Between the opening of the revolutionary Avec in 2003 and the refreshing arrival of Jose Garces’s Mercat a la Planxa in late 2008, could there have been a more enervated, bush-whipped restaurant style around town than sorta-Spanish tapas and their mutant offspring? These were characterized by unhappy arranged marriages of incompatible cuisines or half-cocked conflations of the traditional and the Adria-esque. The inauthentic imitation of casual, progressive Iberian bar snacking ruled night and day, as tiny nibbles were forced into family-style eating arrangements.
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At first glance it seems this University Village tapas clearinghouse is just more of the same: small Spanish plates and a few bigger ones, with some nebulous application of New World Latin influences, served up in an environment recognizable to any freshman art-history student, prints of iconic Spanish painters on the walls.
The chefs have a way with those crustaceans—as in an olive-y ceviche, and those bathing in a crock of garlicky olive oil and chile. And they do well with other sea creatures too, such as a plate of three seared scallops encircling a pile of cured sausage scraps and surrounded by messy splatters of saffron cream sauce, or supertender grilled octopus chunks tossed with potatoes and a wonderful, gritty almond pesto.
La Taberna Tapas on Halsted
1301 S. Halsted
312-243-9980
latabernatapas.com
