[Update, March, 2020: Chef Feldmeier announced in his Instagram feed that he will be leaving the Albert. No reasons or specifics were given, nor did he mention any plans for the future. We are in the middle of the Corona Virus lock down as I write this, so who knows what the future will be for many of the chefs and restaurants in Chicago and across the country? We do wish Chef Feldmeier the very best, and hope that the Albert can find a new Executive Chef who is equally talented.]
It’s been a few months since we stopped in at the Albert to see how the restaurant continues to evolve under Executive Chef Larry Feldmeier. (You can read about previous visits in Oct. 2019, May 2019, and Mar. 2019 by clicking the links.)
I started with a cocktail I had enjoyed before, A Quarter French.
I have complimented the Albert on the quality of their cocktails before. I have also criticized them for not specifying the brands of the ingredients used in the cocktails. This criticism still stands. Nevertheless, this cocktail, a riff on the classic Vieux Carré from New Orleans, was excellent. I have written about the history of the cocktail and the Albert’s version of it here.
We were seated back in the banquet area, which adjoins the open kitchen, so we got a good look at the decorations there.
The amuse bouche really was amusing this time.
A tiny little dinosaur mold, maybe an inch tall, was used to make a foie gras mousse dinosaur and served with grape leaves, salsify chips, and a grape-salsify jam.
Salsify is an ancient root vegetable with a documented history going back to at least the time of the Roman Empire. It’s about the size and shape of a large-ish carrot, but with tan or dark black skin. The flesh is white and similar in consistency to a turnip. It was once a very common vegetable in Europe and the Americas because it kept well without refrigeration. The fried chips provided nice crunch here, complimenting the creamy mousse and smooth jam.
The salad of figs, beets, and walnuts was the same as we had with the tasting menu last October, and that’s OK—it was delicious.
This was a great combination of flavors and textures and a very creative one at that.
You’ll note that I ordered wine pairings with the tasting menu again, even after the rather disappointing experience I wrote about in October. I am happy to say that, this time, each wine came out in a nice, all-purpose wine glass, properly poured around ⅓ full. I was very happy to see that. I don’t expect every restaurant to stock all the exact specialty glasses that has been created for just about every kind of wine. Unless they are pouring ultra-premium, rare wines that deserve more, a simple all-purpose glass, not overfilled, is fine.
I got a lot of cherry and raspberry on the nose of the 2017 Maison L’Envoyé Straight Shooter Pinot Noir, along with some earthy and floral notes. The fruit dominated the palate and was nicely balanced by good acidity. A really good Oregon Pinot.
Bread has always been a separate, a la carte, course at the Albert and it had never shown up in the tasting menu before tonight.
Until now, the best bread I have had served as part of a tasting menu was the Japanese Milk Bread at Oriole. These milk bread rolls seemed at least as good, served warm with a nice crust and fluffy interior.
Sage is a lovely addition in a compound butter, and it was made even better by being paired with some apple saba. Apple saba is a thick, sweet, reduction of apple cider that I’ve seen a appear on a few menus lately. All of this makes a “simple” bread service pretty amazing.
I don’t know how the next dish came about, but it could have been when the chef or one of his staff asked “How many ways can we use onion in one dish?”
A soubise is classic French sauce that you don’t often see anymore. It is quite simple, made by sautéing thinly sliced onions until they are very soft, but not browned, simmering them in a béchamel sauce (classically) or heavy cream (more modern), then puréeing and straining the mixture to make a smooth sauce. While it is simple, it is also very flavorful and luxurious. It can also be a base for the addition of other flavors (curry, herbs, chili powder—it’s up to you).
From the color and flavor, I think the onions were browned a bit to make the soup. A house made potato chip—very thin and very crispy—was flavored with a sprinkling of burnt onion, which might sound bad but was a subtle flavor. The chip was garnished with dabs of crème fraîche, pickled onions, and some green onion. This was a great soup.
This course and the next one was served with a glass of 2017 Viña Nora Albariño, from Rias Baixas, Spain. Albariño is a white grape from northern Spain that makes delicious wines. It is light, has a nice citrusy acidity, and lovely floral aromas. It’s a favorite of Valeria’s and mine. It was a very good choice for the soup and for the Tempura Maitake Mushrooms that followed.
There has been some variation on this dish each time (except the very first) we have visited the Albert since Chef Feldmeier took over. The mushrooms are perfectly cooked in a light, crispy tempura batter, complimented by various citrus sauces and slices and fresh greens. This time, sour melon, blood orange, grapefruit, and cara cara oranges made up the citrus components, while fresh mint, cilantro, and sorrel were the greens. Whatever combination of fruits and greens has been used, it has always been delicious.
The next course was a celeriac panna cotta.
Celeriac, or celery root, is not the root of the common celery stalks, although it was developed from the same wild plant that was bred to produce stalk celery. It is, to be honest, a rather ugly, hairy, knobby root.
It can be steamed or boiled and mashed, cut into “French Fries” and fried, or roasted with other root vegetables. It tastes a bit like celery.
In this dish, it was used to flavor a panna cotta (Italian for “cooked cream”). Panna cotta is fairly simple to make, using just some sweetened cream, thickened with gelatin, flavored in various ways, and usually molded. Here’s the basic technique if you are interested:
If you’ve read my post on the Albert from last October, you may remember we had a sweet corn custard with King Crab, grilled sweet corn, lime aioli, and house-pickled Jimmy Nardello peppers. This time, the celeriac panna cotta formed the base for the King Crab and pickled peppers, but the lime aioli was swapped out for citrus slices and blood orange curd.
The Jimmy Nardello pepper is a long, bright red, sweet pepper from Italy that I wrote about last October.
A good cook can follow a recipe and make a good dish. A Chef can take the recipe and spin off variations that take the dish in all kinds of creative directions. That’s what happened here as the corn custard dish morphed into a celeriac panna cotta dish.
The panna cotta was served with a glass of 2018 Armoiries Sancerre from the Loire Valley in France. The Loire Valley is the home of some of the greatest dry wines made from the Sauvignon Blanc grape, including Fumé Blanc and Sancerre. The mineral, herbal, sometimes citrusy flavors of these wines go great with shellfish and many dishes where vegetables provide the primary flavors, so it was a great choice here.
I wrote in the last review that Chef Feldmeier seems to like being creative with pasta. The next dish is another example.
Caramelle is a trendy pasta shape that takes its name from the caramel candy wrappers that it resembles. It is stuffed, like ravioli and tortellini, and the filling can be pretty much anything the cook/chef thinks of. Here, it was simply stuffed with ricotta cheese, then draped in a rich bone marrow sauce and highlighted with a bright bagnet vert and a few fresh herb leaves.
Bagnet vert is Italian for “green sauce,” like salsa verde in Spanish. However, it is not at all like the Spanish sauce, which is usually made with tomatillos, chiles, and cilantro. Nor is it like pesto, another Italian green sauce that also looks similar and is traditionally made with basil, pine nuts, olive oil, and garlic. The base of bagnet vert is parsley, bread, garlic, anchovies, olive oil, and vinegar, with various additions like capers, pickled cucumbers, or other greens. Like its other green sauce cousins, it brings a lot of bright freshness to any dish.
The final wine of the night was the 2016 Hess “Lion Tamer” Red Blend from the Napa Valley in California. This was a delicious blend of Malbec, Zinfandel, Petite Sirah, Cabernet Sauvignon, Mourvèdre, Petit Verdot and Merlot. It’s a dark purple color with a big nose of black fruits, blueberries, licorice and tobacco. The fruit flavors really explode in the mouth with some spiciness, great acidity, and a long, long finish. I’m sure this one will age for a few years, but it is absolutely delicious now. It was probably a little big for the pasta course, but was perfect with the venison course that came next.
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Venison is a great fall/winter meat and there was a lot to unpack on this plate.
Unlike the more familiar duck confit, pear confit is not made by cooking pears very slowly in fat. Instead, they are cooked down very slowly in their own juices with some sugar and sometimes other flavorings such as vanilla, rum, or citrus zest. Sometimes other fall/winter fruits, like apples, are cooked down with the pears. The result is a concentrated, sweetened, fall fruit flavor.
A jus made with both venison jus and pear juice married the pears and the meat nicely.
The dehydrated cherries on the plate had been re-hydrated using a house-made red wine vinegar, which added a bright, acidic note to contrast with the sweet pear.
The venison loin was rosy rare. I usually want meat cooked closer to medium, but venison is just too lean to cook that much.
Sunchokes (sometimes called Jerusalem artichokes) are a winter root vegetable that looks a little like ginger to me, but it grows in individual, tubular shapes rather than “hands.” They can be steamed for boiled and mashed, roasted, or as done here, fried for a bit of crunch.
While all of these components were great and played together beautifully on what might sound like a complicated plate, the real star of the show, to my palate, at least, was the house made venison sausage. Wonderfully flavorful and juicy, I literally told Chef Feldmeier he should be selling it by the pound.
Finally, a creative, yet simple, dessert: olive oil sorbet.
A little bit Iron Chef (if you watched that show, you saw all kinds of things go into the ice cream freezer that you never thought of as a potential ice cream) and a little bit molecular gastronomy (olive oil crumbles), it was all we needed to end the meal, although a little pear mignardise also arrived.
As I have now said several times, I think the Albert is a real hidden gem that foodies should consider visiting. While some aspects of the beverage program and service may not be on the same level, the food is Michelin quality.
The Albert (In EMC2 Hotel)
Address: 228 E Ontario St Chicago, IL 60611
Phone: (312) 471-3883
Reservations: opentable.com
Website: https://thealbertchicago.com
Dress Code: Smart Casual
Price Range: $31–$50
Hours: Sun–Wed, 6:00 am–10:00 pm
Thu–Sat, 6:00 am–11:00 pm
Brunch: Sat, Sun 6:00 am–2:00 pm
Breakfast: Mon–Fri 6:00 am–11:00 am
Lunch: Mon–Fri 11:00 am–3:00 pm
Happy Hour: Mon–Fri 3:00 pm–6:00 pm
Credit Cards: AMEX, Discover, MasterCard, Visa
Chicago, IL 60611
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 40 mm f/2 CF lens using ambient light. Post-processing in Adobe Lightroom® and Adobe Photoshop® with Nik/Google and Skylum® Luminar® plugins.
