I’ve eaten at three different restaurants in as many years in the snug Lincoln Square storefront where gardener, forager, pierogista, and former underground chef Iliana Regan has now planted her flag. And I used to buy comics there, before the Serbian grill that served a “Balkan Bacon Explosion” took over. Then there was the ambitious but ill-fated fine dining spot from a pair of culinary school teachers. And now there’s Regan’s Elizabeth Restaurant.
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If you eat with abandon Elizabeth’s price point can rival that of Chicago’s most expensive restaurants. Regan offers three tasting menus, which you must choose among when buying your advance tickets (a la Next), and which vary in price based on the day of the week: a top-tier 20- to 25-course “Diamond” menu ($175-$205), a 12- to 16-course “Deer” menu with a “woodland” theme expressed in its reliance on foraged and hunted and trapped ingredients ($125-$155), and an 8- to 10-course “Owl” tasting based on a farm-to-table aesthetic ($65-$95). Those prices don’t include tax and tip, and if they seem precipitous, brace yourself if you plan to imbibe. Pairings for the middle menu, orchestrated by the veteran (and remarkable) sommelier Scott Noorman, run $90. With still more tax and tip this comes close to doubling the cost of the menu.
I chose to go that route because the Deer menu seems to best express what’s most exciting and unique about Regan’s style: a philosophical alignment with the uncompromisingly local and foraged food of Nordic chefs such as Rene Redzepi of Denmark’s Noma and Magnus Nilsson of Sweden’s Faviken. Regan’s even coined a phrase to describe what she does: “new gatherer cuisine.”
On a menu this size there are bound to be a few ill-conceived dishes. A morsel of sous vide brisket flash fried to a bitter crisp was a case of visual appeal employed at the expense of taste: perched in a thicket of tall greenery, it certainly did look like bird’s nest and tasted how I imaged one might. Deer tenderloin, served rare, was undermined by an accompanying dry, dense, bland, ground venison-stuffed cabbage. But these were minor interruptions in a story set in cheery room adorned with jars of preserves and hanging dried herbs, with subtler dark undertones provided by the skull and bones of woodland creatures.
4835 N Western 773-681-0651 elizabeth-restaurant.com
