Jose Garces’s splashy homecoming from Philadelphia—where the Chicago-bred celeb launched two successful tapas restaurants in as many years—marks him as a sort of Spanish imperialist. But the chef isn’t stamping out his empire with a giant cookie cutter shaped like the Iberian Peninsula. His other restaurants have affinities for distinct Spanish regions (Andalusia and the Basque Country), and at this one, Mercat a la Planxa, signifiers of Catalan cuisine dot the menu: Spanish scallions (calçots), charred and served with romesco sauce (salbitxada); cured sausages like butifarra and fuet; and pa amb tomaquet, grilled tomato-garlic bread, to name a few.
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The small bar and lavatories on the ground floor of the Blackstone Hotel serve as anteroom to this wide-open bi-level upstairs dining room, which somehow feels close in spite of its spaciousness. The menu is a bit intimidating in its depth and pricing, especially considering that these are small plates, but with the exception of a $14 grilled flatbread, most were pretty darn good. I can’t get my mind off the inky black, superrich fideua negra—angel hair and baby squid topped with saffron aioli—and even an old standby like bacon-wrapped dates was distinguished by a tiny pitcher of blue cheese and skewered over a small bowl of frisee that helped cut the richness.
This little Pilsen storefront is the spawn of the Albany Park Chinese-Korean restaurant Great Sea, home of the dangerously habit-forming chicken wings known as “hot and saucys.” I’ve long believed these chicken lollipops—frenched, battered, deep-fried, and slathered with a sweet, dark, oily chile sauce—could make for a profitable franchise all by themselves. So, apparently, did daughter of the house Karen Lim, a former schoolteacher who opened Take Me Out in mid-March. Her spare menu offers basics like crab Rangoon, orange chicken, bulgogi-like “beef bowls,” and the magnetizing “little hotties,” as she calls them. But her wings aren’t exact replicas of her parents’ masterworks. For one, they aren’t frenched, which makes them messier and more difficult to eat. For another, at Great Sea the radius and ulna segments of the wing are discarded, but not here. Lim admitted to me that these measures save her thousands of dollars in labor, and if that’s what it takes for her to make it, I don’t mind so much. Sauces are available in mild, medium, and hot, and I didn’t like that the heat at the highest level is weaker than the default sauce at the mothership. Still, this is progress. —Mike Sula
Mercat a la Planxa
638 S. Michigan 312-765-0524 http://mercatchicago.com
Shokolad Pastry & Cafe 2524 W. Chicago
773-276-6402 shokoladpastryandcafe.com
Take Me Out 1502 W. 18th 312-929-2509 takemeouthotties.com
