It’s easy to make fun of the recent proliferation of restaurant names with ampersands in them, but it could be useful if only someone would standardize their use. Instead of having to explain that a new place is an organic, local, sustainable, nose-to-tail gastropub, for example, you could just say that it has an ampersand in its name. Those in the know wouldn’t need to hear anything else.
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Bangers & Lace, a sausage-and-beer joint from the people behind Bar Deville, Nightwood, and Duchamp, evokes a traditional hunting lodge, complete with a deer head on the wall and other stuffed game animals scattered about. The impression is helped along by the hardwood floors and exposed-brick walls. But everything’s just a little too new for the old-timey illusion to hold up, and the flat-screen TV across from the fake wood-burning stove and pastoral mural is incongruous (to be fair, I’ve never seen the two TVs actually on).
The “lace” in B & L refers to the pattern that beer leaves on the inside of an empty glass; “bangers” is of course a British term for sausage. Not surprisingly, the menu focuses on encased meats, and they’re top-notch. Chicken and venison sausages, both excellent in their own right, worked well with their myriad toppings (including crushed chips, relish, deviled eggs, and green onions for the chicken, and whiskey apple jam, beets, bacon, smoked pecans, pickled onions, jalapenos, and sour cream on the venison).
Generous portions left us unable to touch the desserts on my first visit, but on the second I loved a delicately flavored Earl Grey creme brulee, which went especially well with the complimentary tastes of the house-made bourbon infused with cinnamon, blood oranges, and vanilla—I’d order it again in a heartbeat.
Bangers & Lace 1670 W. Division, 773-252-6499bangersandlacechicago.com
Blokes & Birds 3343 N. Clark, 773-472-5252blokesandbirdschicago.com
