Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites »
Last week Mike Sula reviewed Nellcote, Jared Van Camp’s Stones-inspired luxe-meets-louche villa on Randolph Street. This week it’s Balena, like Nellcote, an ambitious pan-Italian-inspired cucina offering pizza, handmade pastas, house-made breads, and shareable plates. The difference: under Chris Pandel and a couple marquee members of his team at the Bristol, preparations are unfussy and “resolutely rustic” as opposed to decadent, and the atmosphere, rather than sceney, is big-hearted and easygoing. Nearly everything on this menu—from the grilled prawns with aioli to crispy salt-and-pepper chicken thighs with greens and green garlic to a plate of Korean-style thin-cut short ribs—is “something you want to tear apart with your teeth like a rabid animal,” says Sula. In other words, score another success for the Boka Restaurant Group (Boka, Perennial Virant, Girl & the Goat, GT Fish & Oyster, and Landmark, the unlamented Halsted Street barstaurant Kevin Boehm and Rob Katz closed to make way for Balena).
