It’ll take you a minute to get your mind around Hot Chocolate. Is it a dessert place? It is a gastropub? Is it a laboratory of creative cuisine based on the freshest local ingredients available? It’s all of this, and executed with exceptional skill, even if it falls short in the marketing department.
It’s surprisingly difficult to find Hot Chocolate. The pale brown awning with the cleverly dripping font must’ve looked sensational on the designer’s table but fails to catch the eye. Three weak pools of light fail to illuminate the awning sufficiently and the name spelled out on the plate glass windows is lost against the dimly lit interior. It’s easy to miss Hot Chocolate even if you’re looking for it.
The next problem is figuring out what kind of place it is even after you’ve found it. The odd choice of name makes it sound like a sweets shop. Unless you were in-the-know, you would never guess that some of the best food in Bucktown is offering inside.
Once the menu is placed in front of you it doesn’t get any easier. The confusing tri-fold design of the menu with desserts, sandwiches and entrees given equal billing muddles things further and when you see the prominence given to hot chocolate drinks you begin to think that perhaps you should go somewhere else for dinner and come back for dessert. That would be a mistake.
Take a deep breath, turn the menu back and forth a half-dozen times, and start by ordering drinks. The beer and wine selections are outstanding. Hot Chocolate focuses on small vineyards and craft brewers, choosing producers whose care and devotion to quality are front and center. As you look over the appetizers and entrees, you begin to understand that this same emphasis on small, quality-first producers extends to the food as well. Ah, so this is Hot Chocolate’s game plan, artisanal small plates, and a worthy strategy it is too, creating a scrumptious repast from the freshest ingredients available, but you will not see it given prominence in their marketing, which is why there is a brief if confusing period of adjustment.
However, once you figure out what’s going on, you’re in for a treat. We started with a selection of artisan-crafted cheeses. Our Timberdoodle, Grayson and Rabiola Langhe from Italy were all quite good although, as is typical with cheese plates, there weren’t enough baked crackers for the amount of cheese provided. Our main courses, on the other hand, were above reproach.
The Berkshire pork loin, crispy Gunthorp farms pork belly and fava bean puree won our highest praise. It was cooked perfectly, bursting with flavor. The hint of crispiness on the pork belly was exquisitely achieved. But the biggest surprise was the lamb and krema kasa. If you can imagine what a gyro would be like as dreamed up by a Nebraskan farm boy, you’re getting close. House made lamb sausage is enfolded in a pita of sourdough flat bread and topped with melted Valley Krema kasa cheese, wild arugula and oregano. Hearty and rich, but not overly complicated, and minus the overpowering onions, this sandwich is not to be missed.
Delighted by our drinks and entrees, we nevertheless had to make room for dessert. Owner Mindy Segal has twice been nominated by the James Beard Foundation as outstanding pastry chef of the year. So we indulged in the “Banana Seasonal”. This cavalcade of decadence consisted of (take a deep breath): a napoleon of banana coffee cake tuiles, carmelized bananas, banana sherbet and coffee cream javara milk chocolate hot fudge, along with a profiterole filled with barley malt milk chocolate ganache and salted almond candy. It took us less time to eat than to say it. It was that good.
I have a few quibbles with Hot Chocolate beyond the bewildering way they present themselves. Although the size of the room is adequate, the organization leaves something to be desired. Large round tables of four or five are liberally spaced, taking up the majority of the footprint, but the tables for two are lined up tight against the wall and crammed so close together you can’t help but hear every word of your neighbors’ conversations. Like a party in a small apartment, you‘re soon shouting over each other. This is a ridiculous situation that could be easily alleviated by taking one table out of the row and allowing a little more spacing.
The décor in pale browns with large flat disc-shaped pendant lamps and strings of Italian lights wants to be modern and chic and achieves that, but without much panache. The lights from the kitchen are intrusive and the bar is, well – just a bar. Yet these are minor objections when set against the quality of the food. The victuals from superior producers of seasonal products make a startling difference on the palate, one that elevates Hot Chocolate well above the average. Now if we could only find the place.
Hot Chocolate
1747 N. Damen Ave.
773-489-1747 / Reservations Accepted
Hours: Dinner: T-Th & Su 5pm-10pm; F-S 5pm-12am / Lunch: 11am-3pm / Su Brunch 10am-2pm / Closed Mondays
Features: Carryout Avg. Price of a Meal for Two Including Drinks and Tax $80
Chef: Mindy Segal
Website: www.hotchocolatechicago.com
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