Let’s make a sandwich out of food writing cliches. Start with a slab of decadent, a schmear of luscious, a soupcon of over-the-top. A sprinkle of artery clogging, or perhaps heart stopping. Et voila: we’ve built the Montreal, a literal sandwich on the menu at Dillman’s, Brendan Sodikoff’s new not-a-Jewish-deli. Served on rye, the Montreal is something the menu counsels you (with an exclamation point!) to share, though it doesn’t suggest with how many (the correct answer is “rugby team”). It’s bologna, pastrami, corned beef—and foie gras, for good measure. In the interest of sport, we came up with a few supercilious complaints—which layer is which; how do you know?—until there was enough meat in our mouths to keep us from talking.
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Sodikoff, like Paul Kahan a sort of Midas of local restaurateurs, has hit upon a hell of a business plan—take what people like and make it really well—applying it to individual foodstuffs (steak, doughnuts) as well as broader concepts (Parisian lounge, faux diner). At Dillman’s the food is pure id: cured meat, schmaltz, creme fraiche, cheese, bone marrow, a menu of “strong drinks.” One of the best salads is hardly a salad; rather, it’s a mound of wonderful smoked whitefish nestled inside half of an avocado, with some lettuce on the side, like an afterthought, finished with a light lemon vinaigrette.
In addition to the aforementioned whitefish salad, starters include a Kubrickian matzo ball, rising forbiddingly over the lip of a bowl holding a rich chicken broth improved further by little charred onions; plump pickled herring on rye; and the best chicken liver I’ve had, chopped rough and served with a ramekin of schmaltz and generously greasy toast. Caesar salad has a dressing so intensely flavorful—so lemony, so fishy, so garlicky—that it needn’t be poured on, and this kitchen, which seems so like the sort of place that’d really turn a hose onto a salad, is careful with it. Potato chips take the place of the croutons. There are in addition smaller side plates: cheese and smoked meat a la carte, extra bread, fried egg, potato salad, and a couple of really bangin’ potato pancakes, sized like hockey pucks but a good deal more pleasant to nibble on.
354 W. Hubbard 312-988-0078dillmanschicago.com
