My last review of Bellemore was in March, 2019. It was the last of a series of three reviews that had become rather repetitive in praising the food, wine, and service. We had returned a couple of other times since then, but there was nothing really new to write about.
Things had changed when we returned in February. The restaurant had decided to move in a more casual direction. Gone was the signature oyster pie, the tasting menu, and the white tablecloths. The music was also louder than we remembered. To say we were worried would have been an understatement.
We felt a little better after we talked to our waitress. While there was no longer a set tasting menu, we could select a series of items from the menu and the kitchen would split each of them into two portions. This is basically the “roll your own tasting menu” strategy that Valeria and I often use. The sommelier would also select an appropriate wine for the dishes we chose. This was a very reassuring indication that, whatever else had changed, there was still an emphasis on great customer service. I could certainly live without a white tablecloth. I would miss the oyster pie, but we didn’t order it every time we went. The important question was this: were delicious dishes and well-chosen wine pairings still available?
I needed a drink to settle my nerves.
OK, I didn’t really need a drink to settle my nerves, but it made a great dramatic line. Still, a good Martini before dinner is often a good idea, and this one was perfectly made.
We were seated back in the private party area, which affords views of the kitchen and pass through area.
There was always something hanging over the service area and I finally decided to ask what it was. What you see are persimmons drying for use in the future.
We ordered some of the house Hawaiian Bread to start.
Much like the oyster pie, this has been a staple since Bellemore opened. A beautiful crust, slightly sweet, meltingly tender interior—this is hard to resist if you have no issues with carbs or gluten.
The house cultured butter was not new, but the apple saba was. A saba is basically fruit juice that has been slowly boiled down to a thick, sweet, slightly caramelized liquid. It can be drizzled on almost anything when you want some added sweetness. You can use it as you do honey, but it has much more flavor.
So, the verdict on dish #1: as good as ever, maybe better with the flavorful saba.
As the first wine was presented, it rekindled some of my fears. I have enjoyed many good, even great, wines—mostly reds—from Mayacamas over the years, but I am not a fan of most Chardonnays produced in the Napa Valley. To my taste, Chardonnay does much better in cooler areas than the Napa Vally, like western Sonoma County.
My fears were unfounded. This was not a typical, big, buttery, oaky Napa Chardonnay. While it did have bigger, riper fruit than, say, a classic White Burgundy, the nose and flavors were more about pears, flowers, spices, and a bit of citrus. It would prove to work well with the dishes it was paired with.
The next course we selected was a nod to the Japanese foods we love, a Kona Kanpachi crudo.
Kona Kanpachi (also spelled Kampachi, but Kanpachi is the original Japanese pronunciation) is a farmed Yellowtail (a member of the Amberjack family). It is raised in deep waters off the Kona (as in coffee) coast of Hawaii’s Big Island. As I have said before, I am generally wary of farmed fish. Many commercial fish farms are overcrowded, dirty, and rely on hormones and antibiotics to keep the fish alive and growing rapidly.
There are, happily, outstanding exceptions. The Blue Ocean Mariculture company, which farms the Kona Kanpachi, is one of them. They use sustainable, organic techniques. The resulting fish is sashimi-grade, high in Omega-3, and rich in healthy fat. They are approved by Seafood Watch, an environmental group which monitors seafood for purity and sustainability, and by chefs around the world.
The slices served here were firm, but almost melted in my mouth. It could have been served as sashimi and there would be no complaints.
Chef Papadopoulos added his own magic, however. Dashi is to Japanese cuisine what chicken stock is to western cuisine—the basis of many soups, sauces, and more. Like chicken stock, which can be made with just chicken bones and water, or with added herbs, aromatic vegetables or other flavorings, dashi can me made different ways. The most basic version uses kombu (dried kelp, a type of seaweed) and bonito flakes (dried, smoked tuna flakes). This is called Awase Dashi. Vegetarian dashi uses only kombu. Other versions use other dried fishes and seaweeds.
I don’t know exactly what form of dashi was used here, but it had been lightly smoked and embellished with smoked onions, nori (the familiar seaweed wrapper in sushi rolls), and a little lime. The broth was elegantly flavored and complimented the fish beautifully.
If this course and wine pairing was any indication, the quality of the food preparation and wine selections had not changed at all in the new concept. We still have several more courses and wines to go through, however, so let’s see if they keep it up.
The glass of Chardonnay was refreshed a bit to carry through the next dish, a seared scallop.
The old tasting menu format often included a seared or grilled scallop with seasonal additions to add more flavors and textures. Remember kombu, the dried seaweed we talked about in the Kona Kanpachi course? It is also used as a flavoring in butter, either by pulverizing the dried seaweed to a fine powder and mixing it into the butter or, as I think was done here, soaking the kombu in melted, clarified butter to extract the flavor into the butterfat. Breadcrumbs (sautéed, I’m guessing, in kombu butter) added crunch. Spring onions added a mild taste of onions and garlic and a different crunch, while grapefruit added a nice citrus zip.
Once again, this dish would have been right at home in the “old” Bellemore.
The next wine moves us to red, which was fine by me.
The 2017 Bouchard Père & Fils Beaune du Château, 1er Cru, from Burgundy, France was another selection consistent with pairings I have always enjoyed at Bellemore. Red Burgundy (Pinot Noir) can be wildly expensive with no guarantee of quality. Bouchard Père & Fils is a reliable producer and this is a relatively inexpensive ($30-50) wine that they produce almost every year.
1er Cru is a abbreviation for Premier Cru, a designation used in France for vineyards that have the potential to produce high quality wines, but not quite as good as the rarer (and much more expensive) Grand Cru Vineyards. Bouchard blends wines from as many as 17 1er Cru vineyards to maintain the quality and style of this particular wine each year.
The 2017 version was medium bodied and featured the aroma and flavor or darker fruits like back cherries and black currants. It had a nice acid backbone and a surprising amount of tannin.
The Burgundy was paired with a unique salad.
Radishes are an underutilized vegetable, in my opinion. They are crisp and flavorful and available year round. Apples are similarly available and inexpensive. Toasted sesame seeds added a different kind of crunch to the plate.
I wasn’t quite sure what to make of this dish. I liked it, but I didn’t love it. Normally I appreciate a variety of textures in a dish, but somehow this combination didn’t work for me. Again, I did like it, and I think it might make a great side dish with, say, a pork dish, but was my least favorite dish.
The wine pairing didn’t make sense to me, either, even though I really liked the wine. I’d like to try a nice Alsatian Riesling or Gewürztraminer with it.
If I didn’t love the radish dish, the pasta dish that came next quickly made me forget about it.
Let’s face it, you don’t have to be Italian to love a good pasta bolognese dish. I’ve never had one made with duck heart and duck pancetta before, but this was a rich, flavorful, just all out delicious bolognese. I have had duck pancetta before, but, as far as I can remember, I had never eaten duck heart (cow heart, pig heart, and chicken heart, yes, but not duck). If you are a bit squeamish about organ meats, I am pretty sure that, if you were just served this dish as “Rigatoni Bolognese” you would just assume its as made with beef and/or veal and happily cleaned your plate.
The wine pairing was also right back on track.
Jaboulet is a well-known name to anyone who enjoys wines from France’s Rhone Valley. The Jaboulet family has been making wine in the Rhone Valley since Antoine Jaboulet planted his vines in 1834. Almost 200 years later, in 2006, Philippe and Jacques Jaboulet sold the company to Jean-Jacques Frey. However, as part of the deal, Philippe Jaboulet retained 15 hectares (37 acres) of the family vines and has purchased an additional 15 hectares. With his son, Vincent, he formed Domaine Philippe & Vincent Jaboulet to continue to produce wines.
This was the first wine I have had from the new company, and, if it is representative, they are going to do well. Red wines in Crozes-Hermitage are made from Syrah grapes (called Shiraz in Australia). They are medium to full bodied and the aromas and flavors are usually dark fruits, like blackberries, black cherries, and plums, often seasoned with black pepper. That’s a pretty good description of this wine, which seemed just a little more rustic than the generally great wines from Paul Jaboulet Aîné. It was terrific with the pasta.
The last wine of the evening was a long-time favorite, a Duckhorn Merlot.
If you look closely at the wine label, you see is says “40th harvest.” Duckhorn has been one of the leading producers of Napa Valley Merlot for a long time. Depending on the vintage, they bottle several single vineyard-designated Merlots and other varietals. This one is their most generic, a Napa Valley bottling, but there is nothing generic about the wine. The characteristic aromas and flavors of red cherries and plums along with some vanilla oak increase as the wine airs in the glass. Medium bodied, long finish, and some tannin, but not enough to interfere with enjoying the wine.
The Merlot was served with pork collar with smoked grits, turnips, carrots, black kale, pickled peppers. I’d love to show you a picture, but I forgot to take one. The dish was, however, another winner.
I don’t recall ever having pork collar before. It is a cut from the neck and shoulder region of the pig. Like the shoulder (or butt), which I smoke or braise regularly, it is a tough cut, but it has lots of fat and connective tissue which can be transformed to juicy deliciousness with long, slow, low temperature cooking. If the menu did not say otherwise, I would have just assumed this was pork shoulder—a very well braised pork shoulder. The meat was tender and delicious.
This was very much an old style, southern comfort dish with the slow cooked pork, grits (America’s answer to polenta), a couple of root vegetables and some greens.
Black kale is not actually black, at least not the variety in my local grocery, but a very dark green with large leaves that look almost like a frond from a palm tree. It is a little less bitter than the more common curly kale, and takes a little longer to cook. I cook it in chicken stock like I would collard greens. It does turn more black as it cooks.
They served us a complimentary “palate cleanser” in keeping with the tasting menu tradition: blood orange sorbet on caramelized milk solid & white chocolate crumbs, and orange slices.
All too often this course is a sorbet or granita that is overly sweet or overly tart or both. This was neither. The blood orange sorbet was beautifully balanced and, again, the other items on the plate added textures and flavors that made it an interesting dish, not something inserted in the progression because tradition says you must.
We could (and should) have called that dessert and gone home, but I felt that I needed to at least look at the dessert menu to complete my review.
Valeria was strong, but I love coconut cream and coconut custard pies, tarts, whatever. I was weak.
This was, thankfully, a modest-sized dessert that could be shared, but was not too much for one. The coconut creme (yes, creme, not cream) was delicious—creamy and full of coconut flavor. The tart shell was buttery and delicious, but it was very hard to cut.
So, when we add up all the plusses and minuses, can I still recommend the “new” Bellemore, now called an “American Brasserie,” as highly as I did the “old,” more fine-dining oriented Bellmore? Well, no, I can’t, at least not for diners looking for that fine dining experience.
However, the “new” version may be even more attractive to many people than the old. I wish they would turn the music back down, but, judging by the volume almost everywhere I go, louder is better for most people. I’d like the white tablecloths back, but I don’t really miss them that much. I get it: more people prefer a less formal look. I’d like the oyster pie back, although I didn’t order it every time and it was an expensive indulgence. I’d like the chef to set up a tasting menu, but the “roll your own tasting menu” approach really works just as well, arguably better.
All of that is really somewhat superficial. The real question is how good is the food, the service, and the beverage program? I can see that, in addition to the über-luxurious oyster pie, most luxury ingredients that were featured in the past—caviar, foie gras, truffles, wagyu beef—are gone and less expensive ingredients—pork collar, duck heart, radishes—are being used. That may sound like there must be a big drop in the quality of the food, but there is not. Chef Papadopoulos can take non-luxury ingredients and turn them into plates that are as beautiful and delicious as those he created with a much higher food budget. There was only one dish tonight that, to my palate, was unexceptional, but that was probably just my palate—we aren’t all going to like everything. Likewise, the wine pairing for each course was excellent. Well, there was one pairing that didn’t work for me, but it was still a very good wine.
I understand the realities of business and I am sure the market for more casual restaurants is much larger than for fine dining ones. The good news is that the chef and his staff are still turning out really, really good food, easily up to past standards, and now it’s less expensive.
Oh, and about that oyster pie I keep talking about. Chef Papadopoulos came out toward the end of the meal and we were discussing the new format with him. He said that, if we ordered about 3 days in advance and were willing to pay for the whole thing, he would happily make a pie for us. I suspect he would do the same for you.
So, will we go back to Bellemore, now that it is An American Brasserie? You bet we will. The food, service, wine, and cocktails are just too good not to. Now if they would just turn the music back down…
Bellemore
Address: 564 W Randolph St Chicago, IL 60661
Phone: (312) 667-0104
Reservations: opentable.com
Website: https://www.bellemorechicago.com
Dress Code: Smart Casual
Price Range: $50+
Hours: Lunch: Monday – Friday: 11:00 am – 2:00 pm
Dinner: Monday – Thursday: 5:00 pm – 10:00 pm
Friday & Saturday: 4:30 pm – 11:00 pm
Sunday: 4:30 pm – 10:30 pm
Credit Cards: AMEX, Discover, MasterCard, Visa
Chicago, IL 60661
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.
