“I’ll remember the food this time,” said the friend I brought to the Southern, who’d accompanied me when I reviewed this Wicker Park restaurant’s previous incarnation, Chaise Lounge. Swanky Chaise was questionably upscale: the well-dressed young things drawn to the scene on the upper deck or the spacious patio for cocktails seemed unlikely to drop $30 on forgettable entrees. The Southern’s slightly refined Dixie-inspired fare in a casual bar setting is a much better platform for chef Cary Taylor’s talents.
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Changes at C-House, Marcus Samuelsson’s Chicago outpost in the Affinia Hotel, have been subtle but significant since executive chef Nicole Pederson (a former sous chef at Lula Cafe) took over the open kitchen last fall. She’s pared down the menu, boosted local sources, and put her own stamp on the cooking. The seafood towers, tiered platters piled with selections, are no longer available, and while gleaming copper pots still hang over the raw bar, the iced shellfish on display was oddly limited mostly to lobster parts—despite the absence of lobster on the dinner lineup. There were some missteps here: a blackboard classified oysters as “East” or “West,” but when asked about WiAnnos, listed under “West,” the friendly server told us they were from Maine (they’re from Cape Cod). Sand in some of our Rappahannocks and Pebble Beaches suggested insufficient attention had been paid to the oysters in other ways too.
Whole grilled trout, deboned and moistened by brown butter, came smothered in lardons, wilted Bordeaux spinach, chopped almonds, and both roasted pear slices and julienne raw pear. It vied for favorite entree with the hearty persimmon-glazed Gunthorp Farms pork chop with cubes of brown bread, roasted shallots, and baby spinach. Poached sturgeon—three little two-bite pieces—was stingy by comparison, and neither the piles of peekytoe crab and fennel nor the tidbits of pickled crab apple that accompanied it compensated for fishy undertones.
In the bar, with flat-screen TVs overlooking a handful of tables and bar stools, deviled eggs and raw oysters are the nibbly prelude to more indulgent dishes like Wagyu beef tartare or a crispy breaded fried cylinder of unctuous pig head terrine atop pickled vegetable slaw and deviled quail egg. These can be augmented by mini cast-iron crocks of simple vegetable sides such as bacon-maple brussels sprouts or heirloom field peas. The lauded Custom House burger of prime steak and short rib hasn’t disappeared and is offered alongside a Reuben with house-made corned beef.
C-House
166 E. Superior, 312-523-0923, c-houserestaurant.com
Custom House 500 S. Dearborn, 312-523-0200, customhouse.cc
