Mrs. EdB60035 pointed out that this thread hadn't been updated in a few months. This was a big week with the Tribune's Phil Vettel posting a review on the very day that Bar Toma updated its menu a bit. We ate there Thursday night, expecting the place to be packed after the Vettel review, but at 5:30 it was still pretty quiet (the space is also very large). Note that above there is a reference to no reservations; we booked via OpenTable so maybe this is a change.

We picked Bar Toma because the 2-year-old was in tow, and the restaurant was great with her - we still got a street-side table (these will be great in summer) and they gave us some extra crackers for her. We started with the Spreetz - my wife discovered these on a northern Italy trip last summer, and she declared the Bar Toma version to be better (they use bitters instead of or in addition to Aperol) - and a Maria (bloody Mary) which was a bit too spicy. (to be clear, neither were consumed by the 2-year-old)

We were sharing everything, so we ordered the crudo (ceviche-style bass, orange, pistachio in a jar), tasting of ToMa cheeses, modenese (sweetbreads) skewer, charred carrots, and a Sardinian pizza. The salad pizzas from the original menu are gone, other interesting pizzas are in their place.

Overall, everything was really good. The crudo was really creative, with a nice acidity to the mix. The cheeses featured one phenomenal and two very good ones; some random slices of salame were on the tray as well, and a house-made lemon marmalade that was just a bit too sweet to be useful. The charred carrots were fantastic; they had a meaty flavor to them I couldn't quite place and the goat cheese made a nice balance.

The Modenese skewers deserve a special mention. The menu describes these as "guanciale-wrapped sweetbreads". Honestly, I didn't see any guanciale, now that I think about it. Wish I had taken a picture. The skewer clearly had sweetbreads on it, and there were little bits of sage as advertised, but maybe those little bits also had the bacon too. Any which way, they definitely were not wrapped, as the light-colored pillows of organ meat on the skewer were completely unadorned. Regardless, they were delicious, and as a highlight, the 2-year-old CHOWED DOWN on the sweetbreads. I think she impressed everyone, even foodie-mom-and-dad. We let Chef Tony know via Twitter and he was quite proud.

The Sardinian pizza was good but not great (picture here). It was a little too charred in places, and the fresh oregano was not evenly distributed -- some pieces had none at all, and it was a necessary garnish. Didn't taste the capers either. Cauliflower was fine. We had debated among several of the pizzas, I would definitely have gone for the Merguez or Pork Belly Meatball as second choices, maybe the Sicilian.

For dessert we had the rice pudding gelato and the tartufi, which were chocolates filled with mint gelato. The tartufi were wonderfully surprising in that the gelato was liquified. The rice pudding gelato was meh to me but Mrs. EdB and the 2-year-old certainly enjoyed it.

We would definitely go back, but as with many small plates restaurants, wish we had brought some friends along. Service was excellent and a great place for the kids.

I ate there Thursday night too! We had the Merguez and it was ok, but not spectacular. The lamb wasn't that flavorful, and I liked the pistachios and the tomatoes were pleasantly sweet, but it didn't all come together. I've had better pizzas at Cafe Spiaggia and Frankie's Scaloppine down the street, not to mention Spacca Napoli. I agree that the charred carrots were great and we also enjoyed the house-cured cod jar, although the accompanying crostini bead was too oily.

The gelati was the highlight of the meal. We had the riso (cinnamon rice milk) and orange honey. The riso was like horchata in gelato form, and the orange honey had tons of orange zest throughout. I loved both and can't wait to go back and try more flavors. Service was not great though, our waiter seemed pretty new and wasn't too helpful with menu selections.

They really need to get a dessert menu though. Our waiter said they didn't have a menu because they just have a couple of items, then reeled off a bunch. When we asked if we could see everything written down, he brought us the chalkboard.


Baacala / Bar Toma by TrackBelle, on Flickr


Baacala / Bar Toma by TrackBelle, on Flickr


Charred Carrots / Bar Toma by TrackBelle, on Flickr


Merguez Pizza / Bar Toma by TrackBelle, on Flickr


Orange Honey Gelato / Bar Toma by TrackBelle, on Flickr


Riso Gelato / Bar Toma by TrackBelle, on Flickr

I'd like to take some of what we ate at Bar Toma last night and transfer it to another restaurant.

We had a mostly good meal, but the place was an absolute zoo. People constantly bumping my chair, yahoos hootin' and hollerin' at the bar. Looked like a crowd that had mostly found a restaurant "within walking distance from my hotel near the Magnificent Mile."

They seem to have met the fate that Purple Pig has avoided. I'd consider going for dinner on a Tuesday in the winter, but there's no way in hell I'm going back on a weekend.

All that being said, there were some highlights on the food side. Skewers of marinated lamb belly were fantastic as was the crudo. I thought the pizza's were just ok (that lamb sausage pizza is strangely boring given the ingredients). The buffalo mozzarella I thought was really good, but the rest of the cheese that I tried didn't do much for me. All in all, the meal was pretty much what I was expecting.

Made a return visit with a coworker since we'd been shopping for glasses at See (which we are addicted to!) across the street. We had a table for two outside and were in a pretty casual mood. The food seemed better than our first visit - the skirt steak skewers were very tasty and the warm olives have a nice citrus twist. The Caesar salad has serious anchovy flavor so make sure you like same - I found it a bit too strong, throwing the balance off. We also had a pork belly meatball pizza and demolished it. A few glasses of wine and lemon sorbet were also consumed. We were really hungry and the food was fine .. but definitely not a wow. It worked for what we needed - close to Water Tower, table with no wait, decent wine etc. Service is still iffy - our waiter was nice but seemed taxed with too many tables and runners seemed confused a bit. One attempted to cut our pizza for us by resting the pizza on a stack of unneeded extra plates on our tiny table ... a process that was not going to work. Tableside pizza cutting to your spec - do you want 4, 6 or 8 slices - felt awkward and threatened to send our pizza tumbling given the lack of a proper space to rest the pizza. I really do expect better service from this team than they manage to deliver.

Heading inside to the restroom, the half of the restaurant on the bar side was full and lively (relatively youngish afterwork crowd) while the other side was closed off and empty.

I'm just not convinced the place works beyond being a convenient dinner spot post shopping but a bit pricey for what we were served and definitely in need of more serious staff training.

Waiting for someone in surgery at Northwestern is not an enjoyable way to spend a day (well, better than the one in surgery of course). But for the LTH'er, it might also mean the opportunity to try places you don't ordinarily get to visit. So following confirmation that surgery was completed, but before visiting time, I was able to make it over to Bar Toma. The experience was both good and bad.

The good: two of us enjoyed our Dottore pizza (La Quercia prosciutto, arugula and mozzarella). Crust was very good (I personally prefer a little more char, but no question a very good crust) and toppings were delicious and well proportioned. The housemade giardiniera was also very good, although we would have liked it more if there was some heat (we saw maybe a couple of bits of hot pepper).

The okay: Caramel gelato for dessert tasted great. It had a bit of a burnt caramel flavor to it, which we both loved. However, the texture was not right. It really wasn't very creamy, and it was marred by an abundance of ice crystals.

The bad: Arancini were filled with butternut squash and some type of pepper I believe. The filling was a little dry, pretty bland (underseasoned too), and I didn't notice any peppers in the filling. Much, much worse was that they were coated quite heavily in amaretti cookie crumbs. Now I love amaretti cookies - I could probably eat a box of them in a single seating in fact. But this coating turned the arancini into a savory appetizer that was actually as sweet as the gelato we had for dessert. And given the bland filling, it was really a disaster. I spent a couple minutes trying to brush some of the cookie crumbs off but this was largely a futile effort. And trying to scoop out the interior simply left you with a dry, bland, underseasoned filling. There were 3 in the order - we ate 1.5 and regretted even that.

So a rather mixed experience overall, with the pizza being the highlight. But most importantly, the surgery was a success.

I had my first meal at Bar Toma tonight...it was hit or miss, but one thing stood out from the crowd: Kale salad. Now, I love roast kale, but I'm not one to rave about a kale salad. This stuff rocked. The menu describes it as "young kale, anchovy vinaigrette, soft cooked egg, garlic bread crumbs." We got a large version, which gave us four generous portions, but I could have eaten the entire platter myself. Give it a try next time you're in the neighborhood.

The biggest "miss" was probably the service. Nothing huge, but some gaffes. We ordered two appetizers--relatively simple ones--the moment we sat down but still waited >30 minutes for them to arrive. Our server forgot one drink order and walked away from the table twice as some of us were attempting to order drinks. And a busboy attempted to whisk away a dish that we hadn't finished without first asking if we were done.

Was back a few months ago and adored the Mergeuz Pizza which was the perfect balance with pistachios and cherry tomatoes.

But when will they get the service sorted out - it really surprises me each time how awkward they are and how many classic mistakes get made.

Bar Toma, Tony Mantuano's Italian restaurant in the Gold Coast just off Michigan Avenue, is closing July 6 for renovations.
When it reopens in August, Bar Toma, which now features pastas, roasted meats and other Italian main dishes, will be a pizzeria.

http://www.chicagobusiness.com/article/ ... s-pizzeria

I hope they figure out how to make pizza then.

Tried it once. Crust: leathery.

Crossed off list.

My wife and I ate at Bar Toma recently and, while we liked the pizza very much, we were shocked that nearly everything else had been taken off the menu. No roasted carrots, a dish we really enjoyed on other visits. No vegetables or sides or really anything else. The salad on the menu was really more of a pizza with a salad on top.

The carrots were great - sad they get rid of the bits that worked. And didn't they start as a "pizzeria"? So confusing!

Darren72 wrote:My wife and I ate at Bar Toma recently and, while we liked the pizza very much, we were shocked that nearly everything else had been taken off the menu. No roasted carrots, a dish we really enjoyed on other visits. No vegetables or sides or really anything else. The salad on the menu was really more of a pizza with a salad on top.

I haven't gone back since they removed the kale salad from the menu. It was my favorite thing to order there, great for a quick lunch at the bar.

Roger Ramjet wrote:I hope they figure out how to make pizza then.

Tried it once. Crust: leathery.

Crossed off list.

I really thought it was one of the better crusts in Chicago.

Max wrote:I haven't gone back since they removed the kale salad from the menu. It was my favorite thing to order there, great for a quick lunch at the bar.

Another kale salad fan (when it was made well...which wasn't 100% of the time). They did make it for me last time I was in despite it having disappeared from the menu.

I can't understand why the meatballs are still on the menu. I have a lot of respect for Tony Mantuano, but let's just say that I don't think he should be bragging about his Nonna's sponges, er...meatballs.

Just looked at the new Bar Toma menu...the kale salad is back, but this time with a cranberry vin.

Just went there last night for a late dinner with some out-of-town co-workers, and was shocked to see the stripped-down menu. The pizza is still quite good, but none of my old favorites are there anymore. Even the Bomba is gone; I had thought that was their signature. Honestly, none of the new appetizers appealed to me in the least.

I can't complain about the remaining pizzas, and I'm sure everything is executed well, but all the things that set Bar Toma apart for me is gone. I wish them the best of luck, but I'm not likely to return.