Here is a hard demographic reality, or at least an ignorant guess: if, as we’ve noted in this space before, the area of downtown Chicago north of the river and west of Michigan Avenue is a clubby, bejeweled but no less vomit-encrusted gutter for Chicago’s young uncreative classes, the area just east of Michigan is where the disposably incomed go when they grow up, or at least want a good night’s sleep. “So what are we celebrating tonight?” a host at Tre Soldi, on Ohio Street, asked my boyfriend and me one evening, having discerned we were the only people in the restaurant who weren’t obviously tourists or Streeterville condo board members. “Having an employer who’ll buy my meal if I write about it” seemed like an infelicitous answer, so I just shrugged, awkwardly, and scratched a nit out of my hair.
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This all looks good on paper, doesn’t it? So does the cocktail menu, which leans heavily on Italian bitter liqueurs. But the drinks are too sweet, except for the one that isn’t: an extremely ill-advised combination that uses citrus to bring out the more unfortunate mouthwash flavors latent—or blatant, I guess, depending on the level of your tolerance—in Branca Menta. Nothing marries the two elements, though it gets more drinkable as the ice melts. Did anybody behind the bar happen to sample this one?
212 E. Ohio 312-664-0212tresoldichicago.com
