Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites »
That’s how John Drury, author of 1931’s Dining in Chicago: An Intimate Guide, conjured up an even more distant era of Bohemian-Czech gemütlichkeit by gaslight. (Thomas died in 1905, so it would have been before then.) Apparently even by 1931, with the Bohemian-born “Two Ton Tony” Cermak in firm control of the Cook County machinery, it was possible to feel that the old Czech Chicago had already begun to fade into the past, belonging to an era when you wiped your (entirely legal) Pilsner from your walrus mustache while a brass band oompah’d the “Merry Widow Waltz.”
Eight decades later Pilsen, the “west side” where Little Bohemia once stood, has been Latino for so long no one thinks twice about the name, and you have to go much farther west to find Czech eateries—to Fullerton west of Central, for instance. The name “Operetta” evokes that pre-World War II, Alan Furst-novel era, though once you’re inside, the Mix is blaring loud enough to bring you back to the present, or perhaps to a hot Saturday night for Steve Martin and Dan Aykroyd’s wild and crazy Czech brothers.
To reassure her that her homeland’s cuisine has not disappointed us, we quickly request dessert. “Pancakes a la Operetta” proves to be a rustically bumpy-textured crepe stuffed with 1950s-style fruit cocktail and topped with whipped cream. Still, when she brings the check, the way she says “See you next time” is almost heartbreaking, redolent of nights spent watching the audience for Czech food in Chicago dwindle with each passing year. Ah, the old days!