Valeria and I were looking for a more casual place to have dinner one Saturday night. Browsing through the options on OpenTable, we came across Joe’s Imports. It advertised a diverse selection of wines by the glass and small plates to nosh on—in other words, it sounded like our kind of place.
They have decorated the front of the restaurant to leave no doubt they put an emphasis on wine.
Joe’s Imports is the latest creation from a long partnership between Chef Scott Harris and Wine Director Joe Fiely. Joe traveled to Italy in 1987 and fell madly in love with Italian food and wine (an easy thing to do in Italy!). When he returned the States, he quit his life in corporate finance and entered the restaurant business. He partnered with Chef Harris in 1992 as the Chef was building Mia Francesca. The restaurant featured Chicago’s only all-Italian wine list. That restaurant grew into Francesca’s Restaurant GroupFrancesca’s Restaurant Group which operates restaurants in Chicago, San Diego, CA, and Raleigh, NC. These restaurants include multiple Francesca’s Restaurants, Davanti Enoteca, Fat Rosie’s Taco and Tequila Bar, and Disotto.
As the restaurant empire was growing, Joe continued to study wine and earned multiple certifications, including Court of Masters Sommeliers, Certified Sommelier (CS), Certified Specialist of Wine (CSW), and Certified Italian Wine Specialist.
All of this experience and training culminated in the opening of Joe’s Imports in 2019. For a foodie/wino like me, the only thing better than a chef-driven restaurant is a chef and sommelier-driven restaurant. This should be good.
As we walked in for the first time, however, our first reaction was not good. The main, upstairs part of the restaurant was extremely loud and had almost a club-like vibe. That is terrific for a certain market segment, but Valeria and I aren’t part of that segment. Fortunately, Joe himself (who apparently is a fixture in the restaurant) came to the rescue and took us downstairs to a much quieter room. Things started looking up.
They started looking even better as we perused a menu featuring all sorts of interesting looking dishes clearly chosen with wine in mind.
One of the specials combined two of Valeria’s favorite things: scallops and fennel.
Our waitress, clearly a foodie/wino herself, knew both the dishes and the wines by the glass very well, so she was a great source of information as Valeria and I built our “roll your own” tasting menu. Our first choice: Fried Parmesan Puffs.
Fried and Parmesan, how could that be bad? It wasn’t. The hot, crispy potato and cheese puffs were delicious. The fondue, however, was pretty bland and could have used a little something to kick up, at least for us.
Our second choice was snow crab claws.
I actually like crab better than lobster, so this was a great dish for me.
Salmoriglio has been used as a marinade and sauce in southern Italy, especially around Sicily and Calabria, for centuries. The basic recipe is a mix of lemon juice, olive oil, and garlic further flavored by various herbs that vary by region and by cook. Seafood loves salmoriglio and crab is no exception.
Calabrian chilies are are small, spicy, very flavorful chili that originates from, you guessed it, Calabria. Just enough was added to flavor and add a little kick without dominating the dish.
It would be a shame not to have some bread to soak up the extra sauce, and some toasted ciabatta bread was thoughtfully provided.
What were we drinking with all this? As I said, our waitress knew the food and the wines very well. After several minutes of discussion, we decided on a flight of three white wines (actually, two whites and a rosé) to be followed by a flight of three red wines. The first flight carried us through the parmesan puffs, crab claws, and the risotto (more about that in a minute).
2018 Pala, Chiaro di Stelle Rosé, Sardinia, Italy. I had never heard of this wine, but I’m glad I got a chance to taste it. It was a bright pink with a fresh, fruity nose of strawberries and floral notes. It was dry and crisp. It was not super complex, but very pleasant and a nice one to pair with food. It is a blend of three grapes: 40% Monica, 30% Carignano, and 30% Cannonau. Monica is a red grape originally from Spain, but now rare outside of Sardinia. Carignano is a red grape better known as Carignan in France and Carinena in Spain. Cannonau is called Grenache in France and Garnacha in Spain. It is widely planted in both countries.
2016 Joseph Burrier, Pouilly-Fuissé, Burgundy, France. Pouilly-Fuissé comes from the Mâconnais region in Burgundy. Like (almost) all white wines from Burgundy, it is made with Chardonnay grapes. I’ve enjoyed many bottles of Pouilly-Fuissé over the years, especially in French bistros and cafes. While wines from the Mâconnais can be delicious, they don’t reach the heights of complexity that wines from the best vineyards in Burgundy achieve. That also means they are much lower priced and can be a brilliant choice for anyone who enjoys French wines but doesn’t want to take out a second mortgage to purchase one. This one had a pleasant nose of honeysuckle and other floral notes as well as some tropical fruit aromas. It was fresh and clean on the palate and, like the rosé, a nice food wine.
2017 San Salvatore Falanghina, Campania, Italy. Falanghina is not a common grape outside of Campania, but I have had several bottles over the years. It’s a light, white wine with a nose of citrus fruits and apples with a nice mineral note and good acidity on the palate.
All three of these wines are inexpensive, food-friendly, enjoyable wines to sip on your deck on a warm day or share over a casual meal with friends. You won’t find wine snobs waxing poetic about them, and you won’t want cases to store in your cellar for years, but they were clearly selected to be inexpensive, easy drinking, and very good with food.
We finished this trio of wines with our third dish, a scallop and fennel risotto.
Searing a scallop is one of those simple things that is easy to mess up. Getting a good sear without overcooking the inside requires a skilled touch. These were perfect and plump.
Fennel, also called Italian celery, is a delicious vegetable that can be eaten raw or cooked. It has a unique anise or licorice kind of flavor. Fennel pollen delivers a more concentrated burst of this flavor.
Agrodolce is a traditional Italian sweet and sour sauce. The name comes from the Italian words agro (sour) and dolce (sweet). In its simplest form, sugar or honey is boiled down with vinegar to make a thick sweet and sour sauce. However, that is really just a base to which fruits, vegetables, chilis, red pepper flakes, and more can be added. In this case, fennel, which has a sweetness of its own when cooked down, was a great choice to dress with agrodolce.
You can see from the beautiful color that the saffron has infused the rice. The blood orange added a touch of sweetness and tartness to the risotto.
This was a very flavorful dish with lots of textural contrasts as well.
Moving into red wine territory, our next course was lamb meatballs.
These were wonderful—tender, flavorful, and light. I’m impressed that someone went beyond the usual suspects (beef, veal, chicken, pork) for meatballs and used lamb. It has a great flavor and should be used more often.
Slagel Family Farms is a popular source for restaurants in Chicago looking for local, farm to table sources of high-quality meat. It is located about 100 miles southeast of Chicago in Fairbury, Illinois.
The other items on the plate were also packed with flavor as well as offering textural variations. Raita sauce is from India and is similar to Greek tzatziki, a cool yogurt-cucumber sauce that is more common, at least in the US. The main difference is that raita is made with a thinner, saltier yogurt, includes some toasted spices like cumin or coriander, and does not include lemon juice. However, these differences are not cast in stone and a quick Google search uncovered many recipes for each that were sometimes more similar, and sometimes less similar. What all the variations have in common, however, is that they are flavorful, creamy sauces that can cool the fire of the spicy foods they often accompany.
Tabbouleh is an herb salad from the Middle East that is also used as a condiment. The primary ingredient is parsley, which is mixed with other flavorful ingredients like mint, tomato, garlic, olive oil, lemon juice, onion, cucumber, and bulgar wheat. All the ingredients are chopped fine, mixed well, then served as a salad, side dish, condiment, or even a vegetarian main course. Like raita and tzatziki, it’s an ancient dish made by home cooks with endless variations. Regardless of the exact recipe, it provides big, bright, fresh herbal flavors to a plate, as it did here.
We most often associate feta cheese with Greece, and it is commonly used in Greek cuisine. It is a sheep’s milk cheese (although up to 30% goat’s milk can be included under EU regulations) which is firm, crumbly, and salty.
Valbreso feta is made in France from sheep’s milk leftover from the production of Roquefort, the famous, strongly flavored blue cheese. It is milder and creamier than Greek feta and is considered by some to be the best feta cheese in the world. That, however, is clearly a matter of individual taste. Also, under EU regulations, only cheese produced in certain designated areas in Greece can be called “feta.” Everywhere else, it must be called something else or be labeled “feta-style.”
All of these ingredients came together on a plate full of color, aroma, and flavor. We loved it.
We had a trio of red wines poured just before this course was served.
2016 Dante Rivetti, “Mara,” Barbera d’Alba, Piedmont, Italy. I have enjoyed Barbera d’Alba since the first time I tasted it. It is often a big, juicy, grapey wine that is fun to drink, although some are more restrained and balanced, and some age well. This one had lots of ripe fruit and a refreshing acidity that made it great with food and easy to drink. We enjoyed drinking this wine slowly, even though it would turn out that the other two reds were even better.
2015 Tolaini “Valdisanti,” Tuscany, Italy. This is made with a blend of 75% Cabernet Sauvignon, 20% Sangiovese and 5% Cabernet Franc. Sangiovese is the dominant red wine grape in Tuscany and is the backbone of Chianti. You may recognize Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc as grapes from the Bordeaux region in France. These were not widely grown in Tuscany and, indeed, were traditionally not permitted in officially classified wines from the region. Starting in the 1970s, however, winemakers began experimenting with growing and blending Bordeaux varieties with Sangiovese. While legally they could only be called Table Wine, the resulting wines were often spectacular and became known as Super Tuscans. The wine laws have changed over time and some of these blends now have their own official classification.
This Super Tuscan showed perfectly how those blending experiments from the 70s and 80s have paid off. The aromas and flavors of this wine just kept getting more interesting the longer it was in the glass. All kinds of black and red fruits came out, along with some spices, cigar box, and vanilla oakiness. Really a delicious wine that is very drinkable now and for the next 6-8 years at least.
2017 Ridge, Benito Dusi Ranch, Zinfandel, Paso Robles, California. As I have written before, Ridge has been an outstanding producer, especially of red wines, in California for decades. Their Estate Cabernet Sauvignon (formerly called Monte Bello after the vineyard the grapes grew in) and their several Zinfandels have been benchmarks since before I started drinking wine (and that’s a long time ago). Tasting this wine will tell you why. The vines in the Benito Dusi Ranch were planted in the 1930s, and old vine Zinfandel is a wonderful thing. The color is a little lighter than many Ridge Zins, coming in sort of a medium ruby-red. Not much is held back on the nose and palate, however, as red cherry, red raspberry, and other red fruits fight for your attention among spices, flowers, and licorice. To use a technical, wine snob term, it was yummy.
Our last dish was foie gras mousse with waffles and huckleberry jam.
I had a “Eureka!” moment on this a few years ago when Brindille served the foie gras course after the meat course and before the dessert course instead of as one of the first courses in the meal. Here’s what I wrote then:
I love foie gras (apologies to those who think it promotes animal cruelty and/or clogged arteries) and will almost always order it if it is an option. It is normally served early in the meal as a first or second course. The problem is, foie gras is most often served with a sweet, usually fruit-based sauce. It also is best enjoyed with a sweet wine, most traditionally a Sauternes from Bordeaux, France. That makes for a delicious dish, but the sweetness seems out of place so early in the meal. It is also problematic to follow a sweet dish and wine with a dry wine, which is exactly what usually happens.
Brindille showed me what is now a blindingly obvious solution: serve the foie gras course after the meat course and before the true dessert. Brilliant!
Here, we used this course as dessert. The foie gras mousse was light and delicious, especially spread on the waffles with some huckleberry jam.
Gaufres de Liège (waffles from Liège, Belgium) are a sweeter, thicker waffle than the ubiquitous Belgian waffle you can find on almost any breakfast menu. I don’t think I have ever seen them outside of Belgium, but, to be fair, I don’t spend a lot of time hunting waffles of any kind. They were an excellent vehicle for the foie, however.
All three of the red wines went surprisingly well with this dish, but the winning combination for me was with the Barbera d’Alba. The rich, ripe, fruit tasted sweet (it was not) and welcomed the huckleberry jam to the party.
There was so much to like at Joe’s: the food, the wine selection, and the service were all excellent. The fact remains that, if we had been seated in the noisy upstairs, we would never consider returning. Of course, there are many people for whom that loud, clubby atmosphere is a huge attraction. We plan to return, but we will definitely request a seat downstairs so we can talk and discuss the interesting food and wine we are enjoying.
Joe’s Imports
Address: 813 W Fulton Market Chicago, IL 60607
Phone: (312) 736-1750
Reservations: opentable.com
Website: https://www.joeswineimports.com/
Dress Code: Business Casual
Price Range: $31—50
Hours: Monday, Tuesday 3:00 pm–10:00 pm
Wednesday, Thursday 3:00 pm–12:00 am
Friday 11:30 am–12:00 am
Saturday 4:00 pm–12:00 am
Sunday 4:00 pm–10:00 pm
Brunch: Saturday, Sunday 10:30 am–3:00 pm
Credit Cards: AMEX, Discover, MasterCard, Visa
Chicago, IL 60607
The author has no affiliation with any of the businesses or products described in this article.
All images were taken with a Sony a9 camera with a Zeiss Batis 40mm f/2.0 CF lens using ambient light. Post-processing in Adobe Lightroom® and Adobe Photoshop® with Nik Collection by DxO and Skylum® Luminar® plugins.
