973, he did not stay inactive
for too long.
In the fall of 1974 he rented the space
formerly occupied by an Italian restaurant at 6474 N. Milwaukee Avenue, just north of Devon that faced the Northern
branch of the Chicago River in the Billy Caldwell Reserve.
I suppose that is where he got the idea
for naming the restaurant, even though many celebrated French restaurants also
bear that name… I have been there only once for an early dinner at sunset and I
have a good memory of the space itself, spacious, with comfortable tables with
fresh flowers, leather banquettes, and relatively elegant settings, including
white table cloth and nice silver. But the service was a bit disorganized in
the early days. Coudrier was particularly proud of his aquarium full of live trouts that he would serve ‘’ au bleu’’ with a nice beurre blanc au
Riesling. Veal was always prominent on the menu that had a few dishes bearing
an apparent ‘’Banchet’’ style.
I think that I had a filet of venison in
a mushroom sauce that was fine. My wife had a decent Coquelet à la moutarde.
And perhaps a chocolate cake and apple tart for dessert.
Nice but not spectacular wine list.
At the time I thought that the prices
were a bit high considering for an Ok but not spectacular meal.
Not an unpleasant dining experience but
not exciting enough to drive back again to such a far-away place and we never
went back. I think that the restaurant
closed in 1977 or 1978.
Note: LE BON VIVANT
I am a bit reluctant to include this
restaurant in my list of ‘’French’’ restaurants since as far as I know no French person ever worked there.
But when it opened in the fall at 222 N. Greenwood Avenue in Glenview, this elegant and cozy place had obviously the ambition to become a fancy
French restaurant. I do not know who actually was the owner but I know he was Greek,
and I also know that the chef at that time was not French either. But that
restaurant is the place where one of the best Chicago chefs known for its
mastering of French bistro cuisine, John
Hogan, held its first cooking job as Garde-manger in 1980.
John told me that there was no French
cook there but that the dishes they served there were definitely French.
The restaurant was still alive and well
in 1982, after receiving 4 stars from
the Mobil guide. I never ate there or met anybody who ate there, but in its
early days it got good reviews in the Tribune. They first called themselves a `’French
gourmet restaurant’’ and some years later switched to ‘’Continental-French’’.
That appellation from what I read in articles and review published in the
Tribune in 1974, seemed closer to their real style that had no resemblance to
“la nouvelle cuisine”. Huitres
Florentine, Duckling in orange sauce, Marmite Henry IV, Crepes Royales, Fruits
de mer Monte-Carlo, Supreme de Volaille Diane, Strawberries Romanoff, were the
kind of dishes that you would had better chances to be able to order at Le Café
de Paris than at Le Perroquet. In 1974 most entrees were under 12 dollars.
In 1979
one of the owners, Jovan Pajich, opened a second Bon Vivant in Elmhurst, with a
French chef by the name of Daniel Secur.
I have no idea of what happened to these
2 possibly “French” restaurants.
Note: THE
FRENCH KITCHEN
I hesitate to list this restaurant here
that did not have any French owner, cook or waiter.
Besides, I never met somebody who
actually ate at this BYOB place at 3137
W, 63rd St, on the Southwest side of the city by Lorraine Hooker, an American chef. But
from what I read in a mini review published in the Tribune in 1976, it was more
a Continental-French restaurant than a real French one. But according to the
author of that little piece, Gloria Cohen, the menu was limited but the quality
of the food was very good and some dishes, such as Crab in sauce Mornay, Coq au
vin, Sole en sac, Mousse au chocolat, were definitively having a French touch.
1975
LA BOUILLABAISSE
Opened in the fall by Charles Ortu, a real Marseillais, it
was another case of a French restaurant opening in a not too attractive
neighborhood at 1418 W. Fullerton.
The house specialty was perhaps one of the best attempts to recreate a real Bouillabaisse
de Marseille, the famous aromatic seafood soup that put this lively Provençal
port-city on the culinary map of France that you ever found in Chicago.
I said attempt because it is impossible
to find in American fish markets the same type of components that are
specifically found in the Mediterranean Sea, such as Rascasse, Saint-Pierre,
Chapon, Pageot, Murène, Rouget Grondin, Vive, and others. So, Chef Ortu had to
compose with the freshest fish available in Chicago such as Whiting, Sea Bass,
Red Snapper, White Fish, Rockfish, Shrimps and Mussels. But his Bouillabaisse
was very flavorful thanks to the olive oil, saffron, herbs, and tomato. And I
understand that his aioli, a fragrant garlic mayonnaise, and the pieces of
toast that customers would use to sponge some of the broth were quite good. Besides he properly served the fish and the
broth in separate plates and bowl. You could also order various fish and
shellfish dishes as well as a good Steak au Poivre. And the restaurant`s wine list include a good
rosé from Tavel, a rare treat at the time. In 1975 the cost of an order of
Bouillabaisse for 2 people was around $ 13.00.
The rustic but comfortable settings were
jazzed up by all kinds of strange objects that were probably found in a
flea-market. Service was pleasant and efficient. I do not remember when the restaurant closed.
Probably around 1978.Eventually the space was taken over by Stefani’s.
THE
DINING ROOM at the RITZ CARLTON
Opened in December behind the main lobby
of the hotel in the Water Tower Place,
this large room was as far as the décor and the food were concerned the exact
opposite of places like Le Perroquet, or La Fontaine. By that I mean that the
elegant wood panels, mirrors, chandeliers, fine linen, pricey sterling, and
traditionally dressed waiters provided an impression of almost “over done”. And
the food, cooked by a competent French chef,
Daniel Vigier, and later Jacques Abadie, was almost too classical French for
my taste. The management of the restaurant was under the control of another
very professional Frenchman, the very good Food and Beverage director, Dominique Beauchard, formerly at the 95th, who
would stay at the Ritz until 1979, when he left to open La Mirabelle in Evanston.
Prices were not cheap (about $ 30.00 for
dinner in 76) but that did not stop the clientele of visiting executives, many
of them staying at the hotel, and local matrons, who seemed to love such
specialties as Oysters and caviar, Artichoke Hearts with Morels in a Mornay
sauce, Ballotine of Pheasant, Stuffed breast of Duckling, Rack of Lamb, Trout
stuffed with salmon mousse, Vol au Vent with a champagne sauce, and Crèpes flambées
sauce chocolat. The wine list was one of the most extensive in the US. I read
in a Tribune article that the cellar in Chicago in 1985 was rich of 450,000
bottles, including some Chateau
Lafite-Rothschild dating back to 1882
and 1928 Chateau Latour.
I have to admit that I was invited to
have business lunches at this restaurant only twice between 1977 and 1982.
I was not that impressed. But my point
of view changed completely in 1983 when Fernand
Gutierez came from the Ritz in
Boston to become Executive chef of the Chicago restaurant. Fernand was not
only a great man with a sunny personality, and a bon vivant, but also a great
creative French chef. I have a marvelous memory of a lunch we had with him in
the kitchen. He completely modernized the kitchen and created a very attractive
menu. He mentored many young American Chicago chefs, such as Carrie Nahabedian and Sarah Stegner,
and founded a Midwest chapter of The
Vatel Club, that allows French professionals in the restaurant industry to
get together and share ideas and experiences.
CAFÉ DU
LOUVRE
I regret that I never had the
opportunity to dine at this restaurant that was opened in the summer of 1975 by two French professional chefs, Pierre Cabuzel, a former chef pâtissier, who managed the dining room and Denis Floch who was the chef, Its location, on East Main Street in Dundee, in the Northwest suburbs, was a little
bit out my regular driving paths in these days. But I understand that this
charming but unpretentious place, with its bright yellow walls and sunny orange
and yellow checkered table cloth, remained very popular in that area for many
years.
The 2 partners did not pretend to offer
fancy dishes but rather simply, well prepared traditional ‘’cuisine
bourgeoise’’ that you would find in provincial establishments in France. And they were very proud of the
freshness and quality of the ingredients, especially fruits, vegetables and seafood;
they selected themselves in Chicago markets. They paid attention to the
aesthetics of their arrangements on the plate. Their seafood crepes, pâtés,
quiche Lorraine onion soup as well as main dishes such as filet of sole poached
in wine and presented in a crepe with a mushroom and Champagne sauce, duck with
apples flamed in calvados, coq au vin, beef stew ‘Bordelaise’ ’seemed to have
satisfied many of the regulars. Their fresh fruit tarts and cakes were also
praised. But the queen of the menu was the Crèpe, in all kinds of fashions.
Prices were very modest: in 1978 most
appetizers were around $ 2.00 or $3.00, and main dishes rarely over $ 8 or $9.
The famous ‘’ Crèpe du Louvre’’ stuffed with apples cooked in Calvados, and
covered with a Grand Marnier flavored sabayon was only $1.75
Cabuzel, who is a member of the
Vattel Club of the Midwest, is very
attached to French traditions and always celebrated both Bastille Day and the
arrival of Beaujolais Nouveau at the Café du Louvre.
Cabuzel
came to the US in 1968 when he was 26 year old and for a while worked as a
patissier at the famous Lutèce restaurant in Manhattan.
Now at the age of 70 he is back at making
all kinds of savory and sweet Crèpes Bretonnes in a picturesque small, but very
popular restaurant called Chez Pierre
Crèperie in Crystal Lake, IL.
1976
LOUIS BON
APPETIT
When Louis Retailleau completely refurbished and redecorated an old but
elegant Victorian frame house on Main
Street, downtown Crown Point,
Indiana, an hour drive from Chicago, to live there with his family and have
a French restaurant on the main floor, he was far from being a newcomer in the
Chicago area dining scene. Between 1970 and 1971 this native of Gascony, a
Southwestern French region, famous for its foie gras, where good eating is a
religion, had worked at the 95th during its first year of operationIn1971,
he moved to Calumet City to open his
first own restaurant also called Bon Appétit. He would stay there until 1976 when he found
the house in Crown Point, a
non-descript small city where the locals were more used to eat fried chicken,
chili, and burgers than gastronomic French dishes such as Duck in a Peppercorn
sauce or Veal tournedos with wild Mushrooms and Wine sauce or Confit of Goose
with Truffles. The early years were difficult, but he was adopted by people
living within a 30 miles radius and managed to acquire a small but loyal
customer base until he retired and closed the restaurant after a last
celebration of Bastille Day in July of
2003.
Once in the late 70`s, I had to visit a
manufacturing plant around Merryville, Indiana. And when it was time to drive
back to Chicago it was lunch time. So I asked in a gas station if there was any
good restaurant not too far away and a local motorist buying gas there
suggested I go to Louis, as he
called the place. I was a bit skeptical about the quality of was I was going to
find in my plate there. But I rapidly changed my prefabricated opinion after I
was seated in a quite interesting dining room with high ceilings, antique
furniture, nice white table cloth, fresh flowers, French art on the walls, and
crystal chandeliers.
The bread and goose liver pâté with
truffles were quite good, and the stew of locally raised rabbit very tasty. I
was quite surprised to be served a Belgian endive salad and some decent French
cheeses, a not to frequent occurrence in this kind of town in these days. The
chocolate cake was quite rich and well prepared. Added to that the pleasure of
drinking a good Beaujolais and I was in relative heaven at the end of the meal.
Service, under the diligent attention of his wife, was attentive.
But you had to wait a bit too long
between dishes. And the check was not cheap. Louis himself was quite a pleasant
fellow, who was very talkative and obviously happy to have a countryman coming
from Chicago to enjoy his cuisine. His cooking and saucing could not be more
traditional French.
Obviously Nouvelle Cuisine had not
reached Crown Point, and from what I read and heard later on, some of his
dishes were sometimes a bit heavy handed and the cooking time occasionally
lacked precision. But Louis loved his trade and his products were, long before
it became a trend, most of the time locally produced.
The place was quite charming and for a
couple of hours made you believe that you were in a French country inn, very
far from Chicago.
Years later unfortunately I did not find
the same simple qualities when he opened Cocorico on Clybourn. We will talk
about this strange place in the next part, the 80’s.
LE
FESTIVAL
Early that year Pierre Wimmer, an Austrian who was the flamboyant owner of Punchinello’s on Rush Street, bought
the space occupied since 1974 by the Mayfair Club, and before that by the Red Carpet in a charming 3 story old
brownstone at 28 W. Elm Street. In
fact, at one point there were 3 different dining rooms.
It almost instantly won raves, not only
for modernizing the décor (while keeping a few remnants of the Red Carpet,
including oriental carpets, velvety drapes, and marble fireplaces etc.,) of the
cozy dining rooms, mixing up contemporary and old style elegance, but also for comfortable
settings, very polished service and above all good French food at more
reasonable prices than you would find in other quality oriented eating
establishments of the Gold Coast.
Wimmer for a while kept the talented chef, a Japanese guy by the name of Kanji
Nonaka, who had been trained in Switzerland and a completed his mastering of traditional French cooking at Maxim’s in
Paris. They created prix fixe menus
that offered good value and very nicely prepared dishes. In 1978 you could have
a complete 4-course dinner for $ 14.50
that include changing specialties such as oysters baked in saffron, roasted
pheasant with truffles, Coq au Chambertin,
Veal Normande, or Truite Grenobloise and Squab in cream sauce.
I am not sure of the date of this
restaurant definitive closing; I would
say that it was either in 1980 or 1981.
At the end a very good French chef, Yves Schhmidt, was in charge of the
kitchen
But I know of many former patrons,
including some French colleagues who loved that place.
Note: MELLOW YELLOW
I must mention rapidly a very popular so
called ‘’ French Creperie’’ that opened the same year at 1508 E. 53rd Street at Harper Court in Hyde Park.
This creperie was owned and managed by a
very nice man, Ken Pelletier, who in
spite of his French name, was in fact the son of a commercial fisherman from
Door County. He loved French quiches and crepes and made sure that his crepes,
both savory, and sweets were cooked the right way like in Brittany with the
correct ingredients. The description of the components of his savory crepes was
using the right French words: Champignons, Fromage, Soufflé aux épinards,
Ratatouille, Poulet à la Béchamel, and even a crèpe au Boeuf Bourguignon. The dessert Crèpes could be aux Fraises, à la sauce au Chocolat Suisse,
or à la glace à la Praline. They even served bacon and eggs crèpes for Breakfast.
And you also could order Soupe à
l’oignon, and salads.
The restaurant became very popular and
expanded its menu considerably in the 80’s.
Ken Pelletier passed away in 2005, but
his restaurant was still operating at
the same address in the early 2000s
FRERE
JACQUES
When Frenchman Jacques Grelley, an old acquaintance of mine, opened this charming
restaurant at 1825 Clark St. late in
1976, he has in fact been in Chicago since 1962, after a short stay in
Macon, GA, where he had landed coming from Paris the year before. In 62 he
started waiting tables in various restaurants of the Chicago area, many of them
French, and continued for several years. But his real passion was driving
sports and racing cars and collecting miniature ones.
Between the 60’s and the 80’s he
competed in all kinds of professional car races in Europe including the famous
24 hours at Le Mans in his DB Panhard. He also managed over the last 50 years
to put together the largest collection in the world of close to 5,000 car
racing posters, photos, and other memorabilia.
.Until his passing in 2014 Jacques, who had witnessed D-Day in
Normandy when he was a child, remained
more active than ever and traveled to all parts of the 5 continents from
his base in Texas to exhibit and sell his posters and photos, organize classic
racing cars exhibits, meet with former champions, and drive 2CV Citroen cars
all over China and India, including Tibet.
Anyway, when you entered the restaurant
the walls of the very comfortable bar, with its fireplace and nice banquettes
and armchairs, were covered with some of these beautiful vintage posters, and
in special display cases you could admire some of his miniature cars.
I remember that on occasions when on
week-ends we would go to have dinner there, he would give one of these small
cars to my son who was an avid collector himself.
The main dining room was very cozy, with
high beamed-ceilings that, with some imagination, would make you think that you
were in a country inn in Normandy, the native province of Jacques.
The food was simple but typical French
bistro styled: Mini Bouillabaisse, Duck
Paté with green peppercorn, Snails en Croûte, Steak-frites (the frites were
among the best in town), Lamb and bean stew, and the traditional Poulet au
Vinaigre (chicken in a vinegar sauce) that very few French restaurants served
at the time, Salmon with sorrel sauce, and of course Cheese, including
Camembert. Among desserts they had one of the best Chocolate Mousse. Prices
were very reasonable and they offered cheap French wines such as a red called
‘’ Frère Jacques`` that was quite drinkable.
The
restaurant closed in 1980.
LE
VICHYSSOIS
The Vichy native Bernard Cretier and his American wife Priscilla opened this lovely,
discretely elegant but unpretentious restaurant in the far away Northwest
village of Lakemoor, in Mc Henry county,
a 70 minute drive from Chicago in September of 76.
The white brick stylish building looked
a bit like a French country ‘’Auberge’’’such as those that you would find in
Normandy or in Burgundy. The large windows of the two spacious dining rooms
with well- spaced tables covered with white linen cloth and furnished with
antiques, and traditional copper pots, opened on a pleasant small patio. Fresh
flowers were always in evidence, and the silver, porcelain plates and pretty
glasses were nicely arranged and classy. Art work decorated the walls, and the
bar in the lobby where an impressive antique desk was serving as a hostess
stand, was a very welcoming place.
Cretier and his family lived upstairs
when they opened the place, as it was the case in many traditional provincial
restaurants in France in the good old days. Before opening Le Vichyssois, Cretier, who was trained in the
kitchens of such iconic French chefs as the
Frères Troisgros and Paul Bocuse, was the executive chef at Maxim’s in Chicago for 6 years.
I am sad that I never had an opportunity
to eat at Le Vichyssois since from what I read and heard from other French
chefs as well as from friends in
Chicago, I am sure that I would have loved his traditional French cuisine, that
was prepared with great care and precision.
Cretier was not an adept of the Nouvelle
Cuisine and did not make a mystery of his convictions.
His repertoire was, and still is since
the restaurant is still doing well in 2012, classic French.
His pâtés and terrines, such as quail
with juniper berries, brandy-flavored duck, venison, or a simple pork country
pâté were very popular. And so were of
course his Vichyssoise soup, that all American tourists used to order at
Maxim`s Rue Royale in Paris, and an oyster and lobster bisque. Favorite main
courses were veal in a morel cream sauce, duck in red wine and vinegar sauce,
rack of lamb with a tarragon sauce, scallops in a lobster sauce or in puff
pastry, or lake trout in a Champagne sauce. Vegetables were served in small
copper pans or pots, and the salad often was a mix of French endive, mâche, and
haricots verts fins in raspberry vinaigrette.
Women raved about his dark chocolate and
almond base desserts. And according to a
1984 review in the Tribune, Cretier would serve a very good
grapefruit-Champagne sorbet between appetizer and entrée.
And the best was that nothing was very
expensive, even the daily specials that changed often.
According to a review published in 84,
the average cost of a dinner for two would average $ 60.00.
It was a modest price to pay for such
quality.
Note: LA RIVE GAUCHE
In November a “French” restaurant called LA RIVE GAUCHE, but later its name
morphed into the English translation of THE LEFT BANK, opened in an old long-closed
bank building, on Governors Highway in Matteson,
a small town about 20 miles south of Downtown Chicago.
The owner, one Ron Stillman, according to a mini review published in the Trib in
1977, always wanted to own a French gourmet restaurant in that town.
So the name of the restaurant refers to
the famous Rive Gauche in Paris, as well as the abandoned bank.
According to that review the vault was
used as a wine cellar.
Mr.
Stillman recruited a young manager from the CIA in Hyde Park, NY, who gathered a
team of energetic young cooks and waiters.
From what I read, the waiting staff was
trying to project a French image and the chef was attempting to emulate the
Nouvelle Cuisine by undercooking the vegetables.
At the same time however they insisted
on flaming several dishes and desserts, which was more a continental cuisine
tradition.
But altogether I understand that the
cooking was rather good.
Appetizers included traditional pâtés
and jambon persillé, as well as soupe à l’oignon gratinée, and main dishes were
classic French Steak au Poivre Vert, and Veal Scaloppini in a cream and
mushroom sauce, trio of Duck, and stuffed Quail in a Perigourdine sauce.
In 1977 you could have complete
prix-fixe dinners between $7.00 and $14.00
The
restaurant closed in 1980.
1977
ILE DE
FRANCE
One of my most bizarre dining experiences
in the last 47 years in Chicago took place at this “exotic” restaurant located on Elston Avenue at the corner of Division.
It could
have been one of the most romantic eating places in Chicago if it was located I
another area and with a different management. Next to a boat repair yard its dining room was
overlooking the, at the time rather dirty and smelly, North branch of the
Chicago River. There even was an outdoor porch from where you could see boaters
while drinking a cocktail. The dining room itself was relatively rustic but
well appointed. Problem was, once you entered that small poorly maintained
wood-cabin type of building, you were facing a mess and could see the entrance
of the kitchen that was not a model of cleanliness or organization. The only
time we went there for lunch with some colleagues in early 1977, there was
nobody at the hostess station, and in fact nobody in the dining room either.
We called “Hello” and out of the kitchen
came this French guy, unshaved, wearing a stained open shirt, and holding a
dirty piece of towel in his hand. He turned out to be the chef and perhaps also
the owner of this rather grubby place. I do not even remember his name. After
inquiring about what we wanted he told us to seat anywhere we wanted. He
grumbled a few words of welcome in our common language and disappeared back in
his kitchen. Eventually after waiting for quite a while a young woman came to
bring us menus and some water. We had to call for her to return so that we
could place our orders. She did not seem to be a professional waitress, looked totally uninterested in us, and could not
answer our questions about the way some food items were served. While we were
waiting for our appetizers, munching on some not too fresh French baguette, we
saw a big rat trotting from the entrance to the other side of the room.
As a matter of fact, it turned out to our surprise that the food
was quite good and classical French. Good country Pâté, decent Mussels Marinière,
very tasty Veal Scaloppini in a cream and Calvados sauce, well prepared Belgian
endive salad, and a good Apple tart. The wine list was not very extensive but
nevertheless included a few good, but expensive Bordeaux and Burgundies. We ordered a reasonably-priced Côtes du Rhône.
Anyway, it was obvious that the man was
in control of his French cooking but did not seem to care about his own or his
restaurant`s look. Perhaps they had more customers and a professional staff for
dinner.
The dinner menu offered surprising
sophisticated main courses such as Turbot Dugléré, Dover sole Normande, Côte de
Veau, Tournedos Périgourdine, or Bouillabaisse. These dishes contrasted very
boldly with the lack of style and polish of both the chef and the premises.
No need to say I never went back there.
But the restaurant stayed in operation at least 5 or 6 more years.
LE
RENDEZ-VOUS
What a pity that this very sophisticated
and elegant restaurant, opened in May 1977 at 160 East Ontario by the very young (barely 25) but hyper-dynamic
entrepreneur Roger Greenfield,
burned a few months later in January of 1978. It was on its way to become one
of the best and most popular French restaurants in the whole city of Chicago.
I loved the modern but very harmonious
exterior as well as the interior
architecture of this 2 story restaurant designed by Spiros Zakas, the decorator
of Bastille and the Pump Room, The two dining rooms offered comfortable
settings, especially the one upstairs with great blue velvet banquettes, and if
I remember correctly a beautiful brown carpet, and very interesting art by
French surrealist painter André Masson on the white walls. The entrance was
also impressive with its white tile floor, mini garden, fireplace and a bird
cage.
But I was the most impressed with was
the cooking of Yves Schmidt, a young,
26 year -old at the time, executive chef who had already an impressive French
cuisine formal training. He apprenticed when
he was only 15 at Troisgros, in Roanne.
He stayed there for 3 years, then spent 15 months in the kitchens of Maxim’s in
Paris. Then after a few more stints in French restaurants, he was sent to
Chicago where he worked for Maxim’s
here for 4 years before starting at Le Rendez-Vous.
What was great with his cooking was his perfect blend of classic and Nouvelle
Cuisine styles and techniques. After all, this man had learned to cook with
his mother in his native Forez region. So, his basic knowledge was of a
traditional cuisine bourgeoise with a rural touch. But he knew right away how to
adjust to the taste of new consumers for lighter
sauces, locally grown fresh produce and meat. At le Rendez-Vous he managed to
adapt what he had learned at Troisgros to the realities of American ingredients and at the same time saving the
integrity of his French country cooking roots.
My wife and I had only one dinner at Le
Rendez-Vous in late 1977. It will keep in my memory as one of my most enjoyable
dining experience of the 70’s. But unfortunately the only dishes I remember we ate that night were some
beautiful scallops, a duck terrine, a steak au poivre, and some veal scaloppini
in a mushroom and cream sauce. I believed that we had a flourless chocolate
cake for dessert. What I remember clearly is the impressive but expensive wine
list. We had a very decent Listrac that night.
At the time you had to spend about 20
dollars per person without wine and tip. But it was worth it.
I know that Schmidt later on, after a brief stint at the Celtic Room in
Evanston, worked at Le Festival, and at Café Bernard in Northbrook, but I do
not know what happened to this talented chef since.
CAFÉ
PROVENCAL
Located at street level of a 1928 Georgia
style building that housed a retirement apartment hotel at 1625 Hinman in downtown Evanston, this delightful dining room was
one of the most authentic and charming temples of modern French cuisine with strong provincial “Bourgeoise” roots
that you could find in the Chicago area.
But surprisingly enough it was opened in July of 77 by two American women,
Leslee Reis, and Lizann Bradshaw,
whose respective initial backgrounds did not predispose them to become
restaurateurs. Lizann, who left the
restaurant after a couple of years, was a graduate of Harvard
Business School, and since she had some business and management experience, and
had been a wine director for a local big retailer, she became the managing part
of the team and took charge of the front of the house. Leslee, a bio-chemist by training who got a PHD in microbiology from
Harvard at age 23, was promised a bright future in that field.
When she was a new bride in Cambridge,
Mass, where she had met her husband himself a Harvard graduate, she became
friendly with her butcher who gave her a copy of Julia Child’s famous French cooking book. She was a regular
customer of this butcher, and that’s the way she met Julia Child, who lived one
block away from her, in 1963, and even managed to wash dishes as a volunteer on
her first TV shows that were produced in Boston. She started to cook for her
new husband and their friends.
Then she had an opportunity to travel to
France, and more particularly to Provence where she fell in love with the food.
In Paris she went to The Cordon Bleu School to learn the basics
of French cooking. Back to Boston a chef there, himself an alumnus of Cordon
Bleu completed her education. She also came back from France with an extensive
practical knowledge of ingredients, components, and tools used in French and
Provençal cooking acquired during numerous visits to open markets, food shops,
and restaurants. Therefore, I considered
her as a French chef by training.
She moved to Evanston in 1967 with her
husband where until 1970 she had two children, then worked as a researcher at Children
memorial Hospital, and later taught biochemistry at Northwestern University.
Eventually she decided to abandon her 2
careers in research and teaching and started
a food catering business and a cooking school in Evanston that became
rapidly popular. When her 2 sons got older, she decided to take the risk of
becoming a full- time chef and restaurateur.
Café
Provençal was an immediate success. She
rapidly benefited from a local client base that was well educated and traveled,
and loved the type of authentic simple but well prepared country French cuisine
using good quality fresh ingredients, most of them grown in the Midwest, that
was so similar to the one they may have tasted in a provincial inn in France.
The dining room, capable to host more
than 70 customers, was large, sunny through high windows dressed with lovely
curtains, but the nicely dressed tables
with their French pink
tablecloth and quality silver, often
graced with fresh flowers, were well spaced. The high beamed ceiling, the wood
paneled walls on one side and covered with pretty fabric on the other, the
beautiful fireplace, the ‘’dressoirs’’ with French porcelain decorative plates
and small objects, contributed to make the place very comfortable and cozy. The
back of the room also had windows facing a courtyard patio where you could eat
under a canopy in the summer and a mini garden where herbs used in the kitchen
were grown.
The first years, Leslee Reis kept the
menu relatively short and simple but so appetizing: Creamy leek and potato soup, Salmon or pike
mousse, Artichokes stuffed with ham and mini vegetables, Pâtés and terrines
Lamb chops with a garlic sauce, Roast duck in green peppercorn sauce, Terrine
of whitefish and vegetables, grilled Red Snapper, Poulet Provençal, And always
the marvelous ‘’pommes Dauphine’’
that so few American restaurants managed to make properly. You could even order
a nice cheese platter. And, besides a very tasty dark Chocolate Mousse Cake,
and a good Tarte Tatin the dessert menu . offered some of the best Fruit
Sorbets that you could find in Chicago.
In 1979
you could have a 3 course dinner for
less than 20 dollars. The wine list, mostly French, also offered reasonably
priced French wines, including some half-bottles and you could limit the
expenses with a bottle of decent House French red wine costing less than 5
dollars.
Later, in the early to mid- 80’s the
menu became much more creative, sophisticated, and expensive. It also lost a
little bit of its original tasty country French simplicity when Leslee Reis
became less actively involved in the
actual cooking. At that time she had started other bistros in Evanston,
Leslee’s in 1982 and Bodega Bay in 1987.
Both were closed in 1988.
Leslee
Reis died of a heart attack in 1990. Her husband Andy took over the management of the restaurant, but following a
lease disagreement with the owner of the Homestead, he closed it for good in 1993.
The two executive chefs who ran the
kitchen of the Café until its closing were Philip
Stocks and Kevin Schrimmer.
Leslee Reis was the co-founder of Les Dames
d’Escoffier, an association of women involved in the restaurant and fancy
food industry.
PATRICE
The same month this tiny (no more than
40 customers could be served in one seating) but very sophisticated and glamorous
restaurant opened at 914 N. Ernst Court,
a minuscule street parallel to Rush between Chestnut and Walton, in the space formerly
occupied by Sasha’s . The target
clientele of this place, designed by Janet Schirn, was the young affluent
money-spending swinging and well-dressed yuppies that loved to go out at night,
eat, drink, and socialize and essentially liked places to see and be seen.
This restaurant, with its visually
impressive décor full of sexy lights and mirrors, leather sofas, hyper-design
chairs, walls covered with exotic fabrics, acrylic paintings, and gigantic
vertical wine rack, was a masterpiece of faux-semblants. A spectacular screen of
micro-lights separated the dining room from the bar. A bronze mirror in the
dining room gave the impression that it was more spacious that it actually was.
Patrice was the first name of the
co-owner, Patrice Aldington, a nice-looking
French guy who had been working in several fancy Chicago restaurants and was a former captain at chez Paul.
The young chef that he had recruited, Gérard Reuther, was also a French man
from Lyon, with an already impressive resume from various cooking assignments
in very good French restaurants, and also a stint in New York. His dishes were
not classic haute French cuisine but rather contemporary French: Pheasant
terrines, Sorrel soup, marinated scallops, and lemon tart.
Some dishes were successful ,some not,
and the quality of some ingredients was not always consistent from what I read.
But this chef decided to quit at the
beginning of 78.. He was replaced by another Frenchman, George Maillot, who was also a Chez
Paul alumnus, who built a more conventional menu with ham and mushroom
quiche, sea bass with spinach, or veal in a brandy flavored cream sauce. Many
desserts, like fruit tarts, were prepared by Patrice himself.
Most dishes were served in oversized
plates, with small vegetables.
The restaurant was very popular for a
while. Some rumors said that it was in part for the availability and wide use
there of a white kind of powder that did not come from the corn starch pot in
the kitchen. But for some reason that I
ignore Patrice sold very abruptly his parts of the business to his partner Ed Gentry and left Chicago in 1979.
That year the restaurant got a new
French chef named Victor Tambourin
who had worked in the kitchen of Le Perroquet.
The
restaurant was taken over by a Cuban in early 1980 who completely changed
the formula. That was not a very bright idea since the new restaurant did not
work too well without Patrice, and closed for good later that year.
1978
ALOUETTE
Another success story from Christian Zeiger, the very astute entrepreneur-restaurateur
who had opened Le Titi De Paris in
Palatine in 72
After selling it to his chef Pierre
Pollin he opened Alouette in the spring of 78, at 440 GreenBay Road in Highwood, that little town just North of Highland Park that until now was better known
for its Italian restaurants and food shops than as a bastion of French
gastronomy.
Alouette,
and later on Froggy’s, and Carlos on the other side of the train tracks in
Highland Park, definitively put Highwood on the map of destination places for
good eating in the far Northern suburbs of Chicago.
Alouette, which remained
popular with North Shore regular diners until it closed in 1994, was another comfortable “French Country Inn” type
of restaurant, but on the sophisticated side.
It was even pleasant to wait for your
table sitting on plush sofas surrounded by antique furniture and big vases of
fresh flowers. The whole décor had been designed
by Christian Zeiger and his wife,
Agnes.
The dining room with its beamed ceiling,
elegant chairs and white clothed tables decorated with porcelain birds on little
bells, very expensive looking china and sterling silver, oil paintings and
tapestries on the walls, was much fancier than its usual less formal French
Bistro counterparts.
The menu
also was rather elegant. It followed the seasons and changed very often. It was rich in fresh
fish in all kinds of styles, as well as shellfish, sometimes in form of delicate
mousses, or accompanied by very tasty light sauces influenced by the Nouvelle Cuisine trends. Crawfish, lobster and
scallops were particularly well prepared.
High quality veal, lamb, and duck dishes
once again were frequently offered in specials and graced by brandy or
peppercorn flavored sauces with a light cream or raspberry vinegar base.
The rack of lamb and loin of lamb “en
croute” were very popular specials.
Great attention was brought to the precise cooking of the vegetables accompaniments
such as asparagus, haricots verts, cabbage, artichokes, mushrooms, Belgian
endive, or broccoli.
Thierry
Lefeuvre,
a very gifted young chef from Brittany, who had already built solid references
in hotels and restaurants in Europe and in North-America, was the opening chef.
Roland Liccioni, before crossing the
tracks to become the executive chef at Carlos,
worked for 6 months in that kitchen in 1979. But is probably Michel Coatrieux who was hired by
Zeiger while he was on vacation in Chicago, who had worked in glorious 3 stars
French restaurants such as Lucas-Carton
and Taillevent, who contributed to the reputation of this restaurant for
the longest time from 1978 to 1987.
In the mid 80’s he got the assistance of
Michel Laurent, who cooked for Zeiger in his Parisian restaurant, and Charlie Socher, who eventually created
his own bistro, Café Matou, in
Chicago.
In 1980 you would expect to pay $25 for
a full meal without the wine.
CHEZ
ANTOINE
Located at 2920 N. Clark St, this restaurant that had perhaps the ambition of
becoming one of the fanciest Haute Cuisine French eateries Chicago used some
furniture and fixtures from the old Pump
Room. I did not find any precise info on its cuisine and chefs, but I know
that it closed the same year after a few
months of operation. It probably overpriced itself from what I read.
50 EAST
A few months after the loss of his Le Rendez-Vous on Ontario, Roger Greenfield
decided to open a new “New York style” restaurant at 50 East Oak Street,
between Michigan and Rush, at the heart of the fashion and art dealers’
district. I think that this idea of creating a chic but relaxed bistro where
the “beautiful people” of the neighborhood such as show business people,
clothing shop owners and fashion designers, artists, lawyers, architects, politicians, would stop
by to have a drink and something to eat and socialize with their friends and clients,
and essentially have some fun..
So he asked the same inspired decorator,
Spiros Zakas, who had designed Le
Rendez-Vous, to create very contemporary environment on two floors with plenty
of audacious geometric patterns and colors.
The two rooms would seat 200 people. The
street level room was a bustling place with nice banquettes and small tables
close to each other in circles and there was a piano bar. The
busy and noisy crowd there would drink and graze for less than 20 dollars and
do a lot of schmoozing and “See me” and “You look wonderful Darling” type
of games.
The upper dining room was quieter, the
tables nicely separated by glass partitions, and service a bit more formal even
though the décor was again very stimulating with lots of mirrors and lights.
One again Greenfield had Yves Schmidt as chef, and besides some
trendy appetizers like “caviar d’aubergines” (eggplant purée) or Mozzarella
fritters with spicy tomato sauce, he also offered a few dishes that were
successful at Le Rendez-Vous such as his famous White fish Grenobloise,
Coquilles Saint Jacques, Magret de
Canard, and Mousse au chocolat.
The food
prices were much lower than at Le Rendez-Vous, but the wines were still quite
expensive.
I would in fact say that this restaurant
was more a blend of contemporary
American and Continental cuisine rather
than French..
But like many other future Greenfield
ventures the place was poorly managed and in spite of an attempt to completely
change the formula and rename it Le Rendez-Vous after 4 months, it was
closed the same year and morphed into Le Relais under a Swiss-born Manager.
TOULOUSE
Bob Djahanguiri, an Iranian who came
to Chicago in 1964 to study civil engineering. But in order to survive he had
to work small jobs. As a bus boy, then waiter in some Chicago restaurants such
as the Pump Room he got acquainted with well-established restaurateurs such as Dick Castro and Arnie Morton. They
encouraged him allowed him to have access to more managerial positions in some
of their restaurants. They also gave him the virus of restaurant management and
entrepreneurship, so much so that Bob Djahanguiri in spite of getting a diploma
in engineering decided that he preferred the restaurant business. That is how
in December of 1978 he was about to open TOULOUSE,
his first restaurant at 49 W. Division.
I
But
a big snow storm did not help the official launching of the place and it could
well be that the restaurant started to
actually operate only in the spring of 1979.
The
name and the logo were an obvious reference to Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec the famous French Painter of the Belle
Epoque.
It
was both a very classic restaurant and a sort of cabaret where singers and
musicians entertained the diners. And it became rapidly a popular destination
place for dining cum entertainment.
The
cuisine was “continental-French” but with a very French overtone. In fact one
of the first chefs, Daniel Sucur,
was French.
I
have been there only 2 times but I liked the room and the relatively
sophisticated but unpretentious ambience. The food, without being spectacular,
was very decently prepared. Some popular dishes were a Ballotine of Duck in
green peppercorn sauce, Grilled breast of Goose in a port wine sauce, Saucisson
en Croute, Veal Stew, Rack of lamb with ratatouille. Prices of both food and
wine were very reasonable the first few years but the check became quite
expensive in the late 80’s. In 1979 you could have a 3 course dinner for 18 dollars without the wine. The restaurant closed in 1993 at its original
location, and Djahanguiri, who had opened 2 other restaurants just North of
Division, Yvette and Turbot, created a new luxurious TOULOUSE ON THE PARK in
Lincoln park in 1994. It closed for good in 1999.
Note: JIMMY’S PLACE
When
Jimmy Rohr, in July 1978, opened
this long and narrow, simple but sophisticated, dining room in a non-descript
part of North Elston Avenue (3420 N.),
not particularly a mecca of fancy dining for Chicago diners, some food pundits and
critics thought that it was a mad idea, similar to Gordon Sinclair’s decision to open Gordon in 1976 in one of the
worst parts of N. Clark. Street,
They
were all wrong. First, the very social Jimmy
Rohr had already a crowd of fans who knew him from his many years as a waiter
at L’Escargot on Halsted, and then at La Reserve where he was a Maître D’, and
immediately became enthusiast customers of his new venture. And secondly he hired a very talented
Japanese-American chef, Yoshi Katsumura,
who had some training in France, and also perfected some very good French
cooking techniques under Jean Banchet at
Le Français. Yoshi, only 29 years old at the time of Jimmy’s opening, who
later on became Rohr’s partner in the restaurant to the point that it was
renamed Jimmy and Yoshi`s, was a
great cook with any type of seafood, and his sashimi and sushi types of raw
fish such as marinated salmon, scallops in a very delicate cream sauce with ‘’petits légumes’’, a typical Nouvelle
Cuisine dish that was really becoming very trendy at the time. He also served
very well prepared veal scaloppini; duck with turnips or a duck sausage en
croute au Madère (in puff pastry with a Madeira light cream sauce), very nicely
seasoned lamb stew, pheasant, and occasionally some rabbit that I loved. The
pastry chef whose name I forgot also baked marvelous fruit tarts in the Alsatian tradition. And prices were very reasonable considering
what you got on your plate, the musical ambiance (Rohr was an opera fanatic),
and the very knowledgeable waiters. Rohr was a very lively and gracious host.
In 78, on Sundays, lots
of people showed up for the famous 4 course brunch for the very accessible
price of $8.50.
Jimmy
Rohr, who suffered from allergies discouraged fragrances and cologne wearing
customers to come to his restaurant. Smoking was not in favor either.
Jimmy
Rohr always insisted that his restaurant was not a French restaurant. It was I
fact one of the first French–Asian fusion restaurants ever to exist in Chicago.
The
white walls were decorated with beautiful posters, and programs, related to
opera, music, dance and theater. No wonder that you were almost certain to see
a couple of ‘’people’’ from the show business there.
Problem
was, the tables were very close to each other and you were sometimes forced to
listen to conversation of some of these “people” who deliberately told dining
companions how important their lives were.
And
the constant opera music was at times
distracting.
Unfortunately,
Yoshi left at some point to create his
own restaurant on Halsted, that became also very popular and the subsequent
replacement chefs were not as gifted, Kevin Shikami in the late 80`s being the exception. In fact Shikami had been trained by Yoshi. Later on, prices
went up, at a time when the quality went down.
Jimmy’s closed in 1995
and Rohr died in 99.
1979
LES NOMADES
A
few weeks ago, while I was sorting some old files, I found all my membership cards for Les Nomades starting with the first one dated 78-79.
In fact when the restaurant opened in February at 222 East Ontario in a charming 3 story old brick house, the bistro’s
client base was entirely made up of about 600 members, who had been
selected, invited, or their application accepted by Jovan Trboyevic. I remember that when we had a conversation at the
corner of Michigan and Ontario, and that he gave me my card; I did not have a
dollar bill in my wallet to pay the membership fee, so I gave him 4 quarters
which he accepted. We had a good laugh about it.
This
place was the product of his long-time dream to have his own bistro, making his
own menus based on old French classics that he loved and could modify as he
wished, and welcoming guests and some old friends, that he had enjoyed talking
with for years since or before he had opened Jovan on Huron in 67 and Le Perroquet on Walton in late 1972. Jovan,
who himself had been a “nomad” for half of his life, from his native
Yugoslavia, to Switzerland, England, France, and many other places, felt
comfortable with well-traveled people who like himself had interesting stories
to tell, and enjoyed and appreciated the good life, including good food and
good wine. Many “people” in Chicago felt offended or were very critical by this
selective approach to “clubby” dining, especially those who were not allowed to
become member of this quiet little piece of gastronomical paradise. But for me
who had admired and loved the man for years, it was always a renewed pure
moment of pleasure on each of my birthdays to sit at the same little table,
just one step up from the marvelously decorated, like all the restaurant by his
artist-wife Maggie Abbott, entrance
where an authentic French “zinc covered
bar” was the piece de resistance. But this bar, that he loved dearly, was too
cumbersome and he was forced to sell it a few months after he opened the
restaurant sold it to the more spacious “Bistrot Zinc” on Southport. The
space settings were relatively simple, with its bare wood floor, simple bistro
chairs and tables covered with a plain white cloth, and not too fancy silver or
china, but Maggie’s decoration and
the lighting, as it was the case with Le
Perroquet’s and Jovan’s, was of a subdued but very seductive elegance,
making the place at the same time very comfortable and intimate but as close as
can be to what a fancy Parisian bistro in the 7th arrondissement
would feel like. In the winter the wood burning “cheminée’’ (fireplace) added to this good feeling.
I
loved the authentic bistro food and have great gustatory memories of dishes
such as the light cassoulet, the duck terrine, the rabbit in a ‘’Bonne Femme’’ or
mustard sauce, the coq au vin, the pot au feu, and very delicious fine apple
tarts. And at the end of our dinner,
Jovan would bring me a good Calvados, sit down with us and we would talk about
France.
I
have never inquired about the name of the chef there.
It
will always remain one of my top 3 or 4 favorite French restaurants in Chicago.
Jovan Trboyevic sold
Les Nomades to Mary Beth and Roland Liccioni in 1993. It is still doing well in
2018
LA BOHEME
When
Frenchman (from Normandy) Jacques Barbier opened this charming
French Country Inn-style restaurant (that was perhaps the 5th one in
this category that year) in the Laundry
Mall at 566 Chestnut St. in Winnetka that elegant Northern suburb was still
dry. So it was a BYOB place, something unusual for a French restaurant. But La Bohème became rapidly popular with
the locals who loved the good traditional French cuisine and the BYOB formula.
The
pretty large dining room was simply decorated capitalizing on the bricks and
wood settings that were there
Menu
was short and pretty standard. Escargots in garlic butter. Terrine du Chef,
Beef Tenderloin au poivre in a cognac cream sauce. Veal Normande with salsifis.
Whitefish in a lemon and caper sauce.
All
dishes were garnished with fresh vegetables.
For
dessert the Strawberries Romanoff were very popular.
Nothing
there to suggest creative Nouvelle Cuisine. Just solid well prepared French
fare.
The
menu and the creativity of the cuisine vastly expanded when the restaurant kitchen was taken over by Didier Durand in the late eighties...
French Restaurants in
Chicago: 1924-1999. A 75 year Retrospective
Part 4. 1980-1989. A period
of transition: Younger chefs in
search of a new contemporary French-American style.
The bistro and ethnic trends
expand. A new generation of “French trained” American chefs create an
interesting French-American style in sophisticated dining.
I
thought that after the incredibly creative and productive decade of the 70’s, the
rhythm of creation of new French restaurants would slow down in the 80s,
especially between 1980 and 1982 when American consumers got scared by a new double-dip
recession that encouraged them to tighten their eating out budget.
Besides
I also thought that the “ethnic food” fad would diminish the interest of
Chicago diners for French cuisine.
Fortunately,
I was wrong. The now deceased Sun-Times
restaurant reviewer Pat Bruno,
in his introduction to the new Gault
Millau’s Best of Chicago guide published in 1989 by French critic André Gayot, wrote that “the 1980 s will go down in Chicago’s
culinary history as the decade of dining delirium”. He said that gourmet home cooks got tired of
cooking by the end of 1981 and started to rediscover the pleasure of going out
to eat good food prepared by professionals.
From
a purely quantitative viewpoint the number of new French restaurants launched
in the eighties (around 35) was about the same as in the 70s.
Of
course, these numbers are the result of my own estimates and there may be
several “French eateries” that escaped my sometimes fuzzy memory lane.
As
far as I am concerned, I went to restaurants for lunch practically 5 days a
week, and at least 4 times a month for dinner, most often with business
contacts.
My
only negative remembrance of that period was related to often poorly
interpreted and executed versions of the French Nouvelle Cuisine repertoire.
But
that annoying phenomenon, which often materialized in improperly cooked and
over-decorated mini-portions of chichi dishes in big plates, saw a blessed
ending around 1986.
At
that time several good American sous-chefs and Chefs de Partie, who had been
trained in French kitchens or in Chicago by French chefs, started to work
towards the creation of a new French-American style of cooking that would
become a new trend in Chicago. This local style would continue until the new
millennium.
But
some local chefs, such as Michael Foley,
of Printer’s Row fame, a restaurant
that he launched in 1984, who also got some serious training in some good French
restaurants, were in fact adapting their techniques to the principles of the American Cooking Movement, sometimes
also called “Progressive American Cuisine”.
That movement that started in the mid 70’s was often mixing contemporary American
cooking techniques, using regionally grown produces, meat, poultry, eggs and
fruits, with classic French cuisine traditions. Gordon Sinclair (Gordon’s) in 1976, and before him Jovan Trboyevic (Jovan’s) in the late
60’s, were among the first restaurateurs to introduce these new approaches in
Chicago.
Alice Waters from Chez Panisse in Berkeley, CA, would also
be a perfect example of this trend.
It
was also very comforting to notice that Chicago diners became much more
sophisticated in their knowledge of French food and wines. This welcome
phenomenon was partially encouraged by the development of a very important expansion
of trade and cultural relations between Chicago and France.
Also,
in the late eighties many books and magazines as well as TV programs about
French cuisine and wines became more accessible.
And
for Chicago diners it was no longer necessary to feel intimidated or to worry
about the cost involved in going to a French restaurant since the spectrum of
available French eateries in town got wider and more diverse. You did not need
to spend as much as you would in New York in 1st class French
restaurants at places such as Carlos,
Ambria, or Everest to get a good illustration of what great French cuisine
should be. Good but more affordable
places like Froggy’s, Un Grand Café, or
Le Chardonnay would provide an equally pleasant experience.
But
in the same way that the 70’s were marked by a few great
restaurateurs and chefs such as Jovan
Trboyevic, Jean Banchet, George Badonski, Leslee Reis, Christian Zeiger,
Bernard Cretier, Pierre Pollin or Jean-Claude Poilevey, the eighties will always remained associated with the names of some
restaurateurs and chefs such as Carlos Nieto (Carlos) , Roland Liccioni, Gabino
Sotelino (Ambria) Fernand Gutierrez (at
the Ritz), Jean Joho (Everest), Louis Outhier (very briefly at Le Prince), or Jackie
Shen (Jackie’s).
I
could also mention the French chef Yves
Roubaud who, after stints at L’Hôtel
de France in Minneapolis, Ambria
and Un Grand Café, introduced at SHAW’S a very French contemporary way
to work with seafood in Chicago. But SHAWS
will not be part of my list because it was essentially a seafood restaurant,
not a French one.
Chicago
diners also mourned the loss, in 1985, of Lucien
Vergé, a veteran French chef who with the opening of L’Escargot in 1968 became one of the best promoters in town of
‘’cuisine bourgeoise’.
In 1986, some French chefs and
other professionals involved in French cuisine, under the leadership of Fernand Gutierrez who became its first
president, launched the Vatel Club
du Midwest to promote the originality and strength of French cuisine in our
region that has been for too many years forgotten in the shade of New-York and California.
The
end of the decade, unfortunately, was marked by a trend that I did not
appreciate at all called ‘’ grazing”.
Essentially followed by yuppies and North
Shore and Gold Coast matrons who did not want to gain too much weight when
eating out, it consisted in eating very small quantities of everything, or ordering
only small side dishes. The quality of the cuisine was not affected and for a
while many chefs adapted their culinary talents to this new kind of demand.
In
fact, it was perhaps a trend that was born 30 years too early, since around
2008, it sort of morphed in a new French trend “les petits plats”, or “bar
dishes”, which are still very popular in 2014. But it was not a new
invention, just a variation of the “tapas”
In
opposition to stricter requirements to include a restaurant in this list of
French dining places, such as French ownership, cooking, managing and waiting
staff, etc., that I used in the previous decades, for the 80s I will list any
restaurant serving good French cuisine in the Chicago area, whether or not it
is owned by French people
1980
LA MIRABELLE
1710 Orrington Avenue,
Evanston
It
was opened in March in the Orrington
Hotel by Dominique Beauchard,
who had managed both The 95th and
the Ritz Carlton in the 70s.
This
85 seats restaurant was initially supposed to be a major component of an
ambitious renovation program of this old-fashioned hotel that had lost most of
its charm over the years. But for some economic reasons the hotel’s management
expansive plans were somewhat reduced and Beauchard decided to lease the place
and to operate it by himself along with chef Christian Vullien, a native of the French Alps region.
In
spite of a limited budget the dining room was elegant and the service polished.
Being in a hotel and serving breakfast the restaurant baked its own bread and
pastries. The lunch menu was limited
to American classics as well as a “quiche
du jour”. But for dinner you
could enjoy well prepared dishes such as rillettes of salmon, chicken liver
mousse with a sauce Périgueux, sweetbreads, roast duckling with turnips,
quails, and grilled sole or monkfish with a mushroom and champagne sauce.
Desserts included a good chocolate cake and a decent apple tart.
The wine list was quite respectable for a
former all-dry city like Evanston. I went there only once and I have a pleasant
if not spectacular remembrance of that dinner. The cuisine was perfectly fine
but too conservative and seemed unaware that even in Evanston there were some educated
diners who were interested by a more contemporary cuisine, without necessarily looking
for “Nouvelle Cuisine”.
I
think that La Mirabelle did OK for a
while but could not compete with Café Provençal and closed in the fall of 1982 when the hotel was also closed for a
more serious renovation
AMBRIA
2300 N. West Lincoln
Park, Chicago
On
July 1 the opening of that glorious
restaurant in the lobby of the Belden-
Stratford Hotel was perhaps the most audacious move that Richard Melman, at the time CEO of LEY, took during his long series of
entrepreneurial coups. As a matter of fact, nobody since Jovan Trboyevic at Le Perroquet in the early 70s had
been so instrumental in launching such a high class dining establishment based
essentially upon the most successful and well executed principles of the French
Nouvelle Cuisine. The genius of Melman was to recruit Gabino Sotelino, a great
expatriate Spanish cuisinier who had learned the secrets of the trade in
some of the best kitchens of the world including the Plazza Athénée in Paris, France, to be executive chef and partner in the ownership at Ambria.
Sotelino, who had started his
cooking apprenticeship at the early age of 14, arrived in Chicago in 1974 and
served as head chef at Le Perroquet
for almost 3 years, had impressed Melman
who hired him in 1977 as executive chef at the Pump Room. The tremendous improvements that Sotelino brought to the
kitchen of this historic restaurant that LEY had just purchased contributed to
bringing that old lady back to fame.
Sotelino
was the king of creative marriages between savory and fruit-sweet complex
flavors and herbs or spices in a single dish. It started with appetizers such
as scallops sautéed with exotic fruits and berries, or Carpaccio of beef
sirloin in a green vegetable sauce with parmesan, very flavorful and delicate pâtés
and terrines (venison in season was fabulous), Foie gras aux pommes, and the
famous vegetable mousses, that were an obligatory trademark of the Nouvelle
Cuisine.
The
main courses, often very delicate fish preparations such as Loup de Mer or
Dover Sole offered as specials, were equally innovative. Most regulars raved
about the Rack of Veal with truffles and the Capon stuffed with a mousse de
morilles (morels), as well as the rare magret de canard aux pêches.
Salads
where Belgian endive, mâche, radicchio, bib, baby string beans, apples, were
often combined and dressed with very refreshing herbed vinaigrettes, were very
popular.
The
most popular dessert were probably the fruit soufflés, flourless chocolate
cake, and the white chocolate mousse in a rich dark chocolate sauce.
The
very extensive, and expensive, wine list included some of the best Bourgognes
that could be found in Chicago at the time.
The
strict dress code, the discrete but luxurious décor where dark wood and fresh
flowers were predominant, the excellence of the service, made you feel rich,
even though nothing was ever pretentious in that sophisticated place that
everybody regretted when it closed in 2007.
Very
few other restaurants collected as many stars and awards as Ambria.
I
am very sad not to have ever dined in this so creative establishment.
In
the meantime, Gabino Sotelino,
always in cooperation with LEY, had
launched other very popular eateries: Un
Grand Café across the hall from
Ambria that morphed years later into Mon
ami Gabi, and Ba Ba Reeba, a very
good and authentic tapas place, both
still in operation in Chicago, and their sister restaurants in Las Vegas. Ba Ba Reeba Vegas closed in 2010.
L’ESCARGOT
701 N. Michigan Avenue,
Chicago.
Lucien and Lucette
Vergé,
along with co-owner Alan Tutzer,
went through a long period of soul searching after their very popular
restaurant, the original Escargot which
opened in 1968 on North Halsted (see
its description in a precedent chapter on the 60’s), burned in the fall of
1979. Since it proved too much of a hassle to wait for insurance, permits,
inspections, redesign, before being able to actually start its reconstruction,
they preferred to come downtown in the spring
of 1980 and join the bustling
new dining scene that had been flourishing around Michigan avenue since the
mid-seventies. So, they set up shop in the ALLERTON
HOTEL in a space that was occupied for a few months by a not too attractive
dining-room called Theo’s. A very
competent designer, Jerome Eastman,
who had been a regular customer at l’Escargot
on Halsted, offered to completely redo the space. And his efforts, using to
their best the high ceilings, large curtained bay windows, big mirrors, wood dividers,
and nice banquettes, Paris street signs, and French posters, recreated a very
lively but comfortable French provincial mix of a brasserie and fancy country
auberge. Close to the entrance a beautiful old-style long French ‘’comptoir’
’covered with marble instead of zinc, with its bottles and glassware, could
have been coming from an impressionist painting.
In
fact, the entrance was on Huron, and the windows were facing that street too.
As
it was the case on Halsted Lucien was in charge of the kitchen, but made the
rounds often in the dining room to greet old regulars and a new generation of
business and media people, as well as well-dressed shopping ladies, who enjoyed
the very pleasant atmosphere and menu at lunch time.
Lucette was the always
attentive front guardian, and Alan
Tutzer was the competent and indispensable manager.
Lunch
time could be very busy and it was sometimes difficult to get a table without
reservation.
I
usually came later around 1:30 when service was a bit more relaxed to enjoy the
nice appetizers, such as terrific country pâtés and terrines, céleri-rémoulade,
the leek tart, and traditional ‘’cuisine bourgeoise’’ entrées such as coq au
vin, leg of lamb with flageolets beans, cassoulet, magret de canard, or calf`s
brains with black butter and capers. Fresh fruit tarts were delicious.
The
wine list always offered good Crus du Beaujolais, and reasonably priced small
Bordeaux.
In
the early 80’s you could have a complete lunch with some inexpensive wine for
around 12 dollars. Dinner was more expensive.
Unfortunately,
Lucien passed away in 1985. Alan Tutzer
and Lucette kept the restaurant afloat until the late 80’s, but the spirit
was gone.
FROGGY’s
306 N. Green Bay Road,
Highwood, IL
During the summer
of that year Christian Zeiger,
the successful French owner of Alouette
on Green Bay Road in Highwood since
1978, asked his 28 year old chef Thierry
Lefeuvre, a native of Brittany, who had started cooking at Alouette in January 1979, to move a few
blocks South to the same road to help managing the kitchen of his new French
restaurant, along with manager and partner Gregg
Mason.
33 years later Thierry Lefeuvre is still in charge of the kitchen at Froggy’s where
he is a partner of the owners Bill and
Sheri Cartwright.
The restaurant, which was called Froggy’s French Café in the 80s’ became
rapidly popular on the North Shore.
And in spite of the fact that, in its early
years, it did not take reservations, the place was packed most of the time at
night, with many regulars attracted back by very attractive reasonably priced
menus.
In fact Froggy’s for years kept a loyal
clientele that was not coming for the very minimalist décor which nowadays is
much more elaborate and comfortable than it was in the early 80’s, but for the
high quality of the cuisine, that was a perfect mix of classic French dishes
and contemporary creativity with obvious touches of “nouvelle cuisine”
especially noticeable in the light but flavorful mousses, sauces, and a very
precise treatment of fresh vegetables.
Lefeuvre, a native of Brittany, was a
master seafood chef, who excelled in exquisite scallop, mussels, salmon, pike (pike
and shrimp quenelles were very delicate), crab preparations, as well as
elaborate dishes such as stuffed sole with crawfish mousse, snapper Provençale,
or basil marinated smoked salmon. I remember an appetizer of fresh crab in
artichoke bottom that was delicious. But
he also excelled in traditional main courses such as magret (breast) of duck
served rare with its confit leg in a wine sauce, a very satisfying cassoulet, a
juicy herbed rack of lamb with a ragout of Mediterranean vegetables. The house
salads were always full of fresh vegetables in season. And the home-made desserts
such as chocolate or berries mousses, fruit tarts (apple or Mirabelle plums)
were ladies favorites.
Froggy’s service was very professional, and the
astute wine selection included good French regional bargains.
In the mid-eighties you could enjoy a complete
six course menu for less than 20 dollars.
CHEZ
CHOSE
3048 W.
Diversey Parkway, Chicago
In October,
Francis Leroux, already a veteran of
the French bistro scene in Chicago, whose Gare
Saint Lazare on Armitage was a favorite of many French expats in the early
70s, opened this strange bistro in an old 2-story modest but charming wooden house,
in a not too trendy neighborhood close to the Kennedy expressway. The space was
previously occupied by a New-Orleans style restaurant called the Cajun House and the Creole House many years before.
You had to ring the bell to enter. Then you had
to go to the 2nd floor “bar”, in fact a room decorated and furnished
with eclectic furniture. Then back downstairs to the small dining room where
the dishes served reflected Leroux’s elaborate cooking skills. At the time you could get a prix-fixe four
course dinner, that included a good salad, dessert and half a bottle of some
cheap French wine for around 20 dollars. Or you could have well prepared ‘’à la
carte’’ special entrées of the day for around 10 dollars. The prix-fixe dinners
could include Vol au Vent, scallops, a steak Bordelaise, bass in an herbed
sauce, or moules marinière. Leroux did a good job with his soups and vegetable
side dishes which were always fresh and out of the ordinary. Desserts were
classically prepared but not too sophisticated. But regulars came on Tuesdays for
the special of the day, a very tasty North-African lamb and chicken Couscous, made
from steamed wheat semolina served with vegetables, chickpeas, and the traditional
bowl of sauce along with the spicy Harissa, a paste-like condiment made from hot
pepper.
The place was of course very popular with
amateurs of value-oriented French bistro food. But i closed in the
mid-eighties. Eventually Leroux launched another bistro in 1989, Café du Midi on N. Damen that lasted
until 1997. Then Leroux became an instructor
at Kendall College.
LA TOUR
800 N.
Michigan, Chicago
This posh French restaurant located in the very
fancy Park Hyatt hotel (formerly
Water Tower Hyatt) was named after the historic Water Tower in the square that
it faced. This elegant place that could seat 110 customers had cost a little
fortune to redesign and redecorate with exotic African wildlife paintings,
plants, trees, sculptures and other motifs reminding you of the Henri (Le Douanier)
Rousseau. And having lunch, siting in comfortable armchairs, facing the tall windows
on a sunny winter day, was quite a visually striking experience. In fact, both
the excellent food and service contributed to give you the impression of living
and dining on a luxurious cruise ship. Everything was contributing to an
atmosphere of sophistication: The flowers, the furniture, the silver and
porcelain china, the beautiful crystal glassware, and of course the magnificent
wine rooms and its 3,000 bottles.
Jean-Pierre
Moraldo,
the French manager was a perfect host and, in its early days at least, I had
several occasions, during business lunches with French visitors, to enjoy French
chef Paul Laubignat’s, an alumnus
from Sofitel, very precisely
prepared and elegantly plated dishes. They were a balanced mix of Classic
French and Nouvelle Cuisine, with delicious seafood appetizers such as mousses,
aspics, cheese soufflés, exciting salads with lobster and fresh small
vegetables, game birds en croute, and main dishes such as ‘’magrets de canneton
au poivre’’, sweetbreads in a Calvados sauce, or perfectly grilled lamb chops.
I do not remember any specific desserts.
20 years later
in 2000 the main dining room was transferred to the 7th floor and
became Nomi, an equally if not even better restaurant.
LE CIEL
BLEU
181 East
Lake Shore Drive, Chicago
Located in the Hotel Mayfair Regent at this wonderful address, this was also a
typical example of that trend consisting for international large hotel chains
to create fancy French restaurants on their site. In this case the Mayfair was
part of a hotel group based in Hong Kong. But in Chicago its manager, a French speaking Swiss gentleman named Jacques Hamburger, with the help of a
famous NYC designer, put a real French classic touch to the décor of the 88
seats sunny (lots of windows and mirrors) and classy dining room on the 19th
floor with a grandiose view of the lake and the Gold Coast. Management also insured
a French classic tradition to its cuisine by hiring from France Michel Saragueta, a classically trained
French Basque executive chef. Michel
already had a long hotel cooking experience, including prestigious ones such as
The Savoy in London, the Plaza Athénée
in Paris, the Okura in Japan, and later at the Beverly Hills in L.A.
He offered the full spectrum of Haute and Bourgeoise
French dishes, all meticulously prepared, since Saragueta has always been a perfectionist professional: Vegetable
terrine, Coquilles St, Jacques à la Provençale, Frog legs in sauce Nantua, Dover
sole, Escalopes de veau à l’estragon (Veal scaloppini with a tarragon sauce), Salad
of Sweetbreads with artichoke bottoms and truffles, Calf liver, and great
French desserts such as the traditional Ile Flottante and Charlotte aux
fraises.
Prices were quite reasonable, especially at
lunch, for such a luxurious place.
It stayed open until the mid-eighties.
1981
LE RELAIS
50 East Oak, Chicago
In the late 70’s this
same address did not provided much luck to Roger Greenfield and his associates,
his glamorous bistro that should have been a success lasted only a few months.
A Swiss Wall Street broker named André Constantin came all the way from
New York to re-open the place as a French brasserie at street level, and a
disco-night club on the 2nd floor. The décor was very attractive and
contemporary, with banquettes, big mirrors, retro lamps with adjustable lights,
and typical small bistro tables.
I do not remember who was the chef, but Le Relais had found a good idea in offering
prix-fixe typical French bistro ‘’formulas’’ that included an appetizer, salad,
main entrée, a dessert and some beverage. You could enjoy dishes such as Cassoulet Toulousain, lamb chops, and
moules marinière, as well as chocolate mousse and éclairs. Prices were
reasonable: $ 16.00 to $18.00
The wine list was not very long but offered
decently priced regional French wines.
Unfortunately, the place did not last much
longer than its predecessors.
CARLOS
429 Temple
Avenue, Highland Park.
On a very balmy April night, on my wife’s
birthday, when we entered this small (about 55 “couverts”) but sophisticated
restaurant that had opened in December,
on the Eastern side of the railroad tracks, we had no idea that it would rapidly
becoming one of the best in the Midwest. We were immediately seduced by the
subdued, intimate elegance and subtle refinement of the place that was isolated
from the entrance by an art deco styled etched glass partition. Obviously, we
had not chosen a typical suburban storefront eatery. The décor was dominated by
beige, pink, and caramel colors, nice contemporary prints on the walls along
with indirect lighting, wood panels, and pretty bouquets of fresh flowers.
We were seated in a comfortable booth at a very
elegantly appointed table covered with white linen, where both the glassware,
the silver, and the porcelain (from Villeroy and Bosch if I remember correctly)
added a touch of traditional style that you would find in a good restaurant in the
‘’bourgeois’’ neighborhood of a large provincial French town.
Our gracious host, Carlos Nieto, the co-owner with his wife Debbie, who started his career as a busboy at L’Escargot, was for almost 10 years a captain at Le Français under Jean Banchet. And that experience showed in all the details of a
practically perfect service. At the time, we did not know who the chef was, but
after the superb dinner we enjoyed a lot, we rapidly inquired about him, a
certain Roland Liccioni. He was (and
still is in 2019) a very talented French chef, of Corsican and Vietnamese
origins, whom years later we met several times in other occasions and in other
venues and learned to appreciate even more from a personal standpoint.
The menu
in the early months of Carlos was limited, but that night we feasted on
perfectly prepared terrines, asparagus sauce mousseline, salmon en croute,
paillard de veau, (or perhaps that night I had ordered a magret of duck with
its leg), baby lettuce salad, and a sumptuous 3 chocolate dessert. The small
vegetables accompaniments, especially mushrooms, were particularly spectacular.
Roland Liccioni’s wife at the time, Mary-Beth, was about to become one of
the best pastry chefs in the country, and well recognized for her chocolate
creations.
The wine list was not very extensive but
extremely well selected with great reasonably priced Bordeaux.
I think that I paid around 80 dollars for that
meal including wine, espresso, taxes and tip.
Roland Liccioni stayed there until 1989, when
he took over Le Français. He was
replaced by Gabriel Viti, another
talented chef who had apprenticed in a few great 3 stars restaurants of France
and Switzerland, and eventually created other very popular restaurants in Highwood and Highland Park, Viti, Gabriel and Miramar.
In 2012 Carlos Nieto decided to completely
re-conceptualize and redecorate the place that morphed into Nieto’s, a more casual-American bistro.
As a result of that decision another icon of one of the most glorious and
creative period in French dining in
Chicago disappeared.
UN GRAND
CAFÉ
2300 N.
Lincoln Park West, Chicago
Richard
Melman got
himself another winner when this “très sympathique’’ hybrid of a traditional brasserie
that you would find in the 6th, 16th or 17th
arrondissement in Paris, and a more provincial restaurant of ‘’cuisine
bourgeoise’’.
Opened in
December
on the left side of the lobby in the Belden-Stratford
hotel it was facing Ambria on
the right side, and was supervised by Gabino
Sotelino, a partner of Melman in
both restaurants.
The restaurant rapidly attracted a crowd of
well-dressed Gold Coast young men accompanied by lovely, equally well-dressed,
young ladies, as well as more traditional executives from the advertising,
media, sport, and international business. And, during international trade
shows, it was common to hear people conversing from table to table in French or
Italian. This place was a favorite of my French visitors, and of my older son
who insisted to choose Un Grand Café for his birthday dinner for several years.
He still has a collection of all its menus.
The décor was really pleasant and comforting: a
mix of dark wood wall panels, mirrors, banquettes with racks for hats and
tables covered with white table cloth, and a vase containing fresh flowers. The
pleasant and knowledgeable waiters wore, in a very old Parisian brasserie
style, the traditional apron vest, black trousers and white shirt.
The
atmosphere was very European and
convivial and customers left the place in a good mood.
What I liked about the fare there is that it
was unpretentious, unfussy, bistro food that did not try to pretend that it was
prepared by a 3 star chef, or followed ‘’nouvelle cuisine’’ trends, but was
most of the time well-prepared with fresh products and reliable.
I particularly loved the terrines of duck or
rabbit, the vegetable mousses, the Mediterranean vegetable tart, the duck
confit or sautéed duck breast with sliced garlic sautéed potatoes, and the
sautéed chicken with very good ‘’pommes alumettes’’ (matchstick fries). My wife
always enjoyed the perfectly cooked grilled salmon or the traditional steak
frites and was very fond of the chocolate desserts. In the mid-eighties the
chef was René Bajeux and his
authentic French cuisine was really a plus to this charming bistro.
The wine list offered a few good and decently priced small Bordeaux, Beaujolais,
and a few Côtes du Rhône. And they had some very good Armagnacs and
Calvados.
I would pay around 32 dollars for a full meal
with wine and espresso around 1985.
The restaurant morphed into Mon Ami Gabi in the early 2000s and
became more of a Franco-American steak house. It was still good and popular the last time I went
there in 2013. Other Mon Ami Gabi were launched in Las Vegas in 1999, as well as in Bethesda, MD, and Reston
Virginia. Another one was also opened in Oak Brook, IL.
1982
JACKIE’S
2478 N.
Lincoln Avenue, Chicago
In my 42 years of restaurant dining in Chicago,
few places have instantly seduced me as much as Jackie’s when Jackie Shen,
who at the time was only 28 and known by her married name of Etcheber, opened her first restaurant. She
had emigrated from her native Hong-Kong in 1971 and after graduating from the
University of Houston had worked as room manager in a couple of hotels in
Chicago. But her passion was cooking and she learned the trade under Jean Banchet at Le Francais and La Mer,
and also at nearby Ciel Bleu in the Mayfair
Regent. At La Mer she worked along another
young promising chef, Jeff Jackson,
who helped her when she bought her own place on Lincoln avenue.
Jackie’s was not a big and
flashy dining room but rather a very refined and intimate one. All the
carefully chosen components, discrete but classy, such as the harmonious colors
of the walls, attractive paintings, impeccable tables settings with colorful
French china, a few antiques, and polished waiting staff, contributed to help
the diners to fully appreciate the serenity of the atmosphere and the
refinement of the dishes. In its first
two years the cuisine was definitely contemporary French, and the influence
of her mentor, Jean Banchet was
fully evident.
Obviously she had learned that great sense of
precision and quasi obsessive search of perfection from him. Her cuisine had
assimilated all the classic and very precise French techniques, a great respect
for first rate and expensive ingredients, and the art of plating and
presentation.
She magnified the “art on the plate” visual style
like few young French-trained American chefs of her generation could do. She was the first one in Chicago to perfect
the inventive approach of cooking with beautiful edible flowers. Many of
her sophisticated appetizers included Beluga caviar or smoked mussels. But she
had also acquired a great way of making all kinds of terrines and pâtés. Every seafood dish that she created was so close
to perfection, in spite of the risks that she was taking in her cooking and
assembling methods, that you would look at your plate for a while before daring
to take your fork to disassemble this sumptuous blend of flavors, colors, and
textures. Her Dover sole with a mousse
of scallops on a perfect feuilleté nest remained one of her most popular
signature dishes for years. Her duos
or trios of game meat, such as wild duck, pheasant, and quail, as well as her
famous duck in 2 services (magret +leg confit), were always perfectly cooked,
with great sauces, such as exotic pepper.
And I had never seen before such a maestria
with the garnishes of ‘’petits légumes’’ (baby vegetables), even when it was
difficult to find them in winter in the Midwest.
Progressively,
while keeping her French menu, she introduced some creative Asian touches to
her cooking.
This “fusion”, an homage to her
origins, remained more and more evident during the following years.
And I will never forget my wife’s awe and state
of bliss when we tried her famous chocolate bag, a square container made of
dark chocolate filled with a scrumptious mousse of white chocolate and red
berries, surrounded by a coulis of the same berries.
The wine list, composed with the help of her
then husband Pierre Etcheber, a
former wine steward from Le Français
who would himself open in 1985 his own restaurant, Café D’Artagnan, a couple of blocks away on Lincoln, had numerous
great small affordable Bordeaux.
In the early 80s a 3 courses dinner would cost
you, without wine and tip, around 26 dollars.
The restaurant closed in 1995 following a series of technical and personal
problems.
Jackie
Shen
from that time worked for other Chicago restaurants, Lawry`s Prime Rib, Red Light, Chicago Cut, Argent, and City Tavern, but
never owned her own place again. Our loss…
YOSHI’S
CAFÉ
3257 N.
Halsted, Chicago
Wen Yoshi
Katsumura and his wife Nobuko
opened this charming, intimate, and very good restaurant in what was not in
those days called “Boystown”, many people thought he was taking a big risk. The
neighborhood, just North of Belmont was far from being gentrified, and at night
was sometimes more often populated by homeless, drunks, and “bohemians” than
yuppies and fashionably dressed potential diners. But 32 years later, even
though it serves a completely different type of cuisine for completely
different types of customers, Yoshi was still cooking at this same address. But
the menu in 2014 was much more prosaic and answers the expectations of a wider,
younger, much less sophisticated and less ready to spend 2 hours and spend a
good deal of money for exquisite French food.
Even though he was Japanese, Yoshi in 1982 had
already built a solid reputation as a “French
chef” with an approach that I would say was half-way between classic French
and “Nouvelle” contemporary French, without gimmicks. He had learned French
cooking techniques in some of the best hotels in Japan, and he refined them
when he moved to Chicago and worked in places such as Le Bastille and Le Français. He then went to the very popular Jimmy`s Place on Elston where he was a
chef-partner for Jimmy Rohr for 4
years.
I had dinner at Yoshi’s twice in 1986 and 1987.
And I was totally in awe with the quality of his cuisine, the quality of his
ingredients, the precision of his cooking timing, and of course the elegance of
his food presentation.
The dining room itself was very small, less
than 50 seats, very comfortable, unpretentious but nicely decorated like a
French provincial inn, with white table cloth, French china and silverware, and
nice bouquets of fresh flowers. The menu was limited but very well balanced,
with about 7 or 8 appetizers, and the same amount of entrées including the
daily specials. Seafood was always Yoshi’s
best achievement, from his famous lobster bisque, to Dover sole Dugléré,
and in some of his own original creations such as seafood sausage, mousse, or
ravioli in a shrimp or lobster sauce. He was also excellent in his treatment of
mussels and scallops. And many customers would rave about his simple grilled
swordfish with a subtle light butter sauce.
I will keep a vibrant memory of his rich and
very well-seasoned pâtés, his perfectly cooked rabbit or duck specials, and of
his veal dishes, especially those with wild mushrooms such as chanterelles
which I love.
And his selection and presentation of very
prime quality vegetables, even in winter, was always remarkable.
The only dessert that I remember well was a
light but very rich flourless chocolate cake with a raspberry coulis.
His wine list was limited but very impressive
with good affordable Bourgognes,
Service was competent and unobtrusive.
Prices were reasonable for such a quality:
About 50 dollars for a 3 course dinner including wine and tip.
Yoshi passed away at
the relatively young age of 65 in 2015. Nowadays his daughter owns and manages
the restaurant.
1983
Note:
The two following restaurants were called French in several guides and reviews,
but I honestly do not think they could be classified as such, even if you could
here and there notice a French influence in some of their dishes.
LA
MAISONETTE
37
W. Main St., Cary, IL
I
never ate in that small storefront restaurant that Rolf Beisner, a former waiter at Alouette, one of the many French eateries created by Christian
Zeiger in Highwood, and his wife launched in March in this far away tiny
Northwest suburb. But the reviews I read at the time, especially one by Paul Camp in the Tribune, did not
incite me to make the trip there. It seemed to imply that this place’s supposedly
French cooking style was closer to the Americanized version that you could find
in some Chicago restaurants in the early sixties. Not bad but not really
creative either with the quality of the ingredients just so-so and the cooking
times totally inconsistent. Breast of chicken with lime, or veal kidneys in
mustard seed sauce, were not very exciting according to Camp.
But
the Duck breast in peppercorn sauce was fine. Food and wine prices though were
very reasonable though and attracted a good number of regulars. I do not know
when the restaurant closed its doors.
LA
MÊME CHOSE
5819 W. Dempster St. Morton
Grove, IL
When
Kim Chong who was at the same time
its owner, chef de cuisine, and manager of a rather fancy dining-room, opened
this place, I was skeptical in its early days of the chances of a hybrid
French-Contemporary American restaurant to be successful in the gastronomic desert
of Morton Grove. But I was wrong. The
combination of an elegant décor with comfortable booths, white cloth covered
tables, good quality china, silver, and glassware, and very reasonably priced prix-fixe dinner (about 17 dollars in 1985) rapidly
attracted and kept for several years a relatively sophisticated client base of
North Shore patrons.
Personally,
I thought that the décor was a bit too flashy. But my only visit there in 2005
convinced me that Chong, who had worked at the famous George Badonsky’s Tango for almost 10 years, had found a winning
formula. As it was the case at Tango, he was really in control with a good
selection of fresh and nicely presented seafood dishes as well as home-made
pasta. And his use of elegantly presented fresh vegetables in all styles and
combinations, including delicious purées, was very appealing to his clientele
of well-to do couples and older traditional executives. He really had a great
sense of colorful assemblages. And his sauces had definitely a “nouvelle
cuisine” touch. Most of his seafood presentations of classics such as Sea bass,
Salmon, Mousse of scallops, or Shrimps, were always pleasantly prepared.
His
pâtés and meat dishes, though were less successful. Desserts such as the always
popular flourless chocolate cake were fine. The wine list was also pleasant and
affordable.
But
as was the case of many new so-called French restaurants in those days, which
were not in the hands of French trained chefs, I personally would not call Mr.
Chong cuisine as typically French.
In
fact, as it was the case for La
Maisonette, I was very reluctant to include it in this list.
I
believe that this place closed in 1993.
MONIQUE’S CAFÉ
213 West Institute
Place
When Monique Hooker (née Jamet) opened this
very pleasant café in the fall of 83,
its location, one block North of Chicago avenue and just off Franklin St. was
not yet in a fancy district full of well-dressed and sophisticated Chicagoans foodies
in search of new exciting dining places.
Monique was a (too early) precursor of sort who realized that this neighborhood
of warehouses, and practically empty industrial buildings at the northern edge
of the not yet fully developed River North district offered a potential. If Kiki’s Bistro that opened in 1990 a few blocks North on Franklin, and is still in operation 28 years
later, was able to attract relatively rapidly an expanding client base, it was
because he has been in business in Chicago since 1968 and drained to his new
place a large part of his faithful customers from Le Bordeaux.
Monique
had never owned her own restaurant before but she already had a long and solid
background in the food and restaurant business and when she arrived in New York
from her native farmland of Brittany in 1965 she met and worked with some
well-established French chefs such as Jacques
Pépin and Pierre Franey.
Monique
did not benefit from local foot traffic, since there was none at the time
excepted for the students of the nearby Moody
Bible Institute who were not restaurant goers.
But
she managed to have a nice following of young and relaxed people, and former
students of her well-known cooking classes or customers of her catering
business. Her lofty space was very welcoming with a simple but warm rustic décor
of brick walls, old varnished wooden floors, a long counter, open kitchen, and
brightly painted large AC pipes on the ceiling. The room was airy and luminous
and the white table cloth and pots of fresh flowers contributed to a sunny
ambiance. And she was a cheerful host. The restaurant was open for lunch only, and the average cost was
$
15.00 for a main dish, a dessert and a glass of simple wine.
She
had some regulars who came to have a simple sandwich made from her excellent home-baked
bread and some French cheese or pâté.
The
food was also simple French bistro fare: good pâtés and terrines, salade
niçoise, coq au vin, beef and veal stews, duck, venison, salmon, pastries and
cakes.
Generally
the food was well prepared, but sometimes the cooking times were not always
precise. The café’s food style was not particularly in tune with the trends and
techniques of the Nouvelle Cuisine. But there was always a very pleasant
selection of fresh seasonal vegetables.
I went there for lunch a few times but it was
too far away from my office to walk there, and in these days I was looking for more
contemporary French and New American types of food.
I
think that the place closed around early
1996. But Monique continued her active life as a teacher, caterer, and in 1997 published a successful book ‘’Cooking
with the Seasons’’. She also hosted a TV show on cable in the Chicago area.
She
moved to the little town of De Soto in Wisconsin
where she produced her own organic frozen pastry crust for a while.
1984
LE BISTROQUET
253 East Rand Road,
Mount Prospect, IL
This
rather big room with a 180 “couverts” capacity, which represents quite a
challenge for a French bistro in the Northwest suburbs, was opened in July by Georges Cuisance, the genial owner of the popular Le Bordeaux in the Loop.
The
concept was to offer classic French cuisine with a modern “Nouvelle Cuisine”
lighter touch, with a limited menu but rich in fresh seafood, vegetables, in an
elegant but unpretentious décor. So, the restaurant fared well from the start
with appetizers such as escargots in the traditional butter-garlic sauce,
sautéed diver scallops in a mustardy cream sauce, duck terrine, onion soup, ratatouille
niçoise. Main dishes again were quite influenced by the sea such as a ‘’Vol au Vent’’ of tender bay scallops
with mushrooms in a saffron sauce. But classics such as ‘’sauté de veau aux
champignons’’ (veal sautéed with mushrooms) were also very popular.
More
than the steak-frites, that according to a 1984 Tribune review was not that
exciting which is surprising for a French bistro. But according to the same
reviewer, the mocha cake made by a French patissier who had worked at Le
Français was very good.
Kiki
himself was very active at the Mount Prospect restaurant every night, while keeping
a watchful eye on the operations at Le Bordeaux in the Loop from 11:00 AM to
3:00PM.
But
in spite of all his efforts and commitment, Le Bistroquet never became as profitable as expected. It was packed
on week-ends but empty during the week.
When the restaurant
closed it had not reached its second birthday.
LA
CIBOULETTE
1200 N, Dearborn,
Chicago
In
early 1984 when Michael Beck, one of the most gifted young American chefs of
his generation at the time in Chicago, opened his own ‘’French’’ restaurant on
the site of what was known before as Trumpets,
and long before that Le Café de Paris,
he already had a solid experience in French cuisine. After graduating from the
Washburn culinary school on the South side of Chicago, he did several
‘’stages’’(training periods) in France and at the Whitehall and eventually ended up as chef de cuisine at Le Perroquet under the celebrated owner
Jovan Trboyevic, who taught him a lot.
This
influence was noticeable during the first 9 months of operation, not only in
the settings and décor, sort of late 1930’s style, of this comfortable and
artsy place, but also with details of dishes such as aspics, unusual marinated
fish, exciting charcuterie such as duck rillettes, beurre blanc, fresh original
vegetable purées, mousses, use of fresh herbs, including ciboulette (for chives
in French) and rarely served meats such as rabbit. And the desserts often
included dark chocolate, delicate feuilletés, and fresh berries.
Unfortunately,
the restaurant suffered from 2 main problems: inconsistencies in both food preparation
and service, and overpricing for such an unpredictable quality.
Too
many disappointed customers fell out of love for this place which should have
been a success and La Ciboulette had
to close in 1986.
1985
CAFÉ
D’ARTAGNAN
2242
N. Lincoln Avenue Chicago
Opened
in August in the location formerly occupied by Café Figaro, this charming place could have become one of the most authentic
French bistros in Chicago if it had been managed a little more tightly and
lasted a little longer. It might have been more successful if it had been only
a wine bar with a few small plates. But this formula was not popular in these
days.
It
was the creation of Pierre Etcheber,
a native of the Pyrénnées Mountains area in Southwest France, who had spent
some time as a wine steward at Le
Français, which can explain the very wide and good selection of French
wines that he offered at D’Artagnan. He also at the time was still married to Jackie Shen, the brilliant chef-owner of Jackie’s a few blocks
North on Lincoln who was a co-owner and helped him a lot in the kitchen in the
early days.
It
was a very casual, small, unpretentious but cozy place where patrons took a
leisurely time, as it would have been the case in a provincial bistro in
France, to enjoy a well prepared dinner and taste good wines, many served by
the glass, and fine Armagnac. Service was good but slow, and in the summertime you
could eat outside on the small patio, a rare pleasure in these days.
The
chef, Stephen Langlois, had worked
briefly for Jean Joho when he
re-opened Maxim`s, and was very
creative. He had a solid technique and inventive ways to cooking beef, veal, duck,
or pork at a perfect level of doneness, with exciting but subtle sauces,
sometimes reduced with brandy and ‘’fond de veau’’. He was also very successful
with such typically French specialties as veal sweetbreads, calf liver, or
snails. The pâtés and terrines were very delicate but flavorful and the fish
dishes were very precisely cooked in the ‘’nouvelle cuisine’’style with beurre
blanc or beurre rouge. The quality and presentation of mini-vegetables was also
very Nouvelle Cuisine but properly cooked. Salads were often made of
interesting mixes of greens dressed with light mustardy vinaigrettes.
Prices
were very reasonable when considering the quality of the food and service.
But the restaurant ,for
reasons I have never been able to understand, closed after 2 years.
LES PLUMES
2044 N. Halsted St., Chicago
Opened
in June by two alumni of Le Français, Greg
Mulcahy who was a sous-chef for 6 years, and Tom Culleeney who ended up his stint there for the same amount of
time as pastry chef, the restaurant was quick to attract both Le Français
former customers, and younger food aficionados. Both were still in their late
twenties at the time. The small dining room, that you reached after a short
walk in a garden-like bar, had green banquettes, pink walls, skylight in the ceiling, and peacock feathers in big vases, used
to be occupied by Cynthia’s.
My
wife and I were immediately seduced not only by the décor and the ambiance, young
and contemporary as well as lively and intimate at the same time, but also by
the elegance and creativity of the dishes. But since we visited the restaurant
a few months after its opening, we were not that impressed by the service that,
even though the waiting staff was pleasant, was not as polished as the cooking.
The
classic French training he got from Jean
Banchet was obvious in Mulcahy`s cooking which reflected a perfect
technical control, and many customers, especially women, would fall in love
with Culleeney`s incredible pastries and mousses. He had studied at the famous Lenôtre pastry school in Paris.
Quail ‘’en croûte’’ with truffled goose liver, Dover sole stuffed in
lobster mousse in a delicate sauce
Nantua baked in puff pastry (again),
house-made fresh pasta specials, complex salads such as a seared magret de canard (duck breast) over Belgian
endive, and mushrooms dressed with a hazelnut vinaigrette, and those unctuous
pâtés (splendid duck with pistachios if I remember correctly.
Practically
everything was close to perfection. I loved the fact that Les Plumes offered a
refreshing sorbet between the salad and the main courses.
And
of course these spectacular desserts: White and dark chocolate mousse,
Dacquoise, chocolate trios, terrine of fresh fruits, hot apple tart in caramel
sauce, and so on.
The
wine list was very intelligently composed.
But
all this was not cheap: I think that with a modestly priced wine and 3 courses
each, I paid 75 dollars for the two of us.
The
restaurant which received consistently good reviews until 1990 had nevertheless
always suffered from a ‘’location’’ and overpricing problem and was never able
to secure a solid client base. Pat Bruno,
a couple of months before its closing wrote a very positive new review of the
restaurant in the Sun Times , even
saying that it was a better deal than Charlie Trotter’s but was overpriced and
not exactly answering the tastes and expectations of main stream but trendy
moneyed customers. He suggested that the owners morphed it in a lower priced
bistro.
They
did not and unfortunately Les Plumes
closed in early 1991.
L’AMANGUIER
1011 N. Rush St., Chicago
The
name of this short-lived (5 months) restaurant is a contraction of two French
words: Amandier (almond tree) and Mangue (mango). When it opened its door in September at his slightly lower than
street level unusual location, there were already 4 very successful L’Amanguier restaurants in the Paris
area. I used to go to the one in the delightful Rue Saint Louis en l’Isle and I
thought the food was good, even though the menu was a bit limited, especially
considering the very moderate prices. The décor in Chicago was similar: simple
and very “green”, including the carpet, banquettes, wall covering, placemats,
plants and flowers on trellises, even the outfits of the waiting staff. It made
the whole environment very luminous and cheerful. It was supposed to look like a winter garden,
which was a pleasant idea to attract Chicago’s diners…in winter when the
weather is dreadful. And there was an attractive bar counter. The manager was
French.
Why
its owner in Paris Patrick Derderian,
in partnership here with the powerful food and restaurant group Sodexo had decided to open his first U.S
restaurant, based on it Paris’s models, in Chicago will always remain a mystery.
The
menu followed the same “formule” found in many French brasseries, consisting of
an appetizer, and sometimes a salad, and a main course for one price, usually between
14 and 17 dollars. But there were “specials” changing every week. Appetizers could
be pâtés or duck mousse, quiche, warm goat cheese in puff pastry, or crab and
avocado salad.
And,
of course, you could finish with some French cheese or a dessert such as
home-made pastries, or ice cream and sorbets. They offered a few simple but
good French wines by the glass. As it was the case in Paris, main courses
consisted of Blanquette de Veau (veal stew), grilled lamb chops with provençal
herbs, sea scallops sautéed in butter with saffron, salmon in a beurre blanc ‘’
à l’estragon’’ (tarragon sauce), beef tenderloin, and magret de canard (duck
breast) in a reduced vinegar and green pepper sauce.
I
visited the place twice during its first month of operation and found the food
fine, but the ambiance was quite depressing due to the lack of customers, and
the absence of people passing by, which on Rush Street is a handicap.
The
restaurant was such a flop that it
closed its doors before the arrival of the spring in early 1986.
Too
bad. It should have been a success, but it did not fit the expectations of the
average Rush street diner, and was not sophisticated enough, too cheap, and the
menu was too limited to be accepted as a bona fide French restaurant.
AMERIQUE
900 N. Franklin St., Chicago
I
hesitated to include in my list this very original restaurant opened in September 85 in a very austere,
modernistic and cold concrete décor with black chairs and fluorescent lights on
the walls. The owner at the time was Jennifer
Newbury, a young chef who had spent some time in L.A and New York, and she
who was quite courageous to launch a restaurant in such an unattractive
building of lofts and offices in an even less attractive neighborhood 2 blocks
East from Cabrini Green, totally deprived of foot traffic.
The
first few months it struggled to avoid being empty during the week in spite of
positive reactions from the few customers who liked her traditional approach to
French cuisine bourgeoise with dishes such as cassoulet, sweetbreads, garlic
chicken, and purée de pommes de terre (mashed potatoes).
I
had lunch once there on during the winter of 1986 and I was the only customer in
a very cold and quite depressing dining room. I do not remember what I ate that
day but I know that it was good.
But
then Jennifer (Jenny) developed a durable personal relationship with Dennis Terczak who had established a
solid reputation as executive chef at
AVANZARE. He loved her so much that he quit this very lucrative job with
the Melman Group to come to Amérique
as chef de cuisine. He then completely morphed the menu into his own creative
contemporary-American-Italian style. Only a few touches of French cuisine were
left, which progressively disappeared long before it closed in June of 1988. The place was completely redone and
re-opened December 1st as a bona-fide French bistro called CHEZ JENNY. (See description later)
CHARDONNAY
2635 N. Halsted St.
Chicago
This
very popular and good restaurant opened first in March 1985 as a very small wine
bar by owner Mitch Dulin. Then
it started to offer a few small dishes and eventually expanded nest door to become
a full-fledged 70 seats restaurant in October.
In the early days there was also a small wine shop upfront.
At
that time the neighborhood had attracted several other bars and restaurants and
had become a popular destination for diners.
The
definitively French-styled cooking of chef Charlie
Socher, who had learned traditional as well as more “ nouvelle cuisine” French
techniques in several restaurants in Paris
and later at the celebrated Ambria
in Chicago was at the same time unpretentious and creative, and in any case
very good.
So
in a matter of just a few months Chardonnay
became a much appreciated French bistro that a growing numbers of regulars
loved for its value-priced French
cuisine and its great selection of good wines, many of them French and served
by the glass for less than $5.00.
The
décor was nothing to write home about but had charming small bistro marble-covered tables, amusing mural paintings, and of course
wine racks.
Later
on, during the summer months, a few diners could eat outside on small patio in
the back of the restaurant.
The
waiting staff was well trained and offered lots of pertinent info and good
pairing advice to the customers. They eventually served dinners
I
personally dined there only once, but I will always keep a happy memory of the
great “terrine de lapin” (rabbit pâté) that was a rare find in Chicago in these
days. As a matter of fact you could order a selection of 3 very good pâtés with
excellent condiments and garnishes for $ 4.50.
But Socher’s most popular appetizers were several
hot ones in puff pastry, ‘’moules marinière’’ (steamed in white wine, onion,
herbs, and spices), and vegetable mousses.
The
relatively short menu changed every week, but always included some very fresh
and precisely cooked fish, grilled or in a delicate wine or calvados sauce,
chicken in very original sauces, some pasta such as ravioli stuffed with wild
mushrooms, and red meat such as grilled lamb steak, or veal liver.
All
the vegetable accompaniments were always perfectly cooked, very flavorful, and
their visual presentation attractively plated.
I
do not remember much about the desserts but a few reviewers raved about a
glazed strawberry tart covered with white chocolate.
In
1986 you could have a 3 course dinner for less than $18.00
From
1997 to 2010 Charlie Socher operated
another very popular French bistro on Milwaukee Avenue called Café Matou.
Chardonnay
closed in 1989.
LE COCHONNET
3443 N. Sheffield,
Chicago
Open
in late winter 2005 this is another 60
seat bistro that immediately gained a solid customer base. It remained popular
for 6 years in this bustling Lakeview district, just 2 blocks South of Wrigley
Field, an area recently gentrified but that however at the time had not
attracted any French restaurant. The 3
owners were Robert Parraga, whose family had a restaurant in Cuba specializing
in roasted pig, Dave Korslund, a banker, and his brother Doug. The 2
brothers had spent their youth on a pig farm so they decided to name the place Cochonnet, which means “piglet” in French.
The 3 partners had a good intuition in hiring Margaret Wangelin as their first chef. She was only 28 but had
already a good background in French cooking with stints at Monique Café and Le
Bastille after working at Gordon. And it did not take long for her to create
all kinds of pork--based recipes with a French touch such as Provençal
marinade, garlic, rosemary, tomatoes, walnuts, or prunes.
So, you would always find pork dishes on the
menu such as pork roast, grilled pork sirloin, pork chops, pork sausages, and
of course delicious pâtés and rillettes.
Since
pork dishes were not very frequent on Chicago restaurant menus in 1986, Maggie
Wangelin was 25 years ahead of what became a trend here in 2011.
Other
popular dishes in the early years of Le
Cochonnet were ratatouille niçoise, salmon and grouper in beurre blanc, a
rich cassoulet in its earthenware crock, and lamb chops.
Years
later, you could also eat Bouillabaisse, shrimp and mushroom raviolis, stewed rabbit,
and Mediterranean pasta dishes.
Most
wines were French and quite affordable, especially by the glasIn 1986 you could
have a complete dinner with some wine for less than $25.00
The
décor was simple but pleasant.
In
late 1990 the owners bought an adjacent place called ‘’Vaudeville’’ and morphed it in a small annex to le Cochonnet called
simply A Côté (Next Door in French).
Le Cochonnet closed in
1991.
1986
THE EVEREST ROOM
440 South Lasalle
St. 40th Floor, Chicago
Jean Joho has been one of the
most celebrated French chefs in the U.S. over more than 30years. But his first
2 years in Chicago when he arrived from France during the summer of 1984 to be
the executive chef at the famous Maxim’s,
on Astor St. which closing for a
while was being re-launched by George
Badonski were rather frustrating. He was practically given carte blanche to
do what he wanted at Maxim’s, and sure enough the restaurant critics and
wealthy ‘’gastronomes’’ were fast to recognize the extraordinary talent and
prodigious technical skills he had acquired as a sous-chef of the great Paul Haeberlin at his world-famous Auberge de L’Ill in Illhaeusern, at the heart of his native
Alsace. As a matter of fact Joho
spoke little English at the time and his Alsatian accent was, and still is
today, very pronounced and quite charming when he spoke in French.
Problem
was that his type of cuisine, and his requirements were not cheap, at a time
where many people in Chicago were not often ready, in a period of tough
economic realities, to spend top dollars for a spectacular French meal.
And even if Badonski was a great Chicago restaurateur, with a vision that
allowed him to put many successes behind his belt (Brewery, Tango, Bastille, George’s,) he was not always the
shrewdest money manager. He had spent a fortune to restore Maxim’s, hire the
best staff, buy the best food products wine and liquor, and suddenly he was not
only facing serious cash problems but also an unexpected lawsuit from Pierre Cardin, who had bought the
original Maxim`s in Paris, and its trademark. So, Maxim’s Chicago had to close less than 2 years after its
re-opening, and Jean Joho found himself to be an expatriate without a job.
Fortunately
his reputation attracted the interest of Richard
Melman who hired him first as a consultant and then in the summer of 1986 offered him the challenging job of creating 2
restaurants, one grill on the 3rd floor and a top-notch French restaurant
in the ultra- private and select LaSalle
Professional Club, that offered full business and spa-exercising services on
the 40th floor of the One
Financial Place building. Both were under the management of LEY (Lettuce Entertain You), Melman’s ever growing mini empire.
The
first few months were a bit rough, since the access to the EVEREST ROOM was reserved to the members of the very chic but very pricey
club. And it was not sufficient to
create a solid customer base. So progressively friends and connections of the
members were welcomed as paying guests, and a bit later the restaurant opened
to the general public. It was quite a trip to access the restaurant on the 40th floor, involving using 3 different elevators from the
parking in the basement. And when you entered the bar, the main dining
room, you could not help but to be visually shocked by the design of the carpet
that imitated the pattern of the skin of a panther or leopard. Besides the
walls were partially covered with murals depicting exotic animal usually hunted
in Africa.
But
once you were seated you were amazed by the high quality of the furniture, the
large tables, their white cloth, the china, the sterling, the glasses, the
flowers. Everything was pure European luxury.
The
first time I went there, in the early days of the club in the summer of 1986, for
lunch with a friend, who like Joho was an Alsatian, I was totally captivated by
the Chicago landscape that you could admire from the very high and wide
windows. We got a complete tour of the facilities from Jean Joho who then
served us a most delicious meal where foie gras, veal, salmon en croute,
mushrooms, and vegetable mousse as well as cheeses, were very impressive.
And
of course, I never had such a delicious
Alsatian Riesling from one of Joho’s winemaker friends.
Over
the year the menu expanded a lot, but one of its stars was the famous Supreme de Saumon Soufflé Paul Haeberlin, an homage to his mentor, which consisted of scaloppini
of salmon covered with a delicate pike
mousse poached in wine and served with a reduction of pan juices with cream,
butter, and lemon.
But
several very delicate fish were found at the Everest such as the roasted filets of Saint-Pierre (John Dory) wrapped
in a julienne of potatoes. And many critics raved about his Pot au feu of
Lobster and micro vegetables.
Speaking
of vegetables the variety and quality of the ones he served as garnish or as
per-se dishes was incredible.
Joho
also was a master of the risotto, one served with deboned quail and mushrooms.
In
season venison was always on the menu in some kind or another.
And
I think that his pears, poached or in a
soufflé with an Alsatian Poire William brandy, or in a sorbet form, were among
the best I ever had.
It
would take pages and pages to describe all the remarkable dishes that came out of
this amazing kitchen over the last 30 years. And it is not over yet.
And
as I mentioned before, Everest’s selection of Alsatian Rieslings, Gewurztraminer,
and ‘’alcools blancs’’ (clear fruit
brandies) was as good as what you could find in some of the best restaurants in
Strasbourg or Colmar.
As
expected, prices were not cheap, but as we say in France “La qualité n’a pas de prix’’.
LA FORET
Westminster and Forest avenues
Lake Forest, IL
I
will always regret to never had an opportunity to dine at this restaurant which,
in late fall, took over the space left empty when Gordon Sinclair (Gordon’s) decided in mid-1986 to call it quits
with his SINCLAIR, which was quite
popular at one time with the locals. Carlos
Nieto, the owner of CARLOS in
Highland Park, made a deal with Marshall Field IV to manage a new restaurant
which after some redecorating was going to be a French bistro.
He
hired Didier Durand, a very good
‘’cuisinier’’ born and trained in Southwest France, who had done a very good
job as chef at Carlos, and eventually at La
Bohème, and another French pro who had been working with Nieto at Le
Français , Jean-Pierre Leroux to
manage the dining room.
The
menu was not at all designed in the same style as Carlos. It was rather a
perfect picture of what sophisticated dinners on the North Shore would like to
find in Lake Forest when they came back from their annual French vacation:
Amuse-bouche of salmon or pâté on mini French baguette toasts.
Assortment
of house made ‘’ravioles’’ filled with mushrooms, lobster, or vegetable mousses.
Shellfish with basil sauce, Salade of Magret de Canard. Veal medallions with a
sauce of reduced cooking juices and port wine and vinegar. Rack of lamb with mini
vegetable purées.
2
of the most desserts were the Marquise au Chocolat and the Nougat glaçé.
Service
was very attentive and prices quite attractive. You could have a 3 course
dinner for 2 not including wine but with coffee for about $ 60.00
I
believe that the restaurant closed in the summer of 1988. At that time the chef
was another Frenchman, René Bajeux.
1987
St. TROPEZ
3170 N. Sheridan,
Chicago
Opened
in early 87 in the space occupied by George
Badonsky’s beloved Tango, at the street level of the Belmont Hotel, this restaurant offered
many assets. The place had been totally renovated, rebuilt and redecorated and was
now comprised of two dining rooms separated by a glass wall and a big bar where
you could see paintings while waiting for your table. The whole space was airy
and luminous, and altogether nicely appointed and comfortable. It was rumored
that the whole operation had a hefty cost for the partners. I personally did
not like the two murals which were a bit tacky and their colors too aggressive.
I went there only once for a business dinner which was enjoyable.
The
French chef, Guy Petit, had some classic
training at the Plaza Athénée in
Paris, and was previously in charge of the kitchen at Cricket’s after a stint at Maxim’s
in Chicago.
The
wait staff, under the direction of Maitre
D’ Jean-Pierre Lutz was competent and cheerful, and the prices modest. And
last but not least, after a short period of adaptation in the early months,
according to some reviewers, the food was rather pleasant.
It
was not trendy, nor Nouvelle Cuisine, but at the same time rather classic and contemporary
French with some Asian and Mediterranean touches: Snails and mussels with pesto
or ginger sauce. Grilled shrimps in a Dijon mustard light sauce. I loved the
very tasty and very French Rabbit braised with bacon, mushroom, and onions, in
a fragrant sauce over noodles. The breast of chicken Basquaise, meaning with
peppers, tomatoes, and onions was quite good too.
All
main courses include a pleasantly dressed salad, and good seasonal steamed
vegetables.
Desserts
were typical of this period: Flourless Chocolate Cake with a raspberry coulis,
thin warm apple tart with a caramel sauce, and crème brûlée.
The
wine list was well made with several reasonably simple French Bordeaux and
Côtes du Rhône.
With
a couple of glasses of wine, a 3 courses dinner, would cost about 25 to 30
dollars per person.
I
believe however that the restaurant’s relatively low turnover did not allow the
investors to recoup their initial investment fast enough, and it closed its doors after only 1 year.
CAFÉ
DE PARIS
5550
N. River Road, Rosemont, IL
It
was launched in the spring at the SOFITEL
hotel, the first of this famous French chain that the very large ACCOR Group opened in the Chicago area
in the vicinity of O’Hare airport.
Its
relatively large and elegant (in the old traditional large European hotel
style) dining room was sort of partitioned in 3 different areas allowing
semi-private business dining parties.
White
cloth-covered tables, comfortable upholstered chairs, indirect lighting,
artwork, fine porcelain, good crystal stemware, and French silver contributed
to the opulent feeling.
Service
was professional and discrete.
The
executive chef, Christian Gaborit had
come to Chicago to work as sous-chef-saucier at MAXIM’s in 1963, where he
stayed for 5 years. But he had already a solid background since he had worked in various famous restaurants
in Paris at the hotels Crillon and Lutetia.
The
menus he created at Café de Paris where
he was in charge of the kitchens for 23 years, were made of typical dishes
that you would find in this kind of international hotels, but with that
additional ‘’French touch’’ revealing his traditional training.
But
occasionally, according to various reviewers, some dishes would miss the mark
in terms of cooking time precision, or adequate seasoning.
Nevertheless,
I had a couple of nice business dinners with French visitors, who were
impressed by Gaborit’s fancy treatment of shellfish and seafood dishes in
general, and crayfish and salmon mousses in particular.
I
remember that I ate some very nicely cooked lamb chops.
The
wine list was adequate but not spectacular.
A
3 courses meal, with wine tax and tip, would send the bill to $ 65.00 per
person. It seemed a little high to me considering the good but not above average
quality of the meal.
BISTRO 110
110 East Pearson St.
Chicago
The
opening in August of this large and
very attractive restaurant in the space where the old BLACKHAWK had become a cherished Chicago institution for decades was an instant success that remained
constant for 24 years until its closing in 2011.
The
owner of the Blackhawk, Don Roth,
had given his flagship restaurant to his son Doug, who was dreaming of finding local partners with a bona fide
success story in the restaurant business to completely transform and expand the
place in an attractive and trendy contemporary bistro that would attract both
wealthy and well-known Chicagoans, but also out of town visitors.
Larry and Mark Levy, whose family owned and managed more than 25 restaurants and
catering organizations in Chicagoland, were more than happy to become Doug’s
partners to help develop a new concept in this prime location. Larry Levy, who
was not a fan of French cuisine, on a trip to Paris, changed his mind after a
few visits to L’AMI LOUIS, who
partially served as a model for the future new bistro.
He
also consulted with Tony Mantuano,
who was very successful with SPIAGIA, the
flagship restaurant of the LEVY’s GROUP.
Mantuano helped in designing and
testing a menu that would be simple, rustic, very flavorful, with Italian and
French touches, and whose most components would be cooked in 3 wood-burning ovens. During the first
months he also supervised the kitchen which at the time was directed by Chef Peter Schomman.
Everybody
loved the roasted whole head of garlic
that was served as a complimentary appetizer with slices of French baguette.
And
at night the baked foie gras, marinated in Cognac was a very rich and aromatic
first course.
Dishes
such as a roasted half chicken with garlic and herbs became a signature dish in
a few weeks. Lamb (sometimes served with couscous), chicken, rabbit, salmon,
and fresh vegetables as well as mushrooms, all cooked in oak-burning ovens,
were very successful. But another signature dish, to keep the old Blackhawk
tradition, was a large rib steak for 2
which was served with grilled vegetables and marvelous thin cut French fries,
which I personally loved.
The
too liberal use of herbs and garlic was objected by some reviewers and out- of-
visitors.
The
apple tart and a trio of chocolate mousses were sure dessert winners.
The
menu took a definitely more French style with the arrival of French chef Dominique Tougne, in August of 1996, who remained at the piano
until 2011. It added a definite plus to the already well-established reputation
of the bistro.
The
prices were very reasonable. In 1987 a
complete dinner for 2 without wine would cost $ 55.00.
The
wine list was also very affordable. However I never understood why they served
wine in very ordinary thick small glasses that in France would be used in
cafeterias…
D&J BISTRO
466 South Rand Road, Lake Zurich, IL
In
October 1987, along with his wife Jacqueline who was a most gracious
hostess and efficient front manager (the
D and J letters are the initials of their first names) Dominique Legeai opened this
most charming and very lively bistro in a non-descript strip mall that was not
exactly a destination place. He asked Tokyo-born Masato Suzuki, who was the sous-chef
to Pierre Pollin at le Titi de Paris,
and who had a very good training in some
good restaurants in France, to join them as chef and partner. They stayed
on Rand Road but a few miles North from Le Titi.
I
had met Dominique Legeai when he
took care of my table at Le Titi, in 1976 (or 77) and was a most helpful and pleasant Maitre D’ and wine steward there. I
remember that he sported a Scottish tartan patterned vest, or perhaps it was a
jacket, which looked strange to me in a French restaurant.
The
Legeai’s and Suzuki were a dynamic trio which contributed to the very long
lasting success of what probably at the time was one of the few authentic and inexpensive Fench bistros in the Northwest
suburbs of Chicago. It was still in operation n in 2016 and kept attracting
a faithful group of locals with interesting events, such as the celebration of
D day. In the late 80’s the bistro was looking a little bit like a rustic
French provincial inn with its varnished wood floors, brick walls, murals and
posters, and small portioned booths. But it was pretty large compared to
regular bistros since it could seat 130 customers.
Unfortunately,
it was a little far away from the Loop for me to go there often, but I remember
that I had a memorable lunch once when I had to visit a company in Barrington.
The
wait staff was knowledgeable and enthusiastic. And the whole operation was well
organized as to please a Francophile suburban crowd, which always felt welcome
and appreciated the congeniality of Dominique Legeai. D&J was not trying to
attract to Lake Zurich downtown sophisticated groups of demanding gastronomes.
Suzuki’s cooking was
sufficiently creative but alternated with nicely prepared French classic dishes:
Appetizers such as steak Tartare, escargots, duck liver mousse with all kind of
condiments and accoutrements, salade Lyonnaise, shrimp cake, fresh oysters in
their shells.
And
the main dishes were as diverse as Bouillabaisse, a garlicky leg of lamb, pork
chops in a honey and mustard sauce, sausages with lentils served in small cast
iron skillets, and steak au poivre with good fries.
Some
“specials” could include a small fillet of ostrich with cactus or walleye pike
with tomato and basil and risotto. Later you could also find “brandade”. And for a while they served traditional North-African Couscous on
Sundays. But that was part of a special $ 29.50 menu including appetizer
and wine.
In
1997 you could have a 3 courses
prix-fixe menu fort $ 23.00.
Desserts
were classic French: Profiteroles, chocolate and raspberry mousse cake, crème
brûlée, and rum-raisin pudding,
More
than 20 wines were offered by the glass for about $ 5.00, and many good French
wines were value-oriented
Dominique,
his 2CV Citroen and his historical
costumes and Masato are still around in 2016 but I believe that Dominique’s
children are now managing the
restaurant.
ENTRE NOUS
200 N. Columbus Drive,
Chicago
This
very fancy restaurant opened in December
of 1987 in the new Fairmont Hotel.
I
read that it was probably the most expensive investment per customer in
furniture, table cloth, silver, tableware, glassware, flowers, etc. ever made
in a Chicago restaurant, since the early sixties. In its 2 first years the menu
was obviously very French inspired, and the wine list included some very
impressive and expensive French châteaux from Bordeaux and grands crus from
Bourgogne. The service was performed by tuxedo-clad waiters, and a pianist
played from a grand at night. I believe that the rare reviews mentioned that
the place was perfect for romantic dates, high level business deals, but not
for the average conventioneer or lunching lady.
Since
it was located 2 blocks away from my office, I went a couple of times to take a
look at the place and thought that the ambiance was very depressing.
The
menu was very ‘’international luxury hotel’’ type, with lots of truffles,
oysters, lobster, tenderloin, pheasant, reduced sauces, ‘’en croûte’’kind of
stuff , if I remember correctly.
I
have a vague memory of a good business lunch there once when it was still open
for lunch in 1988, but I do not remember what I ate, perhaps a lamb dish.
At
the time the head chef could have been
John Coletta who had some great
training in a few famous kitchens, such as Ducasse’s
Le Louis XV in Monte Carlo, and Robuchon in Paris.
In 93 they brought in a German chef, Norbert Bomm, who created
a much more ‘’continental’’ and less expensive menu. But around 1999 the Chicago dining scene had changed. People wanted
more ‘’fun’’ relaxed and inexpensive restaurants.
Besides, the taste for fancy hotel dining was
declining rapidly, The Fairmont management decided to close ENTRE NOUS in August of 2002 and replaced it one year later with ARIA a more contemporary concept.
1988
JEAN CLAUDE
2242 N. Clark St.
Chicago
Jean-Claude Poilevey was one of the 6 cooks
and restaurant professionals who were brought
from France in 1968 by Arnie Morton to
come to the U.S to open the restaurant at the Playboy Club in Lake Geneva, WI. The
5 other chefs were Jean Banchet, Michel Maloiseau, Michel
Cipolla, Claude Petit, and Gérard Parrat.
In
1973, Poilevey and two partners (Eric Krohmer and Daniel Gautier) had opened La Fontaine, at the same address on
Clark, a delightful restaurant that
offered a perfect mix of classic and contemporary French cuisine and service.
It used to be one of my favorite restaurants in Chicago and its success lasted for
more than 15 years. In 1986 the restaurant added the small CAFÉ DU PARC to the old red brick
building, a French bistro with a charming outdoor café with French fare at moderate
prices. However, it did not prove to be a perfect formula.
In
1987 Poilevey bought the shares of his two partners and became both the single owner and chef of JEAN CLAUDE which
opened in February of 1988.
I
never had the opportunity to eat there but I regret it since Jean Claude was a very good chef, with a
solid background in traditional cuisine Lyonnaise (his area of origin), but
also with a well-balanced contemporary approach. Poilevey got some first-class training
at the famous Greuze restaurant in Tournus.
Jean-Claude
benefited from generally positive reviews from both the Sun Times and the
Tribune. They liked the décor of the 4 intimate dining rooms, which could
remind you of an elegant French country inn, the terrace, the good quality of the silver and glassware, the
flowers, the elegance of the plating which I personally enjoyed so many times
at La Fontaine.
Many
of the dishes they liked were familiar to me: The sautéed chicken with garlic and
thyme. The creamy potato Gratin Dauphinois. The cold salmon terrine, and of
course the delicious pâtés, especially the duck and rabbit terrines. Jean-Claude
in those days was one of few restaurants in town to offer a rabbit stew. I
understand that the fries accompanying the traditional Steak-frites were very
good. So were the Cassoulet, the Duck Bigarade, and the great lamb chops that
he already served at La Fontaine.
And
he had kept the rich flourless chocolate cake and the apple tart.
You
could have a 3 course dinner,
without wine, but with tax and tip for about $55.00.
Poilevey
sold the restaurant in 1993. The new
owner called it Margaux, but it did
not last very long.
Poilevey was going to renew
with success a little later with his 2 new bistros, LE BOUCHON, and LA SARDINE which are still in business in 2018.
Sadly, Jean-Claude Poilevey passed away
in 2016.
AMOURETTE
2275 Rand Road, Palatine
IL
Veteran
and always successful French restaurateur Christian
Zeiger (Le Titi de Paris, Alouette,
Froggy’s, and Le Domarais in Paris) decided to locate this new bistro in February 1988 in the building where he had launched the very popular Titi in 1972. He had sold it to his
chef Pierre Pollin who moved the
restaurant in larger quarters in Arlington
Heights in early 1998.
The
space was modernized with the adjunction of wicker chairs and the walls were
painted in bright colors.
Being
a good marketer Zeiger sent newsletters to his customers, many of them
returning old regulars of Le Titi, informing them of the often new or special
dishes on the menus and of special events and annual parties. He recreated the very successful prix-fixe $ 14.50 four
course dinner formula during the week that he had launched at Alouette. The
menu changed every week but some “standard dishes” were always available such
as pâtés, cheeses, escargots, duck confit, steaks, grilled chicken, salmon,
rack of lamb, always served in good portions with attractively selected
seasonal vegetables. Special salads of mixed greens, potatoes, haricots verts,
tomatoes and avocado were also very well prepared with a typically French emulsified
vinaigrette dressing. Good quality
oysters were often available in season.
The
first year Zeiger had hired the sous-chef from Alouette to be the chef, and he
was able to not only prepare good savory dishes but also fine desserts such as
fruit mousse cakes and almond tarts.
Many
decent French regional wines were served by the glass at bargain prices.
In
1988 you could have a very pleasant 4
course (including salad) dinner with tax and tip, with a glass of wine for less
than 30 dollars. Amourette closed in
1992.
LE PRINCE
323 East Wacker Dr. Chicago
When
this superb restaurant opened in October
1988 at the lower level of the SWISS GRAND HOTEL (later renamed Swissotel) on this dead end portion of
East Wacker Drive, I was very excited with great gustatory expectation. The
owners of the hotel, Swissair and Nestlé, had asked Louis
Outhier, a man for whom I had a
lot of admiration, to consult in creating the restaurant, and design its menus.
From
1954 to 1988, Outhier had been one of the most creative and respected chefs and
restaurateur of France with his extraordinary L’OASIS, in La Napoule on the Riviera who was awarded 3 Michelin stars in 1970. Outhier
decided to go in a semi-retirement and to close the restaurant 1988, while
looking for a new chef-owner he had selected to take over which took 3 years to
materialize.
In the meantime, Outhier consulted on the
launching of several big hotel restaurants in Japan and in the U.S (New York
and Boston).
I
was lucky to be invited for dinner at Le Prince in November 1988 and I was
quite impressed by the whole thing: Décor, food, and service.
In
fact it was perhaps one of the best
meals I ever had in a restaurant in Chicago. The dining room, with
different eating areas separated by big pillars on 2 levels, projected an image
of subdued but classy elegance. It was not very spacious and could seat only 80
guests. There was enough space between
tables to allow private discussions, and the plush but not flashy comfort,
especially when seating in one of the few booths for two, and the soft but
creative lighting, created a luxurious dining environment. Of course, the
silver, crystal glassware, white china, table serving plates and utensils were
of prime and tasty quality. And the staff was extremely attentive, sometimes a
bit too much perhaps, and eager to make sure that everything was meeting your
highest expectation.
The
very gifted chef de cuisine was Hervé
Guillaume, a protégé of Louis
Outhier, who had spent 12 years in some of the best hotel kitchens of Tokyo
including Hotel Okura. He eventually
became the general manager of L’Atelier de Joel Robuchon, when it
opened in 2005 in the MGM hotel in Vegas. Guillaume assisted Outhier in the creation of the original menus in
the beginning and then supervised all the actual kitchen`s operations.
The
menus were supposed to change according to what was available in each season. There
were two prix-fixe options, one at $ 55.00 for 3 courses, and a ‘’degustation”7
course menu at $70.00.
The
choice of appetizers, main dishes, and very attractive desserts was quite
large. You could even choose some good
French cheeses, a rare option in Chicago in those days.
I
remember the ‘’Salade Composée d’Automne’’ a sumptuous affair that included,
besides fresh greens and wild mushrooms, slices of fresh pan seared foie gras, and
truffles dressed in a very lively vinaigrette.
But
you could also start with oysters poached in Champagne, incredibly fragrant
soups, and duck or scallop mousses in brioche.
Some
of the most spectacular entrées were the Lobster in a gingery cream sauce, Sea
bass sautéed with a coulis of beets, Magret de canard in an Armagnac reduced
sauce, Roasted lamb with Provençal herbs. The accompanying vegetables, or crispy
potatoes sautéed in butter, were very artistically plated.
The
stars of the dessert list were usually based on fresh fruit, such as the
Charlotte.
The
wine list was not as varied and original as you would expect in such a classy
restaurant and most French wine were pricey.
The
major handicaps of this fine place were its poor not easily accessible location,
the fact that it was not on the main floor of the hotel, and that its existence
was neither posted clearly outside or inside the hotel, nor advertised. Besides
it was really too expensive for the average Chicago gourmet diner.
The restaurant closed 9
months after its opening in July 1999.
COCORICO
1960 North Clybourn,
Chicago
This
spacious and very congenial ‘’brasserie’’, meaning a place larger than a bistro
but less formal than a restaurant, was launched in October1988. The 2 partners
were Louis Retailleau who for years was the owner of Louis Bon Appétit
,a very popular restaurant in Crown
Point, Indiana, and Karl-Heinz
Granitza, a well-known German-born
soccer and former Chicago Stings star player. Their respective wives, Christel Retailleau who managed the daily
operations front, and Roswitha Granitza,
were also partners in the business.
Located
in an old renovated manufacturing plant from
the 1920’s on Clybourn, which at
the time was not yet the very busy and trendy ‘’commercial corridor’’ it has
become, the place was a spacious, airy space
on 2 or 3 levels, whose wooden floors, and beams, large windows, and halogen lights, were contributing to the warm,
luminous and very casual atmosphere.
The open kitchen also helped to make the
guests feel comfortably relaxed and at home.
The warm personal greetings given by Granitza to every arriving customer,
as Retailleau, or John Vlandis, when he was in Crown
Point, stayed in the kitchen supervising the cooking, was also helping to
create a cheerful ambiance. On good nights the restaurant could seat 160
people.
Cocorico
is the French equivalent of ``cock-a-doodle-doo’’ meaning the crowing sound
of a rooster. And the rooster, often called ‘’ Le Coq Gaulois’’ is the national
emblem of France. So, the first thing the new customers was the presence of
more than a hundred of roosters in all sorts of shapes and materials, all over
the place, including on the uniforms of the wait staff.
The
food was typically French, well prepared, and very reasonably priced:
Escargots, Moules marinières, pâtés, onion soup grâtinée, salmon mousse, Roasted
chicken or Basquaise, Cassoulet Toulousain, Bouillabaisse, Steak frites¸ angel
hair pasta with goat cheese, marinated and roasted monk fish, steamed salmon in
a basil sauce, Duck au Grand Marnier.
The
whole brasserie repertory was there. The
vegetables were fresh and some pasta or couscous accompaniments were often
available. The desserts were also quite
tasty: Profiterolles, Baked Alaska, strawberries in puff pastry.
The
wine list offered French, German, and Californian wines at very affordable
prices.
You
could have a complete meal with wine for
two for $50.00.
The restaurant closed
in late spring of 1991 after the mysterious disappearance of Granitza to Europe
that generated many dramas, business and family ones, and ruined Retailleau
both financially and personally.
At
one point Granitza returned to Chicago and tried to restart the restaurant that
he renamed Café Granitza. But it did
not last very long.
CHEZZ CHAZZ
3651 N. Southport ,
Chicago
Opened
in October 1988 by Charlie Socher (ex-chef at Chardonnay), as chef and partner, I understand
that it was a pretty decent and fun French bistro, with some interesting
specials by the always creative Socher.
At
one point they had started to serve dinner on a sidewalk terrace to the people
who attended screenings at the Chicago Film Festival taking place at the Music Box Theater, half a block away. It increased the popularity of the restaurant
for a while. But then this short period of success faded away. The rock music
background annoyed many customers.
I
never ate there. It closed in March 1991.
CHEZ JENNY
900 N. Franklin St.
Chicago
On
December 1 1988, Jennifer Newbury
and her partner (both in life and business) Dennis Terczak (formerly executive chef at Avanzare) opened their new restaurant on the site of their old one Amérique, opened since 1985 that they had closed in the
spring.
During
2 pre-opening dinners the week before, 270 guests, including many
well-known
names in the Chicago restaurant trade, showed up, an indication that the
location, near Cabrini Green, was perhaps no longer a serious handicap. Some of
the customers the first night were also regulars at Sole Mio, the very successful Italian restaurant the couple had opened on Armitage in April and that I liked very much. But, for a long time,
Jennifer had been dreaming of having an authentic French bistro with a touch of
rusticity.
So,
first they traveled to Paris where Dennis worked in the kitchen of the iconic Benoit, one of the most celebrated and
beautiful bistros in the world. Benoit is still at the same address as when it opened
in 1912, 20 Rue Saint Martin in the 4th arrondissement, but it is
now owned by Alain Ducasse since
2005. And Jennifer familiarized herself with French bakeries, pastry shops,
French wines, and visited many stores selling decorative items, tableware, and
restaurant supplies.
Jenny
and Dennis asked the same interior designer, Bruce Gregga, who had built
the space at Sole Mio to transform
the austere and cold concrete environment of Amérique into a warm rustic space divided in three
different areas. The exposed wood beams to cover the concrete ceiling and
AC pipes, wood pillars, beautiful varnished pine floor, wooden banquettes, a beautiful
copper covered counter in the large bar area near the entrance, a hand-painted Monet-like mural, blinds and curtains, and many nicely
selected decorative items such as French
plates, and lights gave the whole place
the comfortable feeling of a provincial French inn. The waiters were all
dressed in the traditional French combination of black pants, black vests, white
shirts and black ties. In the early months of the restaurants there were no busboys.
The
menu was very traditional bistro fare, with good pâtés, escargots, onion soup, cabbage
soup, sweetbreads, leg of lamb with beans, rib-eye steaks (entrecôte), duck
confit with lentils, rabbit stew, ratatouille, warm apple tart, chocolate
soufflé, crème brulée, and sorbets.
The
wine list was essentially French and allowed you to buy reasonably-priced
regional wines or expensive Bourgognes and Bordeaux. A 3 course dinner for 2 with salad and coffee
would average $60 dollars in 1989.
There
were some cooking mistakes the first few months due to the fact that Terczak was often too busy at Sole Mio.
But things got better when René Bajeux became
chef.
The
restaurants had many ups and downs but had to close after a too short existence on August 12 1989. The couple
separated later and Terczak started
a new life in northern Indiana where he died
of illness in April of 1999. He
was only 49.
Georges ‘’Kiki’’
Cuisance,
who had lost the lease of his beloved Le Bordeaux on Madison, took over the space in November 1990, and opened KIKI’s BISTRO there where it is still successful in 2019.
1989
CAFÉ
DU MIDI
2118
N. Damen, Chicago
Once
again Francis Leroux, whose beloved Gare Saint Lazare on Armitage had been
destroyed in flames in November 1987, and in the meantime had owned Chez Chose on W. Diversey, between 1980
and 1984, decided to launch in January
of 1989 a new unpretentious and reasonably-priced French bistro for a
similar type of client base in a recently gentrified neighborhood.
But
this time he got the help of a partner, Bernard
LeCoq, who was also a veteran of the French bistro scene in Chicago where
he had the popular Café Bernard on Halsted since 1973.
Café
du Midi, I suppose was originally inspired by Southern French cuisine, since ‘’
le Midi’’ in French defines a zone South
of an imaginary line going from Valence in the East to Bordeaux in the West. In
this Southern region, that includes Languedoc and part of Provence, Occitan
based languages used to be spoken.
In
fact, when the restaurant was opened there were many dishes that reminded us of
the sunny Midi and included typical ingredients, cuts of meat, and produce such
as tomatoes, eggplant, lamb chops, merguez sausages, couscous, bell peppers, ratatouille,
thyme, olive oil, onions, basil, garlic, capers, anchovies, and of course fish
soup.
But
pretty soon he added more classical components of the bistro repertory. Chicken
liver pâté, Chicken sausage with chanterelle mushrooms, Crepes with ratatouille
and goat cheese, Steak au poivre in a cream and cognac sauce, Duck breasts with
cherries, One different fresh fish every night, Sautéed sea scallops, Baked
brie en croûte with almonds and fruits, and the popular cheesecake and
flourless chocolate mousse cake were sure winners.
And
many regulars came on Thursday for the Couscous,
complete with its vegetables, chicken, lamb, merguez, aromatic cooking broth,
and spicy harissa condiment.
The
wine list was short but was mainly composed of affordable French wines.
In
1989 you could have a 3 courses meal for
$22.00.
Most
reviewers liked the place but a few complained about an occasional lack of
consistency in the cooking of certain dishes such as the scallops and the
chicken.
The
décor was simple but comfortable with attractive black and white ceramic tiles
on the floor,
Creamy
white walls, nice bistro tables with white cloth covered with butcher paper,
and fresh flowers everywhere, the dining room, with its large windows, was very
pleasant.
The
restaurant was closed in 1997 and
was sold to new owners who eventually would open MERITAGE in that space.
ELYSEE
711
N. State, Chicago
I
walked by this place many times and I entered in it once to check it out, But I
have to admit that do not have a clear memory of this charming and adventurous
restaurant opened by David Dorabi in
February. I met the very interesting owner briefly a couple of times when I
visited his incredibly rich antique shop, one block South, which was full of
original French objects and vintage clothes that he discovered and used to
import himself. He was born in Iran from an Iranian father and a French mother
and spoke French fluently. He also had a
collection of more than 2,000 corkscrews. The restaurant itself was elegant
and decorated with many of his French
antiques, including plates and mirrors, prints, and of course corkscrews.
He
loved French wine. I think that many of the interesting dishes on the menu were
his own creation, and most of the time prepared and cooked by him. He used to
get up early to be able to buy the best fruits and vegetables he could find at
the market, and back to his restaurant would create his own menus every day.
I
would say that its menus were half-way
between Traditional and Nouvelle French cuisines.
In the very positive reviews he got in local
newspapers in 1989 I found very original dishes: Fresh Oysters
with a cream of leak, asparagus in pastry shells, Mussel soup with saffron, Bay
Scallops in vinaigrette served with artichoke hearts, asparagus, spinach, and
fresh herbs. He loved fresh fish and cooked Whitefish in a Beurre Blanc with
parsley, and Salmon with capers. But he also did very well with his Duck with a
Grand Marnier sauce and a spicy Chicken in lime sauce.
He also would bake his
own pastries,
or simple pears poached in red wine.
I
do not know when the restaurant closed. Probably within the next year.
LE LOUP
2011 W, North Avenue
Chicago
This
place, located under the L tracks at the Northern edge of Wicker Park, was opened in July 89 by Wulf Ward and Claude
and Gisèle Laura.
It might have been named originally after Wulf,
since Loup means Wolf in English, or later after the Laura’s dog which was half
wolf.
Claude
Laura, the chef de cuisine, had been previously cooking in the kitchens of Tango and Zaven’s and also worked on
cruise ships. But his taste for Middle-Eastern and North African dishes was
acquired during his military service in French Algeria. At Le Loup you could
enjoy traditional appetizers such as Tahini, Hummus, Taboule, served with pita
bread and lemon wedges, and continue your meal with a very satisfying Moroccan Couscous with
lamb and chicken, a meal in itself with a ridiculous price of $9.50.
Or
you could have a straight French diner with pâté, artichoke fritters, Oysters
Rockefeller, and various salads, then Bouillabaisse ($ 11.00), served only on Friday , Cassoulet ($ 9.50) Rack of lamb ($ 13.00) or a filet of Mahi-mahi with a green peppercorn
cream sauce.
Fresh fruit tarts ($ 3.50) were considered
their best desserts. The service was so-so, according to most reviewers and
friends who dined there.
Alltogether
it was not a fancy French restaurant, but pleasant value-oriented bistro.
Eventually
they moved the restaurant to 3348
Sheffield. I believe that it closed in the late 1990’s.
C’EST SI BON
60 East Walton Street, Chicago
Another
example of a very pleasant French bakery-
pastry shop-fancy food grocery-delicatessen-restaurant, that in spite of
all his qualities and a great location, never really took-off and closed after only a little more than 2
years of mediocre business.
Its
parent company, a very large French food Group with an American subsidiary in
New-York, had invested a big bundle of dollars in this place and brought in
high quality French products, and a very competent executive chef, as well as
French trained employees. But it did not have a precise idea of what they
should do to succeed in the Chicago market place and what Chicago customers,
even well-to-do ones, expect from a fancy place like this.
Opened
officially on July 14, 198 (Bastille
Day), it was, on paper at least, the perfect equation to attract sophisticated
Francophile gourmet customers from the Gold Coast, and a perfect lunching stop
for ladies shopping on nearby Oak Street.
There
were 2 levels: At street level, the shop sold fancy food items such as French
cheeses, including ‘’fromage blanc’’, hams, home-made sausage, caviar from Petrossian,
tea, candy, French condiments, chocolate truffles from La Maison du Chocolat in
Paris, Calissons from Aix en Provence, and the very crusty home-baked bread,
croissants and pastries. At one point
they also sold the famous bread from Lionel Poilane in Paris.
Around
Christmas time it was one of the rare places in town where you could buy high quality
‘’marrons glaçés’’ (glazed chestnuts), and the pastry chef baked very nice
traditional ‘’bûches de Noel’’ (yule
logs).
They
also offered a few already cooked and packed dishes, salads and sandwiches. There
were a few tables where you could have a snack and a glass of French wine.
In fact they sold some good regional French
wines at decent prices, and you could find bottles of nice wines from the Loire
Valley, the Côtes du Rhône, Languedoc and the southwest made by independent small winemakers. Or a
bottle of Bulle De Pêche, a delicious peachy sparkling wine. Later on in
1991, they had a few tables outside and when it was sunny it was a pleasure to
share a simple French lunch with pâté, rillettes, Bayonne ham, saucisson and
cheese with a baguette, and of course a bottle of wine and a good espresso with
some French colleagues. And it was always nice to have a chat with Didier Maillet, the executive chef and also
the store manager, an affable
Frenchman who later went back to Paris to be the chef and partner at La
Sologne a very good restaurant in
the 12th arrondissement that was well-known for its venison-based
dishes.
This
shop and restaurant was a point of friendly
gourmet rendez-vous for many members of the French community, and was more
popular with them than with Americans.
On
the upper level was the restaurant per-se, very comfortable and simply but
nicely decorated with nice French photographs. Tables were nicely spaced, china
and glassware were French, and unfortunately so were several of the young
waiters who obviously were insufficiently trained and did not speak fluent
English. In fact, the too often poor quality of the service in the restaurant caused
a lot of problems to its reputation. It was too bad since the food was generally
good, but overpriced, especially at lunch time. Classics such as Leek and
potato soup, Assiette de charcuterie, Magret de canard, Skate wing, Fish soup,
Sweetbreads, Ratatouille, Veal Blanquette, Grilled Free-range chicken, and
light desserts, such as fruit or chocolate mousses, were well executed.
The restaurant suffered
financially and the last year the number of clients had significantly
decreased. C’est Si bon closed in early 1992
MONTPARNASSE
200 E. 5th
Street, Naperville, IL
Jean-Paul Eskenazi, a Frenchman who was a
captain at Le Français in Wheeling
for several years during the reign of Jean
Banchet opened this great
restaurant in October in a former
factory, or more exactly in its vast boiler room. His great idea was to have
recruited as chef the very talented Suzy
Crofton who was a sous-chef at Le Français while he was there. When I ate
there for the first time in early 1990,
I was really impressed by her cooking style, as well as by the quality of the
service, very formal but professional and friendly. Of course the décor, the airy
and comfortable multi-level space, with
its brick walls decorated with interesting pictures, the nicely spaced white-clothed
tables, great stylish high-back chairs,
pretty French china, and stylish waiters in tuxedos was inviting to relax and enjoy the meal and
the good wine. And the presence of the huge old boiler which had been repainted
in white was another impressive element contributing to an exciting atmosphere.
The
menu was traditional French with well executed classics: A very flavorful and
rich onion soup. Some incredibly smooth and aromatic pâtés, especially the duck
liver one. A delicious galette de crabe, in an exciting chive or mustard sauce.
A very refreshing Frisée salad with goat cheese and bacon . ‘’Médaillons de Veau’’
(veal filets) in a cream sauce with a garnish of perfectly cooked and seasoned
wild mushrooms. Rack of lamb, marinated in olive oil and garlic then roasted
with fresh herbs, and coated with a light breading spiced up with Dijon mustard
and parsley, and served with French haricots verts, sautéed mushrooms, and a
small ‘’galette de pommes de terre’’. And her Filet de Saint Pierre (John Dory)
a rarely served fish in Chicago, was sautéed in ginger and lemon flavored
butter.
I
personally will always remember one of
the best Coq au Vin I ever had in Chicago during my second visit.
Desserts
were also drawn from the classical repertoire: Profiterolles, Crème Brulée in
the manner of Jean Banchet, and of course, another Le Français heritage, Soufflé au Grand Marnier
The
wine list was pretty eclectic, with a nice mix of French and Californians.
A
4 or 5 course dinner for two, without
the wine, could easily cost you over 100 dollars. But it was worth every
penny.
Suzy Crofton eventually moved to
her own restaurant in Chicago ‘’ Crofton
on Wells’’.
Montparnasse closed in
September of 2000, and
the space was sold a month later to Leon Demerdjian, and his son Raffi who morphed it into a
Mediterranean restaurant, Raffi`s on
Fifth. It closed in the fall of 2012
LA FLEURETTE
5 East Roosevelt Road,
Villa park, IL
I
have never been there, and to be frank I do not quite understand why the Zervakis brothers decided to close
their popular Sweet Pepper all-American
restaurant and completely transformed the space, after a substantial
redecorating job, into a French restaurant that opened in late November 89 .
Even
if the reviews had been excellent, and they were not, except for a relatively
positive small piece by Phil Vettel in the Tribune, I would never have taken a
drive to Villa Park to try a French restaurant. But they tried hard and hired Dominique Fortin, a good French Chef
with solid Chicago credentials including Le Français, and Nick Katinas a pro whom I knew when he was a captain at Le Perroquet to manage the dining room.
From
some reviews from early 1990 some meals could be quite decent, and some
disastrous according to Pat Bruno who
obviously had a bad experience there in March.
According
to Vettel , Fortin’s dishes were classic French: medallions of veal with a
mustard sauce, sweetbreads in a port wine sauce, pork loin in a white wine
sauce. Or grilled salmon again in a mustard sauce served with ratatouille…Roasted
breast of duck in a green
peppercorn sauce. Obviously, the rich
sauces were Fortin’s forte. He had also recreated the famous Duck Consommé from Le Français.
And the desserts were
also classics such as soufflés and crème brûlée.
The
tab was not cheap. A 4course dinner for
two, without wine, but including soup and salad went as high as $ 78.00.
The
restaurant did not last very long and closed
in the fall of 1990.
BISTRO BANLIEUE
44 Yorktown Conference
Center, Lombard, IL
This
restaurant, whose name means ‘’suburb’’
in French, was opened in November
89 by Steve Byrne who had worked at Ambria
for a quite a while since its opening in 1980, and Emilio Gervilla. Gervilla, had also worked as a chef at Ambria at the same time and also across the hall at Un Grand Café, and later at Café Ba- Ba- Reeba. Then he launched
and developed under the initial tutelage of his former boss Gabino Sotelino his own very successful restaurants such as Emilio Tapas Bar in Hillside, Meson Sabika in Naperville, and later others Tapas restaurants in Chicago.
He
therefore had a great practical experience of the Western suburbs dining
habits. They opened this storefront bistro in a difficult to locate place in a
rather non-descript small strip mall in Lombard. But once inside diners would
discover a charming dining room with
wooden floors, murals painted on one of the walls with faux marbre, curtains
serving as a separation with another eating area. Antique lamps, and recorded
accordion music contributed to create a sort of neo-Parisian atmosphere. But the rapid success of the place was
essentially due to the talent of John
Hogan a very good chef who had a
solid training in some very good French restaurants, and more recently was a sous-chef for almost 2 years to Jean Joho`s Everest room.
John
had a real talent to not only cook all the French
classics, but also to elaborate on some of them with his own creativity. Some successful appetizers include an unctuous soupe de poireau pomme de terre (potato
leek soup), flavorful Duck Terrine with
pistacchios, Sautéed Shrimp Provençale, or Scallops in a delicate basil cream
sauce , steamed mussels with cream and Calvados. Among the main dishes a
perfect Steak Frites, a fantastic
roasted chicken, and a duo of braised leg and breast of Duck, were the
favorites.
Desserts
included the classic crème brulée, flourless chocolate cake, tarte Tatin, and dark
chocolate mousse with a white chocolate sauce.
Wine
list was relatively short but very affordable with many by the glass options.
A 4 course dinner for
two
with tax and tip but no wine would cost an average of $ 58.00
The
restaurant closed in July of 1996.
John
Hogan eventually became a celebrated
chef at Kiki’s Bistro.
Part 5.
1990-1999. The end of the “cuisine classique” dynasty and the confirmation of
the bistro supremacy
During that period fewer customers still wanted
to spend a lot of money in fancy establishments specializing in French “Haute
Cuisine”, or even full meals of less elaborate “Cuisine Bourgeoise”. Bistros and brasseries were the places
where Chicago French food lovers found what they wanted: good casual dining
offering traditional but creative dishes and value.
However, during the 1990s new French restaurants continued to open, both in the city
and in the suburbs. In fact, a Zagat survey
published in early 2000, listed 69 “French” restaurants in 1999 in the Chicago
area, an increase of 50% over a 10 years period. But it is obvious that
some of these so-called French eateries mentioned in that survey were not
authentic examples of what I call French cuisine.
Even though some of the most popular French restaurants
were still owned or managed by French expatriates, quite often in the 1990s these
restaurateurs let talented young American chefs, sous-chefs, and cooks, run
their kitchens. The waiting staff and front managers were also most of the time
locals and younger than their predecessors 20 years earlier.
This new
generation of American chefs had learned their skills while working under older
French chefs de cuisine or in American culinary schools such as CIA (Culinary
institute of America in New York and California), the ICC (International Culinary Center, in NYC and California), Kendall College in Chicago. Locally the
Cooking and Hospitality Institute of
Chicago (morphed into Le Cordon Bleu)
also trained very good chefs, cooks, pastry chefs, and restaurant managers.
Many of these schools regularly employed
former French chefs, patissiers, cuisiniers, and other professionals, as
instructors.
And Chicago could
be proud to have one of the best baking and pastry schools in the U.S with The French Pastry School founded in 1995 by two
great pastry chefs Jacquy Pfeiffer and Sébastien Calonne.
In the mid-1990s a new generation of urban diners,
principally young professionals in their 30s along with their wives or dates,
who were spending more money on sophisticated drinks and wine, started to go
out more often to lunch or dine in restaurants that served better and more
trendy foods. They also spent more time reading about them. In that group of
people an interest for more diverse and exotic ethnic food and drinks started
to develop.
The traditional French cuisine was preferred by
older people, more conventional in their eating and drinking habits, who traveled
to France for leisure or on business, and were nostalgic of their dining
experiences there.
But it became obvious that the decade was
dominated by Italian cuisine, from Neapolitan-style pizza baked in wood-burning
ovens to sophisticated Northern Italian dishes. The creative home-made pasta
had replaced the heavy red sauced Italian-American spaghetti with meatballs of
the past, and well-grilled fresh fish with regionally-grown beautiful
vegetables, had become more popular than the traditional breaded veal scaloppini.
Now pasta-based
dishes, and small creative non-traditional pizzas were often found on the menus
of French bistros.
The trend of serving small dishes with a glass
of good but inexpensive wine was also becoming more commonly found and
appreciated in bistros with a French influence in the Loop and on the north
side, notably by people on their way to see a show.
This decade was marked by 2 important factors: Customers wanted to feel more relaxed when
eating in French restaurants and be able to “have fun” while eating. And
the type of French restaurants that they preferred could be classified as “upscale casual”.
Therefore, the success of “bistros”, that we
more often call “bistrots” in
France, such as Kiki’s Bistro or La
Sardine
1990
CAFÉ PYRÉNÉES
River Tree Court Shopping Center Vernon Hills, IL
(In 2005 the restaurant moved to 1762 Milwaukee
Avenue in Libertyville, Il)
It is one of these French places that I always
regretted not to have visited when it was opened in September by Jean-Marc Loustaunau and his American
wife Mari in a small strip mall near
the popular Hawthorn Shopping Center.
The environment and décor were charming and
comfortable, with French posters on the softly colored walls. While on business
in the area one afternoon, I made a detour to take a look at the dining-room
that one of my American friends who lived nearby had told me about. I was sorry not to be able to stay for dinner
after checking the attractive menu.
This 90 seats restaurant was launched at the right
place at the right time since many hungry shoppers were eager to find a
comfortable place to eat lunch or early dinner. Loustaunau had a solid French cooking background acquired both in
France and for 12 years as a chef at the Titi
de Paris when it moved from Palatine
to Arlington Heights. During its first years of existence the restaurant
was often packed. No wonder since the price-quality ratio of what was offered
there was very attractive. In 1991 a
prix-fixe 4 course meal would cost you $18.50.
And you could choose between 3 good items for each course. An “à la carte dinner” (without wine or
tip) would set you back at around 23
dollars per person. And the choice of dishes, most of them in the typical
bistro tradition would include escargots en brioche, seafood raviolis stuffed
with lobster mousse, good terrines, duck breast confit, sautéed pork tenderloin
in a mustard sauce, grilled salmon with scallop mousse. The sides were often
delicate vegetable mousses. And the desserts did not disappoint: home-made
patisseries, crème brulée, chocolate mousse cake, and a ‘’Délice des Pyrénées’’ (cake recipe originated in the chef`s native
area) made of chocolate meringue and chocolate mousse. The wine list was more
than adequate with decently-priced Bordeaux and other wines from the Southwest.
Unfortunately, in the late 90s and early 2000s,
the economy got its moments of ups and downs, and the average age of their
client base got older, as the taste for classic French food declined. The move
to Libertyville, difficulties to attract a younger client base, and big road
work projects near the restaurant did not help. But Mari was still full of
energy and always searching for new marketing ideas to attract younger
customers, such as music and wine tastings.
TAYLOR
STREET BISTRO
W. Taylor St. Chicago
Opened in November, I think I was one of this
new bistro’s first customers when I had a birthday lunch there with a
colleague. I had heard from a friend who was a regular at Le Français that the chef-owner Joseph (Joe) Doppes had worked in Jean Banchet’s kitchen and, before that in good French restaurants
in New-York, L.A, and Chicago with Michael
Foley at Printer’s Row.
So, of course,
I was curious to check out his French cooking skills. I was wondering why
someone would open a French restaurant in an enclave of traditional Italian
cuisine. But when we entered the relatively small but very luminous dining-room
we were pleasantly surprised by the decidedly French bistro décor and ambiance:
lace half-curtains on the large bay windows, nice little bistro chairs and tables
covered with butcher paper, French posters on the walls.
And there was a bar behind which Annie, Joe’s wife, served us an
aperitif. She was a cheerful woman who did not hesitate to drop a few jokes in
the conversation, including one about our French accent. But she was glad to
have French customers. The food was classic French bistro fare, with good duck
pâté with cornichons for me and moules marinière for my friend, a good
steak-frites for me and salmon in a mustard sauce for my colleague. The frites
were more ‘’pommes allumette’’ (shoestring) than traditional French pommes
frites but nevertheless excellent. So were the peppercorn sauce and the fresh
vegetables garnish for the salmon. I had decent small profiteroles and my
friend a flourless chocolate cake. We drank a good bottle of Côtes du Rhône and
ended up our very satisfying meal with a Calvados at the bar. Another day I
discovered that they had a very good pizza whose crust had the texture and
almost sweet taste of brioche, and a very authentic and tasty salade niçoise.
But unfortunately, as it was common in those days, the tuna was fresh poached instead
of canned in olive oil as it should be.
The wine list was short but offered a decent selection of French wines.
The whole tab before tax and tip with wine and coffee was around $ 35.00 for
two.
Years later, Joe Doppes sold the place and in
1999 opened Bistro Margot on N.
Wells, a very lively bistrot that that remained very popular until it closed in 2016.
KIKI’S BISTRO
900 N. Franklin St. Chicago
Opened in December in the practically untouched
rustic and intimate décor of what used to be Chez Jenny (closed in August
89), this great authentic French bistro immediately became one of my
favorite French eating, drinking, and meeting place in Chicago. As a matter of fact,
more than a quarter of a century later it is still the place where I go almost
every week to eat some of my favorite French comfort food and drink some
extremely well-chosen French wines. But above all I go there to spend some time
and share memories during long and nostalgic conversations about France with the
owner, my friend Georges Cuisance,
aka Kiki.
I have
known this wonderful human being since the early seventies when he had the very
successful Le Bordeaux on Madison St. which, as it is still
the case nowadays at Kiki’s, was already a joyous get-together place for many
local French expatriates as well as American Francophiles working in and around
the Loop.
Kiki is quite a case in the small world of
French restaurants in Chicago. Always in motion all around the 3 spaces of the
restaurant, that includes a great bar near the entrance, he has an incredible
ability to survey all the activities of the service while never stopping to
greet, say goodbye, or chat with his customers, many of them having been
regulars for years. In fact, this bistro’s continuous success besides the
consistency of the cooking and of the service (many servers and kitchen help
have worked here since the restaurant’s early days) is essentially the result
of Kiki’s charm, professionalism, and constant attention to the needs of his
guests. And he certainly is a pro who studied
all the aspects of the trade at one of the best French cooking and hospitality schools in the 50s, and then worked
in all kinds of different restaurants in various European countries.
He came
to Chicago in 1963
with other French professionals, for the
opening of Maxim’s on Astor St.
When he opened this
restaurant, he benefited greatly from the presence as the head chef of John Hogan, an excellent practitioner
of French cooking techniques that he had learned from some famous chefs in
France and had perfected them as a sous-chef
with Jean Joho at the Everest, and
as a very successful chef at Bistro
Banlieue. So, his forte was to apply a perfect mix of traditional and
“nouvelle cuisine” methods to his own cooking but with the added value of his
personal creativity.
The first year we were always excited when he
brought to our table the result of one of his newest inspirations such as a
grilled rabbit sausage with potato salad in a lemony mayonnaise dressing, or a
preparation of foie-gras with lentils,
or a very delicious individual thin crust pizza with smoked mozzarella,
prosciutto, or wild mushrooms.
Speaking of mushrooms, his fricassée of wild mushrooms in a fragrant shallots and madeira wine
sauce, has long been one of my favorite appetizers, as well as the Terrine de
Canard aux pistaches (duck pâté with pistachios) served with cornichons and
tiny pickled onions.
And some regulars said that both the “soupe à
l’oignon gratinée’’ et the ``escargots’’ in their pastis flavored garlic butter
was better than the ones they had in Paris.
But what I liked best at Kiki’s, and still enjoy
a lot nowadays, besides the owner himself and the friendly atmosphere he
creates, was the always reliable comfort food, especially during the winter
months.
Some of my favorite dishes in this category are
the cassoulet, with always nicely cooked
beans, the braised duck, the very rich coq au vin, and a boeuf bourguignon that
Julia Child would have liked.
I regret that the choucroute garnie alsacienne, which was one of the best I ever had
in Chicago, with its high-quality charcuterie components from Paulina Market,
is no longer on the menu. The always tender and tasty navarin d’agneau is still
very popular.
But so is the very French steak au poivre, a
very nice piece of sirloin steak, with its marvelous cognac and cream-based
black pepper sauce.
And
Kiki’s fries, which are in fact “pommes allumettes”
rather than traditional pommes frites, are very addictive.
My
favorite dessert was and still is the poached
pear in puff pastry with slivered toasted almonds in a caramel sauce with a
touch of whipped cream. But my wife is still a fan of the mousse au
chocolat,
The ‘’carte des vins” (wine list) always
offered reasonably priced traditional Bourgogne, Bordeaux, Rhône, and Alsace
wines from serious producers, but also lesser known regional little treasures
from the Loire Valley.
Needless to say, the big bar attracted a bunch
of regulars enjoying glasses of some of these wines, as well as French beers
and spirits, while waiting for their table.
In 2019 Kiki`s Bistro, which
is no longer open for lunch, remains one of the most durable and authentic
French eating institutions in Chicago.
1991
JEAN-MARIE
2625 N. Halsted, Chicago
Strangely enough I had never heard of this
bistro which opened in January, even though I walked by its location many
times. And curiously, in spite of intensive research, I found only one short review
of this restaurant by Don Rose published
in the Sun Times in April 1991.
The article does not mention any name for the
owner but an anonymous reader made a comment in December 2017 to let me know that Jean-Marie was operated by one Jean-Marie Vandenbulcke, a well-known Maitre 'D who was Belgian with a long career in French restaurants. Before that he was Maitre 'D at Brasserie Jo, Everest, and later on Savarin.
I think that the chef in 1991 was Keith Brunell, but this bistro did not last more than a year since in May 1992 it had
morphed into a Greek place called Mia Zoe.
Anyway, based on Rose’s review it was a typical
French bistro offering all the classics at affordable prices: Onion soup, Terrines, Moules marinière, Soupe
de Poissons with garlic aioli, confit de canard, gratin of endives with ham,
and steak au poivre.
That’s all I can say unfortunately since in
spite of many searches I never found a single person who had eaten there.
SAINT
GERMAIN BAKERY-CAFÉ
1210 N. State St., Chicago
It was started
in August by a Frenchman, Jean-Luc Heiz and his wife, in a location where several
restaurants, the last one being Turbot, had
various life cycles and disappeared.
But this very lovely bakery-pastry shop, that
rapidly expanded its operations to become a full fledge café and restaurant,
with a liquor license, opened at the right place at the right time. It attracted
well-to-do matrons of the Gold Coast at tea time or for brunch, as well as young
and ambitious professionals on the run, and young couples on dates.
Or, more simply, people who followed the trend
of the time and loved crusty French baguettes, rich flaky croissants, brioches, hard rolls, petits pains au
chocolat, and scrumptious patisseries. Heiz,
an enthusiastic and dynamic manager who had a great sense of communication and
marketing, had recruited good bakers and pastry chefs from France in the early
months to launch the production and train the staff.
He also imported
a French oven from Alsace that
customers who opted to seat in the booths of the inner room could see in
operation in an open kitchen. This great-looking
place was attractively furnished and decorated with its tricolor stripped
awnings outside and many potted flowers. It was divided in three rooms and was
even expanding during sunny days to the sidewalk through opened French windows
into a lively café. The most popular time was lunch where you could order
freshly made sandwiches, I personally loved the French ham sandwich with
cornichons on a buttered piece of baguette, which reminded me of the traditional
quick lunch that many Paris employees ate for lunch while standing at the
counter of a café near their working place. Saint-Germain also served charcuterie, cheese, croque-monsieur,
omelets, salmon, salads, crepes, and soups. The very well-prepared sandwiches
were served with pommes gaufrettes (thin waffled fried potatoes). There were
also specials, such as grilled chicken breast with fresh vegetables. Eventually they also had a buffet. Prices
were very reasonable for this neighborhood. A nice ham sandwich would set you down at less than $ 7.00. Needless to say, the place that attracted
many young people from this fancy neighborhood
was packed from 7:00 Am until midnight. It remained very popular until 1998
when it closed.
1992
BETISE
1515 N. Sheridan Road, Wilmette IL
Nancy
Barocci
opened this charming little bistro in Plaza Del Lago in March, which took over
the space formerly occupied by Mélange
a popular place that burned. But she was already a well-established fancy
Italian food and wine purveyor and restaurateur with her famous Convito Italiano practically next door
in the same Spanish-styled mall. I suppose that the decision to create an
unpretentious but elegant French bistro geared towards the sophisticated client
base of the North Shore was partially inspired by her regretted friend Leslee Reis, the very successful owner of
Café Provençal in Evanston from 1977 until her death in 1990.
Leslee and Nancy traveled together
several times to Provence and the Italian Riviera.
And the menu was obviously a mix of French and
Italian memories, but adapted to the tastes of the North Shore palates.
In fact, during its first year the chef of this
relatively popular restaurant was Kent Buell, the former sous-chef of Café Provençal. I have been there only
2 or 3 times, for lunch and once for dinner, but I remember that I liked the country
pâté, and as a main course a very moist rotisserie chicken served with ‘’
frites’’ as good as those served in a Parisian brasserie. Another day I also
enjoyed a decent Veal Marengo. But
the customers at the table next to ours seemed very pleased with their Bouillabaisse that looked pretty close to
the real thing. I was not impressed though by the frisée au lardons, a
typical salad from Lyon, which was not all Lyonnaise-tasting.
Desserts were good, especially a kind of crème
brulée au chocolat.
Service was very pleasant and unobtrusive. And
the décor, elegant but simple with comfortable chairs and white-cloth and paper
covered tables, and soft lights, was very relaxing.
The wine list was limited but offered a few
decent and reasonably-priced French wines by the glass. A whole 3 course meal
with a couple of glasses of wines would cost around 28 or 30 dollars.
RETRO
BISTRO
1746 W. Golf, Mount Prospect, IL
This lively contemporary Franco-American
bistro, located in a not too sexy strip mall on Golf was opened in May
by Dominique Legeai, and his Japanese-born
partner Masato Zusuki. Zusuki already
had a long experience of French cooking in Tokyo, in France, at the Titi de
Paris, and at Legeai’s first bistro, the very popular D&J Bistro in Lake Zurich, that Legeai and his wife Jacqueline had launched in 1987.
He created a sort of “fusion menu” that happily blended French classic bistro cuisine
with Asian touches. I remember that during my first visit there in 1994 where I
was a guest of research executives from Motorola, I was so impressed by the “pommes frites” which were the garniture for
my good steak, that I asked for a side order as a dessert. They will remain
in my memory as some of the best I ever had in Chicago. I also had a decent
rustic pork pâté. And the wine list was small but included a few good regional French
wines such as Sancerre, Beaujolais, and Côtes du Rhône. Nothing was
spectacular, but everything was well-prepared in the traditional
French-American bistro style and inexpensive. The walls were covered with large black and white photos of
Hollywood actors from the 60s, but it was the only thing’’retro’’ in this unpretentious but pleasant restaurant which is still popular in 2017.
LE
PERROQUET
(Re-opening under new management and
chef)
70 East Walton St. Chicago
The original restaurant created at the same
address by Jovan Trboyevic in 1972 was perhaps, along with Le Français in Wheeling, the most celebrated
French restaurant in Chicago in the 70s and early 80s. In 1985 Jovan sold it to
the Nespoux brothers, Jean-Pierre and Gérard Nespoux who had been
Maitre’D and Sommelier respectively there. For 6 years they did everything
they could to keep the quality and tradition alive. However, without Jovan the
spirit was not there anymore, the taste of Chicago gourmets for fancy and
expensive French food was on the decline, and the recession did not help. Le Perroquet closed its doors at the end of
1990.
But in March
1992 the restaurant was re-opened by
Michael Foley, a very competent chef and restaurateur with a solid
experience in French dining, who for a
while was trained as a chef de cuisine in the kitchen of the Perroquet in its
early years. Michael Foley who had
apprenticed in Lyon, France, was also a strong believer in sustainable and
organic farming. Between 1981 and 2004 he used both his knowledge of French
cooking techniques and his passion for high quality products in creating a sort of Nouvelle Midwestern Regional
Cuisine in his very successful Printer’s
Row restaurant on South Dearborn. I had several great meals there in the
80s and early 90s.
He made all the right decisions in preparing
for this renovation. He kept most of the décor intact, bur refreshed the
furniture and made the dining room more luminous by removing the drapes from
the windows. He re-hired, as a Maitre D’, Gérard
Nespoux, who constituted a familiar and reassuring factor for the older
customers. Gérard had been working with Jovan
T. since the opening of the restaurant in 1972. And with the new French
chef, Didier Durand, a gifted
cuisinier who had acquired an excellent reputation in Winnetka at La Bohème, they kept or adapted some
old recipes and classy dishes such as the Duo of Duck with a peppercorn light
sauce, roasted sweetbreads with potato galettes, vegetable mousses, and the
signature soufflés. At lunch I loved a roasted juicy capon leg stuffed and sauced with
shallots and parsley. In fact, Durand`s cuisine was a perfect blend of
classic and contemporary French cuisine that was very flavorful but light. Fresh
herbs always played a major role in the composition of most dishes.
They kept an attractive profile to the menus
but avoided fancy and expensive components to keep the prices down without
diminishing the quality of the products.
The first year you could have a delicious 4 course prix-fixe dinner for
$38.50. And the wine list, that included many good affordable but
judiciously selected French wines from good but not overpriced famous estates,
was very attractive.
Even though the restaurant was well received by
both gastronomes and critics, its re-opening took place at a time where the
tastes and eating trends of Chicago diners were in the middle of a period of
transition. Fancy French dining was not
as popular anymore. Le Perroquet was
forced to close its doors for good in the spring of 1994.
1993
LE
MARGAUX
2442 N. Clark St, Chicago
On April 2 François
de Melogue and Brian Sylva opened this classy sophisticated French
restaurant in the space occupied for many years by Jean-Claude Poilevey with his successful La Fontaine and Jean-Claude. But in 1993 the restaurant business
was suffering from the recession and diners in Chicago were not looking for
fancy expensive French cuisine. So, it took a lot of gut and determination to
these two men, both experienced chef and pâtissier, to go against the trend
towards more casual dining.
My wife and I dined there only once during its first
2 months of existence and I remember that in spite of the elegant but
comfortable settings, the obvious good will of the waiting staff, and the culinary
ambitions and savoir-faire of the chef, we were under the impression that this
whole operation was a work in progress. The ingredients, scampi, scallops, foie
gras, sweetbreads, wild mushrooms, turbot, squab, rabbit, duck, grouse, wild
boar, caribou, and even the baby vegetables were first rate, perfectly prepared,
and artistically plated.
De
Melogue’s forte was his talent with elaborate sauces, where truffles and Cognac
were often a generous component. But you had to wait a long time between
courses. And I heard from people I knew, who were very knowledgeable, say that
sometimes some meat dishes, many of them from venison that became rapidly the
house specialty, suffered from an imprecise cooking time.
Desserts were very well prepared, especially
the tarte Tatin. The wine list, essentially French was limited but dominated by
some excellent Bordeaux.
There was also a limited but well-chosen
selection of French wines by the glass.
Nevertheless, I still think that the concept and
the menus of this restaurant were too
sophisticated and not appropriate for that time. The prices of most dishes, dictated
by an elevated food cost, were too high. After a year of very limited
commercial success De Melogue tried
to reduce the scope of his ambitions and his prices. But it was too late and
unfortunately Le Margaux had to close in
October 1994.
RUDI’S
WINE BAR & CAFÉ
2424 N. Ashland Avenue, Chicago
Way out
of the traditional restaurant districts, this very lively and pleasant place looked
more like a typical Chicago neighborhood tavern than a French bistro. But it
was actually a good wine bar that served
a few inexpensive typical French bistro dishes such as soupe à l’oignon
Lyonnaise, pâté de campagne, mussels in a Provençal-style garlic and shallots
tomato broth, cassoulet, steak-frites (the frites were great), roasted chicken, rack of lamb with herbes de
Provence, and a very decent chocolate mousse. The space was small (15 tables)
and the décor was rather rustic: small tables, metallic bistro chairs,
checkered tablecloth covered with butcher paper, and above all a pretty long bar where you could order a dozen of
pretty good regional, but very inexpensive (less than $5.00), French wines by
the glass. The menu was hand-written and simple. The food was generally
well-prepared, and also inexpensive.
When I discovered Rudi’s, in 1994, you could have a 3-course meal, without
wine and tip, for $18.00 to $20.00.
The waitresses were good-humored and relaxed,
maybe more with the numerous regular patrons than with strangers or new
customers though.
The speakers played the type of French songs
that the average American knew at the time, Piaf’s and Brel’s.
The
owner was a man called Whitey But
for the many faithful patrons, the main attraction was Rudi. Always sitting at the bar, he was, a very cheerful guy, who even
though he was not the owner, always talked with them about many subjects, the
most important one being wine. Lots of customers thought that he was the
manager. But he was not.
His real name was Peter Rudiger and he was a former
wine importer who had a business called Orange Imports in Northfield in the late 80s. He also gave courses
and seminars about wine
He really loved and knew his wines,
particularly the French. I had a brief conversation with him once at that bar
and he was happy to know that I lived in Avignon and Aix-en-Provence since he
had a special fondness for Rhône and Provence wines.
But over the years some serious disagreements
developed between ‘’Rudi’’ and the owner, Whitey,
who had financed the restaurant whose success was in fact almost entirely the
work of Rudiger. So when it appeared that Whitey was not going to allow Rudiger
to become a full partner as it had promised, Rudi left and went to Bistro Ultra on Clybourn where Juan Hurtado,
Rudi’s Wine Bar former chef was now the owner. Rudi’s stayed open, but often mostly empty, for a few months then
closed for good in the spring of 2002.
Peter Rudiger died in November 2002 at
age 55
GABRIEL’S
310 Green Bay Road, Highwood
Opened in May by Highwood’s native Gabriel Viti, who had just left his job
a block away as executive chef at Carlos
in Highland Park, this small (in its early days) but very elegant and European
in style Italian-French restaurant, was a perfectly tuned-up classy place.
Normally such a restaurant should not figure in
my list, because the menu was predominantly Italian. But it also offered a few
classic French dishes such as a duo of duck magret and leg confit, served as it
is common in France with flageolets and purée de pommes de terre (a signature
dish of Robuchon). Or a rack of lamb
in a thyme sauce with ratatouille
The main
reason I wanted to mention Viti is because this very professional owner-chef
was one of the very few American restaurateurs ever to operate a restaurant,
and to direct a kitchen in such a typically French controlled and precise way.
It was especially noticeable a few years later when the dining room, which had
expanded from 75 to 125 seats, was very often packed with regulars and even out
of town visitors. Through the window of the open kitchen you could see that Viti, who always wore a traditional white
toque, was literally directing his, also white-toqued, cooking staff, and similarly
the whole “brigade” as would a music director. But the whole affair was
neither pretentious or contrived.
The atmosphere and the service were very
stylish but convivial, and Viti took the time to greet and converse in the
dining room with his regular customers who loved him.
The reason for his mastering of French cooking
and restaurant managing techniques was that Vitti, a very gifted CIA
graduate (1986), had spent 6 years
in some of the best kitchens of France, and Switzerland. His already very
formal training was greatly enhanced by his working under such luminaries as Joël Robuchon in Paris, who had a major
influence on his techniques, and Freddy
Girardet in Crissier,
Switzerland. But he also spent some time with Michel Guérard in Eugénie
Les Bains. And his stays in the kitchens of Taillevent in Paris, and La Pyramide in Vienne, where the legendary
Fernand Point is one of the creators of modern French cuisine, were also
very influential.
He ended his European series of training in Italy,
the country of his ancestors at the famous San Domenico in Imola, Italy. But he also
had spent some time at La Lampina in
Milan.
Viti
closed GABRIEL in 2012, after opening MIRAMAR
a French-Cuban bistro, also in Highwood. Since that time he has devoted his
energy to the climbing some of the
highest mountains in Asia (Everest, K2), Europe (Eiger, Mont Blanc), and South
America.
LE BOUCHON
1958
N. Damen Avenue, Chicago
In June, just a few months after the sale of
his very successful restaurant Jean-Claude
on Clark St. (where his own La Fontaine
used to be), Jean-Claude Poilevey
could feel that downsizing was a must for a French restaurant wanting to
succeed in these difficult economic times.
He
opened this bistro in the small space (40 seats) formerly occupied by Gavroche, a restaurant specializing in
“couscous”. It is still packed every day
in 2018. And the décor is the same as it was in 93: charming, intimate, provincial,
and very comfortable in spite of the high level of noise, due to the animated
conversations. You really feel at home there. Many of my French business
contacts coming to Chicago for a trade show would call me in advance so that I
would reserve a table and make sure that there would be lapin, and mousse au
chocolat, as well as bottles of Morgon
from Marcel Lapierre, an excellent vigneron
friend of Jean-Claude who unfortunately died in 2016.
I love Lyon,
the 3rd largest city in France located 100 miles South-East from
Geneva, which is well-known as the French capital of gastronomy. And when I
used to travel there often on business, my local colleagues who knew about my
love for “la cuisine de bistro” would often take me for lunch to a “bouchon” (wine cork), the name given by
the Lyonnais to the hundreds of informal small restaurants. In a bouchon you
can eat good regional charcuterie, and Lyonnaise specialties often based on meat
and offals. A few of typical foods found
in bouchons are andouille grillée (grilled chitterlings sausage), tripe (pig or
cow’s stomach), boudin noir (blood sausage), quenelles (veal or pike dumplings
in a cream sauce), Cervelle de Canut, (cream cheese with garlic and chives),
salade Lyonnaise (lettuce with bacon, croutons, mustard vinaigrette, and a
poached egg), gateau de foie (liver cake) or onion tart, breaded pig trotters,
and coq au vin or rabbit stew in a mustard sauce.
A typical dessert, after some Saint Marcellin cheese, would be a
poached pear in red wine.
And, of course, your table would drink several “pots” de Beaujolais or Côtes du Rhône
produced North and South of Lyon. The owners and the waiting staff would
have lively conversations with their regulars, and the general ambiance would
be joyous and comfortable.
Several of these dishes could often be found at
Le Bouchon.
But some of the favorites were his onion tart,
the saucisson, the salade Lyonnaise, the ``lapin
chasseur’’ (rabbit stew in a wine sauce with mushrooms and lardons) or ‘’à
la moutarde’’, and the crème brulée.
A 3-course dinner in 1993 would cost under 20
dollars per person (without wine, tax and tip)
Jean-Claude
was a perfect Lyonnais host, who knew how to put his own numerous regulars, both
French and Americans, at ease. His sense of humor was more accessible to French
customers. But his smile was contagious. The food and the atmosphere were, and
still are, authentic. Olivier, Jean-Claude’s
son, is now the chef.
Very
sadly Jean-Claude passed away in a car accident in April 2016.
We will miss him forever.
TOULOUSE
ON THE PARK
2140 N. Lincoln Park West, Chicago
Between 1979 and 1993, Bob Djahanguiri an Iranian immigrant who, in spite of degree in
engineering, worked is way up from busboy to manager in various restaurants of
the Ray Castro and Morton groups, had a very popular restaurant-cabaret called Toulouse. The name was a reference to Toulouse-Lautrec, the French painter, who
was famous not only for his very bold and colorful posters, but also for his
love of people of the night, including singers and prostitutes, as well as of
the good life. The atmosphere was very relaxed and happy, with singers and
musicians playing for diners who enjoyed a mainly French-Continental menu. Then
Djahanguiri opened Yvette, a very
popular bistro-piano bar, at 1206 N. State St.
In
October 1993, he transferred Toulouse in a vintage building on Lincoln Park
with a
completely new formula: a totally
baroque 75 seats dining room with mirrors all over the walls, chandeliers, red
drapes, columns, and red walls decorated with slightly half romantic half
naughty paintings in the style of Fragonard. When I visited the place, Bob
told me that he wanted the whole affair to be reminiscent of Versailles. Across the hall he created a clubby Cognac Bar, with live musicians and
singers, that pretty soon became more popular than the restaurant as a destination.
In the beginning the menu created by French chef Jean-Louis Montecot, an alum of La Côte Basque in NYC, was classic French
upper-bistro.
But it was too complex for the client-base, and
Djahanguiri after a few months brought one of his cooks named Burkett from Turbot, a seafood bistro
next to Yvette, who downsized the menu in a more ‘’continental’’ style.
I do not
remember exactly when this overambitious restaurant-nightclub closed its doors.
I would guess 1995.
MARCHE
833 W. Randolph, Chicago
This vibrant place was opened on December 29, by a trio of
entrepreneurs-restaurateurs who were about to launch a trend of flashy
restaurants on what was going to be called in a matter of 3 years the Randolph “restaurant row. Marché
was a fusion of brasserie, bistro, and trendy night bar and eatery, where
“people” went to see and be seen.
It was
an immediate success that lasted for many years, before being progressively
strangled by the growing competition in that district and serious lawsuits
against it creator.
The trio of flamboyant Jerry Kleiner, astute lawyer Howard
Davis, and former broker Dan Krasny,
after their early success in the South Loop with Vivo, rapidly created other “different” eating and drinking establishments
where beautiful, young, and fun-loving people loved to spend their evenings in
original and very nicely designed places. Most of them were located in the
rapidly gentrifying and developing West Loop, around Randolph and Fulton
Market, and in the South Loop. In the West Loop several restaurants of the
group, called KDK restaurants, were
very successful since their launching in the 90s until 2010 when most of them
were forced to close for financial reasons.
The headquarters of KDK was in Marché’s
building. (Marché means Market in French).
The décor of the bi-level restaurant itself was quite visually impressive with
its painted columns, drapes, high ceilings, iron chairs, and a large counter
forming a half circle in front of the open kitchen, where several cooks were
super-busy preparing the non- stop flow of orders. KDK had recruited a very talented young but already very
experienced chef, Michael Kornick, who
was chef at Gordon’s and The Pump Room, before working for two years in the
kitchen of the Four Seasons in Boston. He stayed at Marché until 1998 after a
disagreement with Kleiner. Later on, he
was replaced by Paul Wildermuth.
The first few years the cuisine was definitely influenced
by a French brasserie style and was pretty good: Brandade de morue, onion soup, escargots, steamed mussels, rabbit terrine, great chicken roasted
on cherry wood, whole lamb shank, a great dish of whipped potatoes with garlic,
specials such as duck confit or
cassoulet.
But the best were the steaks and for lunch a terrific hamburger served with some of the
best pommes frites I ever had in Chicago. And the basket full of 3 or 4
different breads was brought to your table with an excellent butter. For dessert, made by a very good pastry chef
whose name I forgot, we loved the fruit tarts and a spectacular boozy chocolate
mousse. The wine list was decent, with
good small Bordeaux, but a bit pricey. A
4-course dinner for 2 without wine would cost over $70.00.
The big
problem with that restaurant was the excessive noise, and in the early 90’s,
the smoke.
But for long time it was one of the most
exciting restaurants in town.
After he left Marché, Michael Kornick opened his own successful restaurants such as MK.
1995
CASSIS
160 E. Huron St. Chicago
In May, I was very happy when this charming restaurant,
with its sidewalk “terrasse” café was opened by Roger Greenfield and Ted Kasemir in the Radisson hotel. It had an obvious Mediterranean touch in both the
colorful dining room, with its red tiled floor, and the attractive menu,
created by Michael Altenberg, a very
good chef whose very tasty Italian cuisine I had very much enjoyed in the late
80s first at Tucci Milan, then at
nearby very successful Avanzare,
both part of the LEY group. Cassis
is the name of a delightful small fishing port, 22 miles east of Marseille, where
you can eat very good fresh seafood and drink a delicious locally-produced
white wine. During my first visit, there I thought I was back to my native
South of France while eating fresh
artichokes with aioli, brandade de morue, a creamy cod fish puree whipped in
olive oil, that you spread on pieces of garlic rubbed toast, grilled lamb chops
with pan-fried potato, onion and leek pancake, washed down with a very good
Côtes de Provence. He also served a great French endive salad with
Roquefort, and walnuts, and it was good to finish with a Hazelnut cake, or a
Sorbet au cassis. Another day I had a good ‘’tapénade’’ and a very decent
steak-frites.
But the majority of customers came for the
Bouillabaisse and other seafood such as scallops and mussels.
But unfortunately, Altenberg did not stay long, and my next, and last visit was very
disappointing. A few months later he was
replaced by another excellent chef, Suzy
Crofton, but I never had an opportunity to taste her version of Provençal
cooking. Anyway, as it is often the case with restaurants opened by Roger
Greenfield, Cassis was soon sold, and in early 1997 it had morphed into a
Mexican Grill.
Michael
Altenberg,
who later on had been very successful at Bistro
Campagne a very good French bistro,
died in 2012
BARRINGTON
COUNTRY BISTRO
700 W. Northwest Highway (in the Foundry
Shopping Center), Barrington, IL
What a relaxing and charming restaurant it was,
especially in the summer. We had lunch there only twice, a couple of years
after its opening in May 95, but it
will remain a very pleasant meal in our memories.
The owner, Jean-Pierre
Leroux was a most gracious host and served us an apéritif (a pastis) outside, but we ate in one of the very spacious
and luminous dining room that was simply decorated but very comfortable. I knew his
wife Denise who worked at the French Consulate, and I had met Jean-Pierre when he was the manager of
the very good Ciel Bleu restaurant
in the Mayfair Regent hotel on east Lake
Shore Drive. He was a real pro, with a long experience in the food and wine
and hotel management business, who decided to come to Barrington and open his own place when the Mayfair was converted
into a condo building. He brought with him the Ciel Bleu’s chef, Brian Newkirk, who stayed a couple of
years. But then Leroux hired a very
gifted ‘’cuisinière’’, Nadia Tilkian, who gave a very pleasant modern Mediterranean
color, as well as a more traditional French bistro mark to the dishes she
created, especially the daily specials such as duck, cassoulet, and calf liver,
as well as scallops with porcini mushrooms, or pork tenderloin in thyme sauce.
But for lunch you could appreciate simple bistro fare such as a very well-made croque-monsieur,
a salade frisée and a cassis sorbet.
There was an excellent wine list, and the
prices on the menu were very reasonable.
The
restaurant closed on December 20.
BRASSERIE
JO
59 W. Hubbard St. Chicago
JO was
Jean Joho, the well-respected French chef who was hired in 1985 from France where he had acquired great cooking skills at the famous Auberge de l’Ill in Alsace, by George Badonsky to be the executive
chef at Maxim’s on Astor.
Unfortunately, the restaurant which had been
restored to his original splendor at a very high cost was closed after only one
year in January 86. So, Joho got into a partnership with Richard Melman, the genius restaurateur
and creator of the LEY group to
launch the EVEREST, a luxurious and
very creative restaurant on the 40th floor of a commercial high-rise
in the South Loop. He still manages it in 2019.
But in 95 he partnered once again with LEY to re-create a typical French
brasserie where the menu could include a few
traditional Alsatian hearty dishes such as the “choucroute garnie”, and “tarte
flambée” accompanied by French beer and Alsatian white wines such as Riesling.
The very large two-tiered dining-room, could
seat more than 200 guests in a
relaxed, relatively elegant, but very lively environment, where you could eat
and drink while listening to sold standard French songs. It also had a long bar
where you could order simple small dishes such as sausage and potato salad, or drink
an espresso with a delicious Alsatian fruit brandy such as Mirabelle or kirsch.
It was a favorite meeting place at lunch time and very late at night before or
after a show. The décor with its tiled floor, wooden bistro chairs, white table
cloth, potted green plants, and its large train station clock behind the bar
was really helping creating the atmosphere of a Parisian brasserie.
The menu also was composed of standard brasserie
dishes: Smoked salmon, pâtés, soupe à l’oignon, brandade, cassoulet, filet of
skate in a browned butter sauce with capers, coq au Riesling, duck confit,
steak-frites, salade frisée Lyonnaise aux lardons, and very good profiterolles
and sorbets for dessert. They had a different Plat du jour every day of the
week. Sometimes in the early days the menu would occasionally feature a very
pleasant dish of braised rabbit,
which I liked a lot.
The crowd was quite diverse with well-dressed
young couples, tourists out of a tour bus, old couples, or students. Everybody
was always merry and satisfied when they left the place.
The prices were quite affordable. During the
first 3 years you could have a 3-course meal for about 25 dollars (plus wine,
taxes, and tip).
But in around 2007 both trends and the expectations
and tastes of more sophisticated customers at night in that district started to
change and the restaurant was closed in
August 2010.
The 2
sons of Rich Melman replaced it with a younger, more clubby and “branché” (trendy) French-American
contemporary bistro called Paris Club.
Brasserie Jo continued to exist in Boston.
CAFÉ
CENTRAL
455 Central Avenue, Highland Park, IL
In November Carlos and Debbie Nieto owners of the very successful CARLOS, a fancy French restaurant also
in Highland Park since 1981, decided to open a more casual
French bistro next door to the old movie
theater on Central St. They knew that people wanted to eat well but in a more
relaxed atmosphere, specially before or after a movie and this 70-seat
comfortable but intimate French bistro, that they called a “French diner” in
its early days, proved them right for several years.
They asked their chef at Carlos, French-born Jacky
Pluton, to create a typical bistro
menu, with moderate prices and it was successful.
It included all the classics: soupe à l’oignon,
country pâté, pissaladière (a recipe from Nice of a warm flaky onion and
anchovies tart), mussels marinière, marinated herrings, roasted chicken
flavored with herbes de Provence served with purée de pommes de terre (mashed
potatoes), steak frites, salmon grilled with baked small green lentils, and for
dessert, besides good profiteroles, a traditional tarte Tatin, and fresh
tropical fruit sorbets.
The décor was definitively French provincial
bistro with its small windows, Big wall mirrors, original French posters, white
table cloth. The plats and wines du jour were written on a black board.
Pluton’s French
sous-chef, Frédéric Boyer became the chef de cuisine.
A 3-course
dinner would set you back at only $24.00. But the nice little lunch menu
cheaper
This restaurant was still open in 2017 but had
lost some of its original French bistro charm.
1996
CYRANO’S
BISTRO & WINE BAR
546 N. Wells St. Chicago
When
Didier Durand and his wife Jamie Pellar opened their first own restaurant,
they named it after the hero of Edmond
Rostand’s famous play Cyrano de
Bergerac. Didier is himself a native of this charming city in Southwest
France, an area well-known for its duck foie gras and terrines, goose-based
dishes, wild mushrooms, marvelous black truffles, and of course the excellent wines. So, this chef was raised in a region famous for its
gastronomy, and he still loves and defends all these traditional specialties. He
also benefited from a very solid culinary training at famous
3-stars restaurants such as Michel Guérard in Eugénie Les Bains. The
resulting savoir-faire has been evident in the various Chicago area restaurants
where he showed his talent for cooking traditional French cuisine for 10 years
before opening Cyrano’s. La Bohème in
Winnetka, Carlos in Highland Park, La Forêt in Lake Forest, Gordon’s in Chicago
and Le Perroquet where he was the head chef when Michael Foley reopened it for a year in 1992.
With its
banquettes as well as more traditional bistro tables and chairs Cyrano’s was a
very comfortable restaurant where the walls were painted in a warm and luminous
ochre color, and the high ceilings in royal blue. Fancy mirrors and French
posters completed the décor.
The bar was welcoming customers who prefer to
sip on very unusual wines from Southwestern France selected by Jamie, who often also manages the front
of the house, as well as nibbling on some appetizers.
During its early years Didier’s menu offered bistro
dishes such as a great steak with spectacular frites that were slightly spiced
up with a touch of red pepper, Coq au vin, Bouillabaisse, sweetbreads, as well
as a delicious cold Vichyssoise, and various pâtés, including a very mild but
tasty one made from ostrich meat. But you could also taste more original and
regional dishes such as rotisserie chicken, duck, and sometimes rabbit that I
loved, as well as a very flavorful braised pork.
My favorite dessert was a delicious apple TarteTatin with rosemary flavored
ice-cream.
For several years the restaurant was open for
lunch and it was very nice in the summer to have a lengthy lunch outside on the
sidewalk terrace.
In 1996 a
3-course meal would cost about 25 dollars.
After having renamed the restaurant Cyrano’s Farm Kitchen in 2012, and
spent more time on his very popular Cyrano’s
Café on the River Walk during the summer on the lower East Wacker Drive, Cyrano’s closed its doors at the end of August in 2015.
BISTROT
ZINC
3443 N. Southport Chicago
Carl
Segal,
and his partner Casey Eslick, opened
this 225 seats café-restaurant in June on
a street that was becoming rapidly popular with young couples first because of
its famous movie theater The Music Box,
at the corner of Grace st., and later on because of all kinds of
interesting shops and restaurants that populated the western sidewalks all the
way South to Belmont.
The zinc in France is a popular name for a long bar that you find in almost
every café in France. It is also called “le comptoir” and the expression “boire
une bière au comptoir”, or, “manger un sandwich au comptoir” means that
that you have little time to sit down at a table and will eat or drink
something at the bar. When I was a kid, after the war most bars were made of
wood but the top of the bar, was covered with zinc. Nowadays the zinc has
been replaced by copper. When you
used to say to a colleague or a neighbor “Viens
boire un apéro sur le zinc?” it meant that you wanted to share a quick before -dinner
drink with him at the neighborhood café.
Bistrot
Zinc had
a front room, Café Zinc, with large
French windows that from May to October were open on a very busy “terrasse” on
the sidewalk. It was a very pleasant café where you could eat small dishes such
as omelets, quiche, charcuterie, sandwiches, crepes, soups, salads, and
ice-creams or home-made pastries, while sipping good French wines and beers. Most of the good bread used there was also
home-made.
It was
in this room that you could admire the famous zinc, a beautiful French antique,
that used to be at the entrance of the main dining room of Les Nomades on Ontario in
the 1970s. I remember drinking my aperitif next to it before going to my
table to eat. But Jovan Trboyevic, the
owner of this splendid private dining club, had told me that he would have to
get rid of it because it was too big for that little space. So, I was quite
surprised when I saw that beautiful piece 20 years later on Southport.
The back of the restaurant consisted of 3 dining
rooms decorated with simple elegance as would be a French provincial bistro.
The first chef, René Bajeux was a real French pro with a long experience in France,
Maui, California, and Chicago where
he often delighted me with traditional bistro dishes at Chicago restaurants
such as La Bohème, Le Bastille, Un Grand Café, or Bistro 110.
I very often took French visitors there for
business dinners and everybody loved the place and the food. Dishes were all
classics. Belgian Endives and ham au gratin. Lapin Chasseur or Poulet “Grand
Mère” (my favorite), Great steak-frites (one of the best in Chicago in
those days). Roasted Chicken in a Thyme sauce. Leg of Lamb (Gigot) with a
wonderful aioli. Confit de Canard aux lentilles. Roasted Pork loin in a great
Calvados (Apple brandy from Normandy) sauce. Poire belle Hélène, and of course
the very popular Crèpes au Grand Marnier.
Nothing revolutionary or avant-garde, just
plain satisfying bistro food.
A 3
course meal would cost no more than 22 or 23 dollars, without wine, taxes,
and tip of course.
The restaurant closed in January 2002. But a
new Bistro Zinc opened In 1998 at 1131 N. State St. Still open in 2018, it is charming but its French look and cuisine are
not as convincing as the original on Southport.
PROVENCE
64 Green Bay Road, Winnetka
Jacky
Pluton, a
native of Aubenas in Southern
France, was chef at Carlos from January 1995 until he left in
October 1996, and at Café Central
(see above). But he had a previous solid experience in various good French restaurants
in Florida and in Philadelphia. And he was trained in France in well-known Michelin-starred
establishments. So was Frédéric Boyer, his
sous-chef then chef at Café Central and
now his partner when they open in November
this luminous (where yellow and blue were the dominant, very Mediterranean,
colors) and nicely appointed 82 seats
restaurant in the space previously occupied by the Winnetka Grill.
I went
there a couple of times on an early afternoon and had an interesting conversation with Pluton. On that occasion I
just tasted a bit of a very good brandade
a specialty of pressed codfish and olive oil from Nimes, the city where I was
born. But I did not have a chance to come back and have a full meal and I
regret it because so many dishes on the menu were obviously very authentically
Provençaux, especially his treatment of fresh vegetables, lamb and seafood.
I also
would have come back to try his Pan
Bagnat, often spelled Bagna, a traditional Provençal sandwich originally
from the Nice area, which consist of
2 round buns doused with olive oil and stuffed with canned tuna, anchovies,
lettuce, tomato, sliced hard- boiled egg, small black olives, and a little it
of vinaigrette. When I was a student in
Aix-en-Provence I used to buy one for my lunch from a vendor selling them
fresh-made out of his food truck.
A friend of mine who ate there a few times
raved about his braised lamb shank with ratatouille, And I understand that his
lavender-flavored crème brulée was a treat.
A
3-course dinner ran around $25.00 in 1996.
The restaurant suffered a fire in early 1999 and was reopened
later as Jacky's Bistro.
1997
VOILA
33 W. Monroe, Chicago
This neo-brasserie opened in January in the
space previously occupied for a long time by the very popular City Tavern. It became also rapidly a
busy lunch meeting place for people working in offices located at the heart of
the loop and for those needing a quick dinner before going to see a show at the
Schubert theater located on the side of the street. I believe that it had the
same owners as Bistro110, Anyways Voila’s
chef worked in the kitchen of Bistro
110 for several years.
I have been there only once for lunch and was
not overly impressed. The food which was a mix of French classics such as
Croque-Monsieur, Quiches, mini home-made Pizzas, Herbed Roasted Chicken, Hachis
Parmentier, Onion Soup, and slightly more exotic Mediterranean grilled dishes based
on chicken and fresh vegetables, was O.K but not very exciting. Desserts were
not very original: Crème brulée, ice cream in puff pastry with a hot coffee
sauce.
The biggest asset of this restaurant was the
location, the large menu, and the very low prices. You could eat a decent lunch for 15 dollars and drink a glass of French
wine for $4.50.
But in the summer customers loved to have a
lunch or a dessert with an expresso on the sidewalk terrace
The restaurant closed in April 99.
CAFÉ MATOU
1846 N. Milwaukee Ave. Chicago
Charlie
Socher, the
chef and owner of this simple but charming 2 rooms place that opened in
September, had already an extensive
training in well-known French restaurants on his resume before returning to
Chicago to work in 1st class restaurants such as Ambria. And his love for traditional
French “cuisine bourgeoise” was evident when I checked the menu during my first
and unfortunately only visit in this not too attractive section of Bucktown. His
charcuterie, especially the pâtés which were quite authentically French both in
taste and in presentation, as well as the Jarret d’Agneau aux légumes (braised
lamb shank with vegetables), and even the Tarte aux fruits rouges, in fact
raspberries, would not seem out of place in a French country inn.
His carte des vins offered of course a good
selection of small Bordeaux as well as lesser known French regional wines and
several of them were proposed by the glass for less than 6 dollars.
The restaurant that had a faithful following of regulars, including families with kids,
remained popular until it closed in 2010.
In 1997 a 3-course meal without wine before tax
and tip would cost you $25.00
1998
AUBRIOT
1962 N.
Halsted, Chicago
Eric
Aubriot was
barely 26 when he left his job as chef at Carlos
and came downtown in the spring to open this very pretty, small storefront (56
seats) but sort of a formal gem of pure gastronomical pleasure. He was
efficiently helped by his charming wife Stephanie
who was a perfect host and front manager.
Eric already had a very impressive culinary resume
both in France here he acquired great skills in the kitchen of luminaries such
as Alain Ducasse and Michel Guérard, and in Evanston where he
worked at TRIO.
Aubriot had a typical French chef passion for
first rate products. He did not hesitate to incorporate the best he could find
in the marketplace or from local and regional producers, to use in its very
sophisticated menus.
Fresh Foie Gras, great fresh ocean fish such as
bass and monkfish, mussels and crustaceans, Wisconsin veal, lamb, duck and
rabbit, and always beautiful fresh seasonal vegetables and mushrooms. He had a
special knack with vegetables, either grilled, sautéed, or in subtle cream
sauce. And of course, the crown of each dinner was an elaborate dessert or
pastry such as incredible soufflés and semi liquid chocolate cakes, created by Cindy Schuman, who at the time was one
of the most gifted pastry chefs in Chicago.
Eric Aubriot’s
cooking was a very balanced mix of traditional French classicism and modern, post-nouvelle cuisine that
was sometimes very bold in its elaborate association of ingredients, not
hesitating to integrate caramelized and savory elements in the same dish. Everything was very flavorful but light,
perhaps an inheritance from Guérard. And his sauces, often delicately
flavored with light cream, home-made broth, and fresh herbs or exotic spices,
were very elegant.
Unfortunately, such quality had a relatively high food cost, and after a period of
success, many customers became more reluctant to pay the price, and Aubriot
eventually was transformed in a more casual French restaurant called ESCARGOT in 2003. It had to close the same
year.
Since that time Eric worked in more than a
dozen restaurants of various types (French, Middle-Eastern, Vietnamese,
Italian, Japanese, etc.…) and in all kinds of capacities: chef, line cook, food consultant, as well as
partner or manager. Those stints lasted from one month to several years. As far as I know he was still cooking in a
Chicago restaurant in 2017, possibly Osteria Langhe.
MON AMI
GABI
2300 N. Lincoln Parkway West, ChicagoI
Gabi is the diminutive for Gabino, the first name of iconic chef
and restaurateur Gabino Sotelino, who
for many years was the co-owner with LEYE’s
creator Rich Melman, and executive chef of AMBRIA, a fancy and much celebrated and loved restaurant located
just across the front lobby of the Belden-Stratford apartment hotel.
In fact, Melman and Sotelino had launched this
French brasserie-bistro under the name of UN
GRAND CAFÉ in 1981. (see my
description in the 1980s chapter). But it was slightly re-decorated and its
menu simplified under its new name in June of 1998.
But it was still very comfortable with its
leather banquettes, bistro tables, and the steaks, with great frites, the
plateaux de fruits de mer (shellfish platters), and the pates, and the
profiterolles, tarte tatin, and mousse au chocolat as good as ever.
The staff, dressed in the traditional outfits
that you will find in a Parisian brasserie, was very well trained and
efficient.
The selection of Bordeaux, Burgundies, and
Côtes du Rhône, was quite affordable.
This restaurant is still popular in 2019.
GILLES
1791 St. Johns Avenue, Highland Park, IL
When they opened this simply decorated but
lovely, elegant, and sophisticated restaurant in June and named it after the first name of their newly arrived from L.A French chef, owners Dean
and Barbara Becker probably did not guess that this charming, very gifted
and already famous man Gilles Epié would
stay only 4 months. I never had a chance to try it but I heard
that it was pretty good.
When he arrived from Paris in 1995, without
speaking English, but with very strong cooking and entrepreneurial credentials,
he rapidly became a darling of the well-heeled
“people” in Los Angeles, the stars of
Hollywood and the big names in American and French politics.
His incredibly creative and light cuisine,
especially in seafood drove L’Orangerie,
that had almost perished before he took it over first as executive chef and
then as owner, to a new celebrity status. He was even named Best New Chef in America by Food and Wine
in 1996. He also got married with a beautiful American model Elisabeth, who
became his professional associate since that time.
But I had
personally enjoyed his cuisine in Paris
at Le Miraville, on the quai de
l’Hôtel de Ville where he became in1980
at the age of 22, the youngest chef to get a Michelin star. And I also had
good meals at La Petite Cour, rue
Mabillon, in my old neighborhood and at one point also enjoyed his
Mediterranean cuisine at Campagne et
Provence in 1994.
After 10 years in the U.S He flew back to Paris
for good to open Citrus Etoile near
the Champs-Elysées in 2005 with
Elisabeth. He just sold this very fancy restaurant in July 2017.
Gilles was renamed Cuisine Française in October 2008. Gilles
went back to LA.
LA
SARDINE
5111 N. Carpenter, Chicago
Jean-Claude
Poilevey, and his wife Suzanne, whose Le
Bouchon (see above) had rapidly become very successful in a few weeks,
opened this larger bistro on September 14. In those days, the West Loop and
more particularly the most Western part of Randolph had not yet established
itself as a foodies and restaurateurs paradise and in some way a laboratory of
new culinary trends.
To oversee the kitchen Jean-Claude had
recruited David Burns, a young
talented chef who had honed his French techniques under Jean Banchet in his Atlanta restaurant and had worked for a while
at the Ritz-Carlton when Sarah Steigner was still in charge
there. He had been the first chef at Le
Bouchon, where Poilevey trained him in traditional cuisine bourgeoise and
lyonnaise. It was a real pleasure for me to find during the first years at La Sardine some of my favorite French
bistro dishes: Brandade de morue de Nimes,
Tarte aux poireaux, rillettes, Salade Lyonnaise, bouillabaisse, steak-frites
(Burns’s frites were among the best in Chicago) and my all-time favorite
comfort food very meaty, tender, and well-seasoned Lapin Chasseur, or Lapin à
la Moutarde (rabbit in mushroom and
wine, or mustard sauce) that was served with delicious fetuccine pasta.
La Sardine also served a very seductive Gâteau
au chocolat Praliné, and a great crème brulée.
The dining room was very spacious and luminous
with its very large bay-windows.
But my favorite place was the long bar where
you could drink very well selected regional French wines and great Calvados and
Armagnac brandies. It was a very pleasant place to congregate with French
friends after hours, or have a lively discussion about Beaujolais at lunch time when Jean-Claude was still there.
SAVARIN
701 N. Wells St.
Chicago
I had multiple
occasions to enjoy John Hogan’s solid
French technique and creative talent at the piano when he was the
executive chef at Georges Cuisance’s
Kiki’s Bistro, from its opening in 1990.
So, I was quite excited
when he told me about his plan to open his own French restaurant, with a couple
of partners. But it took 6 months more than expected and a few legal,
technical, and financial obstacles to beat before that date in October where
the quite elegant SAVARIN, could finally
open on the spot previously occupied by Lola’s.
Hogan aptly gave it the name of the famous 19th century French
culinary and food writer (“The Physiology of Taste” is his major book),
epicurean, and gastronome Anthelme
Brillat-Savarin whose name was given to a famous triple-crème Brie cheese.
The main floor that
looked a bit like a French provincial brasserie, complete with booths or
tables, tiles on the floor, chandeliers, wood paneling and trims, white
tablecloth and napkins, good quality flatware and glasses, flowers all over,
was quite comfortable. So was the upper floor lounge with a bar, small tables,
sofas and deep seating armchairs.
But the main attraction
was a series of hand-painted portraits by Tim Anderson of well-known local
chefs who were either friends, former employers, or mentors of John Hogan, such
as Jean Joho, Jean Banchet, Paul Bocuse,
Tony Mantuano, Gabino Sotelino, or Roland Liccioni.
But the best feature of
this restaurant was that it was covering a very eclectic panel of what French
cuisine is made of: classicism and modernism, bistro and comfort traditional
cuisine bourgeoise, as well as sophisticated touches of intelligent “nouvelle”.
So, you could order a
traditional meal of escargots, or soupe à l’oignon, a salade Lyonnaise, coq au
vin, or steak-frites maître d’hôtel, if you wanted to stay in a “bistro” mood.
Or if you wanted to
impress a date or a future business partner, more sophisticated offerings would
do the job: seared foie gras, sea urchins in lobster sauce, crab mousse, duck
prosciutto, white asparagus in a delicate cheese and white truffle sauce, Dover
sole, or a carré de veau roti aux champignons. And a very dense and satisfying
chocolate mousse.
But when I was there
the first time I was very happy to find on the menu that day a timbale of
lentils with foie gras that John had asked me to taste 8 years earlier, just after
he had produced his first sample in the kitchen at Kiki’s, to have my comments.
I had loved it.
Savarin had a very well
selected wine list full of reasonably priced Bordeaux and Burgundies.
In 1998 a 3-course dinner would cost you no more
than 35 dollars (excluding tax and tip)
The restaurant, in
spite of very good reviews, was probably too ambitious for that time period,
and did not attract a sufficiently large client base. It was forced to close in July 2000. What a shame.
MOSSANT
235 N. Wabash avenue, Chicago
I was very hopeful,
since this address was exactly located at 2 blocks away from my office on
Michigan avenue, that I was going to find a nice lunch replacement place for my
dear, but now defunct, Café Angelo,
a cozy and peaceful Italian institution owned and managed by the charming Angelo Nicelli, whom I had known for
years. In fact, he had acquired the place in 1970 the same year I started to work
in that district. From the outside the bi-level big dining room looked elegant,
comfortable, and promising. It was still located in a hotel, the totally renovated
Hotel Monaco (formerly Oxford House). But it took several
months for the work to be completed and the restaurant finally opened in
November.
Mossant was a celebrated
French hat maker in the 1800s and this building was actually itself the site of
a hat factory.
So, the whole décor was
themed around the hats which were in evidence all over the place. I went there
a couple of times for lunch and the so- called French dishes were as so
uninteresting and mediocre in their presentation that I had the impression to
be back to a “continental” restaurant of the early seventies.
I did not return until 2000 when they
recruited the talented Steve Chiapetti as
the executive chef who revamped the menu reflecting a more modern French
cuisine including escargots en croute, fresh seared foie gras, lobster and salmon
mousse, tapenade, aioli, and brandade, as well as Tournedos Rossini, roasted
sea bass, vegetable Tagine, and Baked Alaska for dessert. By now it has attracted
a more sophisticated clientele, especially pre-theater at dinner time.
But that successful
period did not last more than a year and ended with Chiapetti leaving for more interesting venues.
The restaurant morphed
into South Water Kitchen in 2002.
Then I lost track and interest.
DAVID’S FRENCH COUNTRY BISTRO
10 W. Jackson Naperville, IL
This comfortable 3
dining rooms restaurant was more contemporary American than traditional French.
But the cuisine had an obvious French influence, inherited by the owner-chef David Oland who for quite a while was
the chef at the authentic French restaurant Montparnasse nearby. I
have not been there but from what I read and heard Oland obviously had a decent
knowledge of French cooking techniques. It was reflected in a nice selection of
seafood dishes, based on scallops, salmon, and monkfish, as well as braised
rabbit in a mustard sauce, duck confit, and even a cassoulet.
For dessert, his
risotto of oven-dried pears, with mint ice cream and crème anglaise seemed to
have some fans.
But, in spite of
reasonable prices (about 30 dollars for
a 3-course dinner) I do not think that this place lasted more than a year.
1999
LES DEUX
GROS
462 Park Blvd. Glen Ellyn, IL
The 2 “fat Guys”, that the name of this very ambitious and very inventive and
high-quality restaurant refers to, are 2 brothers with, at the time, were
endowed with a pretty noticeable girth.
Michael and Thomas Lachowicz were two professionals
with a lot of experience, Michael the
chef has been refining his tremendous knowledge of both classic French
cuisine under Jean Banchet in the
kitchen of Le Français in Wheeling,
where he stayed 2 years. But here in
his own kitchen in Glen Ellyn, he added a whole new dimension, his own, where
French modernism was obviously an important source of inspiration in the bold
dish and sauces that he created in his famous “tasting menus”. Michael
regularly came out of his kitchen to talk with customers in the dining-room
Tom, the maître d’hôtel and sommelier, was his indispensable
complement. But their personalized contact with the many foodies who packed the
place, as well as with their local “regulars” was also part of the success of
the restaurant until October 2003 when they closed the place to become partners
with Mike Moran at a re-opened Le Francais.
They opened the restaurant in January (or
February), and it rapidly got raves not only in the local press but also
national recognition.
Located in a strip
mall, this relatively small (65 seats in
1999) two rooms place was nevertheless at the same time comfortable, intimate,
and extremely well decorated and appointed, with wood panels on the walls, white
table cloth, fancy French china. The
service was faultless. And the whole atmosphere was definitely French with its
menus written in French
(with English
translation). The $70.00 prix-fixe
dinner was a big winner in 2002.
And the dishes were made of the best
ingredients that money could buy: Lobster, veal, salmon, scallops, monkfish,
oysters, duck, quail, foie gras, wild mushrooms, venison, risotto, quenelles, organ
meats, and of course lots of truffles, and small fresh vegetables and fruits,
were declined in all kind of shapes, types of “cuisson”, soups, mousses,
“entremets”, sauces, and often “en croûte”. For example, the famous Pithivier
de Canard created by Jean Banchet was a favorite.
And Lachowicz did not
hesitate to combine savory and fruits flavors.
Everything was at the
same time rich and delicate, never overdone, or pretentious. Needless to say,
the wine list was one of the best in Chicago.
CHEZ JOEL
1119 W, Taylor, Chicago
Joel Kazouini, a very nice and professional French-speaking
Moroccan man, had already a Chicago
experience as a restaurateur before he opened this 67 seats charmer in an old
Italian neighborhood in May. He and his
brother had for several years a popular bistro, Clark Street Bistro.
I always enjoyed the French
atmosphere and décor there (nice old posters on the walls), where you
immediately feel welcome, the pleasant service in spite of a very often packed
dining room, especially on week-ends. I have to also admit that the noise level
makes sometimes private conversations difficult to follow, the fact that tables
are so close to each other does not help. But after all it is also the case in
many bistros in France. Anyways, I go there for the food, and it is really good
and well presented, in this unpretentious but very classic French bistro, with
good quality ingredients. The bread is delicious, and the wine list includes a
very attractive selection of French wines at reasonable prices.
My favorite dishes are
or were, since some of them might have change from the early years: brandade de
morue, pâtés, especially country and duck liver and their typically French
accoutrements, tarte aux poireaux (warm leek tart), steak frites (good fries),
lamb shank with mushrooms, and a very decent roasted chicken. And I love their
pasta dishes. The fine apple tart with Calvados was always my dessert of
choice.
A 3-course dinner would
cost 35 dollars,
Chez Joel is still very
popular place in 2019.
LA PETITE FOLIE
1504 E. 55th street, Chicago
It took me a while to
find out where this discretely elegant French restaurant was hiding on a small
courtyard surrounded by a mini mall in Hyde Park. Living in Evanston at the time,
it was quite a long drive to get there just to eat. And the only time when we
decided to stop by for an early dinner after an afternoon at the Oriental
Museum, it was closed. So even though we went there a few times to check the
very appealing menu and the comfortable clean dining room with its white cloth
covered nice table, we never ate there and still regret it. Because everything
we read and heard about this attractive restaurant had a great appeal to me.
Perhaps we will eventually go one day since its opening in June 1999 it has been enjoying a good success and is still in
operation in 2017 under the same two owners Mary and Michael Mastricola.
Both were alumni of the
University of Chicago, went to the famous Le
Cordon Bleu school in Paris and then trained in several good restaurants In
France, her as a cook and him as a Maitre D’ and sommelier.
So, it was no surprise
that her menu and the good wine list reflected the serious French techniques
that they acquired there.
From seared Foie Gras,
Tarte aux Poireaux or onions and gruyere, to Rabbit Pâté aux pruneaux and
cognac, éventail de Magret de Canard and its delicate wild mushrooms stew, or Loin of lamb with pesto in
feuilleté, to Roasted Cod with ratatouille, or the Médaillons of Veal with
a goat cheese polenta, everything made me drool with envy.
Her tartes and sorbets
looked also very tempting desserts.
And the wine list, a
well-balanced selection of French wines, was modestly priced.
In French, “faire une
petite folie” can mean to treat yourself to an extra-special meal in a fancy,
and usually more expensive restaurant that you could normally afford.
But at la Petite Folie, you obviously could, and
still can, enjoy a very good 3 course French
meal for $ 35.00 between 1999 and 2002. Which was not a “folie”.
The restaurant is stlll very popular in 2019.
BISTROT MARGOT
1437 N. Wells Street, Chicago
Joe Doppes for many years was the first restaurateur to
have dared to introduce French cuisine in the heart of an Italian neighborhood
on Taylor Street with his successful Taylor
Street Bistro. He took more or less
a similar gamble when he opened in October
this relatively large 2 room French bistro, in a section of Wells St. in Old Town that was not yet at the
time as attractive to young professionals in search of condos near Lincoln
Park, as it would become eventually. One portion of the population of that
neighborhood was also aging and not necessarily in search of French bistros.
But a couple of years later the wind turned in his favor with the opening of a
sidewalk “terrasse” that became progressively popular and attracted many
younger customers and tourists who wanted a dink and a quick lunch.
Margot was Joe’s
daughter name.
A very astute
restaurateur, Doppes created a menu that was not too intimidating or to
eclectic. He selected a limited number of classic bistro dishes that did not
required long preparation and were easily recognizable, with standard but tasty
sauces. And he kept the prices affordable. Pâtés, Escargots, Seafood terrrine, Steak
frites, Sole meunière, Lamb chops with ratatouille, Duck magret and confit,
Roasted chicken with herbs and lemon and frites, or Coq au Vin with noodles
were good sellers. But I would say that his desserts were neither original or
special.
The wine list was O.K
but not very imaginative either.
The place could be very
noisy when packed with people who had sometimes heated discussions after a few
drinks.
But the restaurant was
popular and remained successfully opened until it closed in December of 2015.
That’s all folks!
This fifth and final
part of what I called a retrospective of 75 years of French restaurants in
Chicago marks the end of the 1900 millennium. It was somewhat a deliberate
choice on my part since 2000 was really the beginning of a new way for
Chicagoans to go out for lunch or dinner.
Even though Chicago
remained the “meat and potatoes” town it had always been for more than a
century, people here in the 1990s were more adventurous in their choices of
food, especially “ethnic”, wines, cocktails, creative desserts, and even
particularly styles, decors, and ambiances of eating venues.
A key word that
characterized that period is FUN.
Chicagoans, especially the younger generation, wanted to go out to eat with
friends and family to have a good time, in a relaxed atmosphere. They wanted to
be waited on by unpretentious and friendly service staff who knew what their
customer’s preferences were and had a
good interface with both the kitchen and the ability from the bar and possibly
the sommelier beverages to provide good advice.
In fact, more often
than in the past, the customer knew the name of the chef who sometimes paid a
visit to the table of regular customers.
The formality that had often characterized too many French
restaurants meaning intimidating menus, arrogant staff, too sophisticated
dishes, unorthodox and sometimes strange assemblies of components on the plate,
and above all too high cost a meal, progressively faded away with the massive
invasion of the “bistro”.
At the same time the
generalization of the use of fresh products in cooking, especially from farmers
markets, the multiplication of stores selling cooking ware and equipment, as
well as cooking classes, encouraged home cooking. The regular American
restaurant client was by now much better informed about food components and
their cookng.
Also, many customers
read food and wine articles in their local newspapers and even had
subscriptions to specialized F&W magazines. And they occasionally got together
to cook and taste some recipes they had read.
The number of new TV
shows devoted to food preparation grew exponentially in the 1990s and early
2000s. But at a time when traditional French cooking was in regression in
restaurants and ethnic cuisines from Italy, Mexico, and Asia were progressing
in restaurants, the same trend was noticeable on TV. Very few of these shows
were hosted by French chefs well established in the U.S. The only brilliant
exceptions were Jacques Pépin and Hubert
Keller.
One of the most obvious
trend of the 90s in French restaurants was that the kitchen in a majority of
them was now under the authority of an American chef, and often still in his or their late thirties or
forties, who had trained under a French chef, here or in France, or a French
teacher in a cooking school.
Another trend in French
bistro was to offer small dishes that
you would eat, possibly at the bar, with a glass of a French lesser known and
cheaper house wine which could be from Languedoc or the Loire Valley.
Going to a French restaurant for lunch was no
longer a long and costly affair. Many bistros would serve a croque-monsieur
with a salad, a salade niçoise, or a small steak frites, with a glass of wine,
and a cup of expresso, or a “lunch
special” for a tab rarely going over
20 dollars.
You went to a more fancy
French restaurant at night for a special occasion, such as a birthday
dinner.
Well, it is time for me
to say “Au Revoir” and a big ‘’Merci” to all the professionals, owners, cooks,
waiters, who shared their memories with me over the last 7 years. Their patience and knowledge of the French
dining
scene was invaluable.
Obviously I did not visit in person all the restaurants
which are mentioned in this work. I could not have done the lengthy and
necessary research without the help of the many books and magazines I read. And
I have to thank all the food and restaurant critics whose reviews and features
I read in various local and regional newspapers. The rich archives of The
Chicago Tribune and Sun Times were particularly helpful.
I also would like to
apologize for all the errors, confusions, misspellings, and, above all, the
nice or less nice French restaurants that I neglected or forgot. I will read and, if possible, comment on any
valid complaint on this blog.
Alain Maes
January 2019
