“How many restaurants still have their own matchboxes?” was the host’s boast as I edged my way toward the exit at BLT American Brasserie. I didn’t have an answer for him, but by then I suspected that was the best thing going for this sprawling, overdecorated glorified Applebee’s of a restaurant from New York-brand chef Laurent Tourondel, at one time the man behind BLT Steak, BLT Fish, BLT Prime, BLT Burger, and BLT Market—none of which he has any connection to anymore, thanks to a convoluted lawsuit with former partners that’s allowed him to use the initials but none of the dishes he created.
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He’s also the chef at Brasserie Ruhlmann in Rockefeller Center. Remember the short-lived outpost here on the dark and lonely edge of River North? A French restaurant, opulent, art deco in design, easy to wrap your brain around. Even amid the wave of neo-French bistros and brasseries opening in recent times, it still had a reasonable chance of luring in someone with a yen for steak frites or soupe à l’oignon while it lasted.
Let’s start with that sushi: it doesn’t matter if it’s the peekytoe crab roll with mango, the yellowtail with caviar, the spicy tuna layered in a fishy orangish slurry, or the cross-sectioned candy-bar coconut-macadamia shrimp maki. Each is jacketed by a gritty, set rice paste, the dullness of the fish masked by sweet sauces or fatty avocado filler. You’ve wolfed this sushi, sans garnishes, from supermarket shelves in desperate times past. So who will say, “Hey, I feel like sushi tonight! Let’s check out BLT?” Maybe the same folks who will eye the “Asian” calamari salad, the veggie burger, or the jumbo lump crab cakes, and say, “Let’s get pizza!”
Sushi, pizza, steak, sandwiches, blooming goddamn onion—there are so many better options for any of these categories all over the near north side. (Well, OK, it might be the best blooming onion in the city. I’m not sure.) But I’m positive it takes a lot more than just a well-known name and a book of matches to pull them off all at once.
500 W. Superior 312-948-8744bltamericanbistro.com
