If you’re trying out a hot new restaurant these days, odds are good that, seated at a communal table in a room so loud you have to yell to be heard, you’ll order organic, locally sourced food—possibly including some part of a pig you never thought you’d consume—from a menu that changes seasonally. The Grocery Bistro is that hot new restaurant without the snout-to-tail devotion that defines the menus at similar concepts like the Publican and the Bristol: there’s no shortage of meat here, but it comes in comfortably familiar cuts, and seafood and vegetarian dishes are equally prominent on the menu.

Seems like Chicago’s been waiting since the Bronze Age for someone to challenge the gimmicky orthodoxy of Greektown, a place to take tourists more than a place to take expectations of a memorable or original meal. But at Taxim 29-year-old former caterer David Schneider, with the help of sous chef Jan Rickerl (Green Zebra, Scylla), has raised the bar for what passes as serious, interesting regional Greek food in a dramatic scrubbing of the late Wicker Park dive Big Horse Lounge. The tin lanterns in this Byzantine lounge (dimly) expose some of some of the freshest yet oldest ideas in village cuisine: humble, seasonal ingredients in simple, wonderful dishes like fresh-shelled favas with yogurt and lamb confit, a recipe from a mountain region where the traditional use of animal fat reflected a scarcity of olive oil. (And Schneider has already changed it by subbing in tender unshelled bean pods that were unavailable a few weeks ago.)

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That’s not to say Taxim is a bastion of tradition. Pomegranate-glazed duck gyros are an updated nod to street food, dressed in a thin, unstrained house-made yogurt that’s deployed with amazing results in a number of dishes, from sauteed baby eggplant to a brawny (if dry) minced goat kebab, as well as on its own for dessert, accented with some tart candied kumquats. The so-far moderately sized selection of hot and cold mezzes and large plates—which also includes supersweet roasted peppers, capers, and kefalograviera cheese and a phyllo-clad goat feta and ramp pie—apparently just hints at Schneider’s repertoire, said to include hundreds of recipes from Greece and Asia Minor. The all-Greek wine list (including nine by the glass) is affordable and interesting; add to that the promise of rooftop dining amid native Greek verdure from Schneider’s grandparents’ village and a daytime yogurt bar in the front of the house and I’m looking forward to watching him live up to his lofty ambitions on many future visits. —Mike Sula

Overall, though, the menu feels formulaic—safely unremarkable in both content and execution. Witness, for example, the “mozzarella egg roll”: a run-of-the-mill log of melted cheese in a bland wonton skin. It’s too bad the TLC so evident in the room has yet to reliably manifest itself in the kitchen—because, did I mention, it’s really pretty? —Martha Bayne

Birchwood Kitchen

With the world teetering on the edge of an economic abyss, plenty have remarked upon the wretched timing of this trader-themed sports bar. Nonetheless, hordes of River West workers—if not actual traders—pack in after five to ogle sport-tuned flat screens and decidedly three-dimensional waitresses, tank teed and dude friendly. There are all sorts of other diversions for arrested adolescents of drinking age, including special Xbox booths and pay-as-you-go beer taps sprouting from the tables, as well as a predictably dull menu of upscaled, uninspired pub grub—overcooked but nicely seasoned Kobe sliders, untruffly parma truffle fries and boneless buffalo wings (aka chicken breasts). Overall it’s about as groovy as a Cheez Whiz factory, but it fits in with the neighborhood’s other theme park restaurant attractions. —Mike Sula

4623 N. Broadway | 773-944-1417$African | Breakfast, lunch, dinner: seven days | Cash only

Taxim

Branch 27

804 W. Washington, 312-850-9291

1558 N. Milwaukee, 773-252-1558

1371 W. Chicago, 312-850-2700