Le Sud, Southern France in Roscoe Village

Didn't see anything about this elsewhere, Le Sud is now open in Roscoe Village. It got a nice write-up from Eater last week and I was there Tuesday night with coworkers and everything we had was great. We started with the charcuterie and cheese plates along with the foie gras tarte and rabbit leg. The tarte was good though a little sweet for me and not enough liver taste. The chicken liver mousse more than made up for that. Between us we had the steak frites, wood roasted chicken, gnocchi and whole loup de mer and we were all members of the clean plate club. Then we ordered the whole dessert menu and everything was excellent though I liked the Basque cake the best. I know nothing about wine so I can't comment on the wine list but they had a short but, in my opinion, nicely curated beer list.

Ryan Brosseau is the chef, most recently of Table, Donkey and Stick. The space is absolutely beautiful and when the upstairs is open there will be a lot of space and there is a roof deck coming next year. Looking forward to going back and trying more of the dishes.

Le Sud
2301 W Roscoe St.
Chicago 60618


https://lesudchicago.com/
https://chicago.eater.com/2018/9/27/17911102/le-sud-roscoe-village-mediterranean-french-roofdeck-open-images-photos

Disclosure: the owner is my boss' girlfriend but he did pay for the meal.

This is on my list since the Eater article came out. Eager to give it a try, we love the food from that part of France and I'll be interested to see how this compares. It's sort of hard to duplicate the tiny little places in the villages where the husband is in the kitchen cooking and the wife is working service and that's the entire staff.

Checked out Le Sud for girl's night last night and came away impressed. Between the four of us, ordered 3 appetizers, an entree each and also multiple desserts. Portion sizes were great for the prices. Servers took care of us throughout the night, even brought out a complimentary tasting of a wine they thought we'd enjoy (we did!). It was a Thursday night and the place was jam packed. Given the quality and easy parking, will definitely be back, hopefully soon!


The foie gras tart was delicious. Small but it's super rich, so it was perfectly satisfying.


Escargots were ok. Tender but I much prefer them drenched in herb butter like the ones at La Sardine.


Octopus tender & delicious


I got the duck breast, most of the pieces were medium rare, but towards one end of the breast it was closer to medium well. Still pretty tender though. The fennel salad on top was a tad too salty for me but I liked how it cuts through the fattiness of the duck skin, which sadly was not crispy. Minor quibble though, as I finished every last bite.


Friend's whole fish, cooked perfectly with extra crispy skin. It was mostly deboned although she still found a few pieces of bone. Not a problem for us Asian gals.

Also taste the bouillabaisse (not pictured), which I'll gladly order next time. It was packed with big pieces of seafood, all seemingly cooked well (obviously I didn't try one of everything ). The broth was very flavorful and the piece of fish I tried was cooked just right.


We ordered the basque cake and two ice creams. They also gave us a complimentary chocolate mousse for my birthday. I'll gladly get the basque cake and chocolate mousse again, or just an entire bowl of their whipped cream...avoid the ice creams, the lavender and thyme tastes were so strong both tasted like soap to me.

Four of us ate at Le Sud tonight. It was okay. No dish was bad, but not a single dish was outstanding either. We were underwhelmed.

Exterior:

Interior:

What did we have to eat?

Chicken Liver Mousse - Baguette, blackberry jam, Dijon, cornichon (sorry, we had partially eaten this before I remembered to take a photo)

Mediterranean Olives - Herbs de Provence, pickled garlic, citrus, sweet drop

Spanish Octopus - Sauce romesco, 'nduja vinaigrette, grilled Yukon potato, frisee - pretty good, maybe the best dish of the meal

Coquille St-Jacques - Scallops, cognac cream, paris mushrooms, crispy breadcrumbs, gruyere, herbs - There were certainly buttery breadcrumbs. Were there any scallops in there? I couldn't tell.

Chicken Chasseur - Lardon, red peppers, cippolini onions, mushrooms, tomato, fine herbs

Trout Almondie - Riverence trout, hericot vert almonds, grilled lemon, sauce grenobloise

Bouillabaisse - Mussels, prawns, Atlantic cod, potato, tomato saffron broth, baguette, rouille - The seafood was good, but the broth was thin and weak, not worth eating separately or sopping up with the baguette.

Pommes puree - Confit garlic, chives

Since the dessert menu isn't available on the restaurant website, here it is:

Basque Cake - Date, honey, almond, orange, Crème Chantilly (sorry, we had partially eaten this before I remembered to take a photo)

Service was very good, and the room was pleasant.