Benny’s Chop House has often appeared on “Best Steakhouse” lists in a city full of great steakhouses. Somehow, I never made it there until it was too late. It was on my shortlist for making a dinner reservation several times, but somewhere else always won the competition. When I saw they were closing at the end of February, I decided to make a reservation just to say “hello” and “farewell.”
The place was packed when we arrived, so we ended up in the bar for a few minutes. I ordered a classic gin Martini while Valeria opted for her usual Champagne.
If you know anything about gin at all, you will at least have heard of Bombay Sapphire, a premium, but easy-to-find, dry gin. I like my Martini made with gin, a little vermouth, and regular olives, served very cold, but neat (i.e., not over ice). This one was perfect. You might think that you could get a classic Martini made well in any bar, but, believe me, it gets messed up far too often.
They opened a fresh bottle of Billecart-Salmon Brut Rosé to pour Valeria’s glass. This is one of our go-to Champagnes in restaurants. It is usually mid-range priced for a genuine French Champagne and reliably delicious.
The Billecart-Salmon Champagne house was founded in 1818, when Nicolas François Billecart started the business with his wife, Elizabeth’s, brother, Louis Salmon. As with most Champagne houses, they make a full line of Champagnes from non-vintage wines (like this one) to prestige, vintage bottles. These range in price from around $45 to $200+ in retail stores as I write this, but the price of Champagne varies dramatically with supply and demand, currency exchange rates, and seasonal sales.
Our table was ready in just a few minutes and some nice bread, some kind of Brioche by the look of it, and butter appeared.
Nice bread, but nothing especially noteworthy.
I ordered one of the steakhouse classics that I always enjoy, a prawn cocktail.
When I was growing up in Michigan, fresh shrimp was a rare and expensive treat, although fried shrimp baskets were pretty common. Simple as it is, a good shrimp cocktail is still a treat for me. Benny’s called it a Prawn Cocktail. “Prawn” is often used interchangeably with “shrimp,” sometimes to indicate larger shrimp, but, technically, prawns are another species altogether. These were shrimp.
All that really matters, however, is how were they cooked and how good was the sauce?
The shrimp were perfectly cooked. Cocktail sauce can be nothing more than catsup with some horseradish mixed in, but good ones also include some Worcestershire sauce, maybe a dash of hot sauce, some garlic powder, and a little Old Bay or other seasoning. This one clearly had some of those extras in the recipe, and I especially liked how they left a dollop of horseradish on top so you could mix it in to make the sauce as mild (or hot) as you like. (I mixed it all in.)
Valeria ordered another classic dish that you don’t see nearly as often anymore: Oysters Rockefeller.
Oysters Rockefeller was first served in 1889 at the famous New Orleans restaurant, Antoine’s. The dish was named after John D. Rockefeller, then the richest man in America. It is still an enormously popular dish at Antoine’s, although the original recipe apparently died with Jules Alciatore, the son of the restaurant’s founder. Many recipes exist, but what they all have in common is a fresh oyster on the half shell, topped with a sauce made of parsley and other green herbs, along with scallions, capers, and bread crumbs, then baked and served with a slice of lemon. Spinach is the primary green in many recipes, but the restaurant firmly denies it was ever used there. Bacon, Parmesan or Romano cheese, and Pernod or another anise-flavored liqueur are also common addition.
Benny’s version was delicious. I don’t know exactly what recipe they used, but it was probably similar to this one:
Now comes the real reason I wanted to make sure to visit Benny’s before they closed: they were selling all their wine at half price. I knew they had an outstanding list, and I hoped to snag a rare treat at a relative bargain price. I did.
If you look at this picture and drool, you might be a real wine aficionado. The 1990 Paul Jaboulet Aîné, “La Chapelle” Hermitage from the Rhone Valley in France was given a perfect or near-perfect score by many wine critics. I’ve had a few vintages of La Chapelle and it is always an amazing wine. There were other possible choices on the list, but Valeria really loves Rhone wines and, well, as they say, “Happy wife, happy life.”
This was, indeed, as close to wine perfection as you could hope. At 30 years old, I think it was pretty much at it’s peak, but it had all the ingredients to stay there for another decade or two. Still very dark, but with no sign of browning, the nose continued opening for a couple of hours after decanting. That probably would have continued, but by then we had finished the bottle. Aromas of dark fruits, cassis, licorice, spices, chocolate, and occasional herbal and floral notes danced from the glass in various combinations. The flavors reflected what the nose promised in a full-bodied, beautifully smooth liquid with a finish that lasted forever. I’ve never had a better wine.
The wine definitely deserved a good steak to go with it, so I ordered a suitably rich selection.
This was a Prime NY Strip steak for which I ordered seared foie gras and Demi-glace red wine sauce to gild the lily. It turns out that the embellishments were totally unnecessary, though delicious. The steak by itself was cooked to a perfect medium, as I requested, and full of flavor. Still, the wine had no trouble standing up to the meat and the extras.
We shared some truffle fries.
Truffle fries are essentially always flavored with truffle oil, which rarely, if ever, is actually made using real truffles. Be that as it may, these fried were great: crisp outside, tender inside, with plenty of parmesan and fresh herbs.
Valeria always wants mushrooms with her steak, and I don’t argue with her about that.
These were good, basic sautéed mushrooms with no frills, and that’s fine.
Valeria chose what Benny’s called a “natural” NY Strip.
Benny’s menu featured a selection of “traditional” prime, wet-aged steaks, a few dry-aged steaks, and a few “natural” steaks that were cut from cows raised on a specific farm in Arizona without any hormones or antibiotics. It was a very good steak, thought not as tender as my prime cut.
The King crab legs were perfect.
While the restaurant was packed when we arrived, the crowd slowly reduced and there was no pressure on us to rush the meal, which was great. We were taking our time and really enjoying the food and, especially, the wine.
Valeria still had some wine in her glass and was not about to give it up (I don’t blame her), so I perused the after dinner drink list, which had plenty of great bourbons, ryes, Scotches and the like to choose from. I saw a Belle Meade bourbon that I had heard of, but never tried, their Sherry Cask Finish.
Belle Meade Bourbon has a history that dates back to 1878 when the Belle Meade Plantation in Nashville, Tennessee, contracted with the nearby Nelson’s Green Brier Distillery to produce bourbon, rye, corn, and Tennessee whiskies under the Belle Meade label. At that time, the plantation was a world famous horse farm. The Belle Meade Bourbon proved to be hugely popular until Prohibition put the distillery out of business. The Planation also changed over the years and is now a popular wedding venue and winery.
In 2006, brothers Andy and Charlie Nelson stumbled upon an historic marker and what remained of the Nelson’s distillery. They had heard about a distillery being part of the family’s past, but had no idea anything was left of it. They decided to bring the family business back, and launched Belle Meade Bourbon using sourced whiskey that they blend and age to their own specifications. It took a while, but they have successfully re-launched the business and the bourbons are garnering a lot of awards and positive reviews.
If this Sherry Cask Finish bourbon is any indication, the reviews and awards are well deserved. This was a delicious whiskey, with tons of brown sugar, oak, caramel, vanilla, nuts, citrus, and spice on the nose. All of these aromas followed as flavors on the palate. I never diluted the whiskey with any of the ice I asked for on the side. It was just too silky smooth and delicious.
So, that ended our first and last visit to Benny’s Chop House. It was as memorable for the wine and bourbon as for the food, although the food was worthy of the accolades the restaurant had received. We still have plenty of steakhouses in Chicago, but it’s always a shame to see a good restaurant of any kind go out of business.
Benny’s Chop House
Address: 444 N. Wabash Avenue, Chicago, Illinois 60611
Hours: Permanently Closed
Chicago, IL 60603
The author has no affiliation with any of the businesses or products described in this article.
All images were taken with a Sony Alpha a9 camera and a Zeiss Batis 40mm f/2.0 CF lens using ambient light. Post-processing in Adobe Lightroom® and Adobe Photoshop® with Nik/Google and Skylum® Luminar® plugins.
