Restaurants that are older than God: Cafe Bernard

Last night we went to Cafe Bernard and had a delightful meal. It had been years since our last time there--I'm talking sometime in the 80s. And before that, in the 70s. And, truth to tell, I wasn't that blown away the last time (i.e., 1982). But I think the place has actually improved with age. My simple salad of lettuce, apples and blue cheese was simple perfection, and my roast duck (apparently a difficult dish to do well, judging from how many bad versions of it I've tasted) was as good as any I've had. The wine was excellent, the place was thriving and throbbing with vitality, and Bernard was a friendly and concerned presence overseeing all. Nice that in the fickle world of Chicago restaurants, some good things have lasted. (Seriously--might Cafe Bernard be the oldest Chicago restaurant of its type? I think it might be!)

Riddlemay wrote:(Seriously--might Cafe Bernard be the oldest Chicago restaurant of its type? I think it might be!)

Do tell, how old is it? I've since looked at the website who advised it was founded in 1972.

Cafe Bernard
2100 North Halsted Street
Chicago, IL 60614
http://www.cafebernard.com
773-871-2100

Speaking of Cafe Bernard's age, my first visit there a couple years ago was prompted by my parents, who went there in the mid 70's on a date. It's one of those places that I passed by, but never thought anything about until my visit there with the parents.

I recently found out about the Red Rooster, which is behind Cafe Bernard. Can someone who's been to both compare and contrast the two? Is one better? How are they different? I was thinking of trying out Red Rooster.

kithat wrote:I recently found out about the Red Rooster, which is behind Cafe Bernard. Can someone who's been to both compare and contrast the two? Is one better? How are they different? I was thinking of trying out Red Rooster.

I've been to both places a few times. The main difference I find between the two of them is the atmosphere. Both menus are similar and the cooking styles are obviously nearly identical. The Red Rooster has a more sedate, romantic, slightly more upscale, country-inn-style in contrast to Cafe Bernard's more casual bistro feel. I've always contrasted them as considering Cafe B to be a great place for a first date and The Red Rooster as a great place for a third date.

In a city that is light on classic French bistro cuisine, I agree that Cafe Bernard and The Red Rooster are gems.

Cafe Bernard
2100 North Halsted
Chicago
Phone: 773-871-2100
Menu online: http://www.cafebernard.com/

The Red Rooster
Entrance around the corner from Cafe Bernard on Dickens
http://www.cafebernard.com/Redrooster/

Best,
Michael

the Gare St. Lazare (nearby on Armitage) was better, but it burned down.
My favorite breakfast-all-hours-hangout-place was the Seminary (on NW corner of Fullerton and Lincoln), which, sadly, is now a Macdonald's-yech.

I'm wondering if anyone has eaten at either of these places lately? I haven't seen much mention of it beyond this year old commentary -- and I"m looking for a good bistro for dinner tonight. Someplace warm and comfortable and tasty, probably north side. A bit romantic wouldn't hurt either.

Any comments would be appreciated!

Shannon

it's Tuesday.. which means la sardine and le bouchon are both having prix fixe... both are Northern enough.

red rooster is darn warm and comfortable but it's all about the room (or the lack thereof), not the food. cafe bernard... the time has passed for this place.

I'm wondering if anyone has eaten at either of these places lately? I haven't seen much mention of it beyond this year old commentary

What's one more year?

Go and report back, that's the LTHForum way!

Cafe Bernard is warm and inviting, the food is great and Bernard personally selects the reasonably priced wines for the list. It is one of the few non high end places I've been to where there is a bottle of wine on virtually every table. The place is a classic.

I've dined at Cafe Bernard a couple times over the years. I think there is some variability, based on what you order. Some items are probably just okay while others are well liked. My husband has enjoyed the Bouillabaisse. I can't remember any more specifics about the food. They do have some prix fixe deals, such as soup or salad, entree, and dessert for $20 from Sunday thru Thursday. Try it out.

www.cafebernard.com

We agree once again El Panzone...New Seminary was my hang-out back in my college days (much better than Clarke's or the Golden's), so sad when first Einstein then McD's took it over (double yuck)

I promise, I'm not trying to fill TonyC's shoes in his absence (especially in a thread where his appears to be the only critical comment), but we were pretty underwhelmed by Cafe Bernard tonight. The patented "Items in photos are less delicious than they appear" applies.



We started off simply enough, sharing the coarse duck pate. It was a no-nonsense opener, served with sliced onion, tomato wedges, cornichons, grainy mustard and some toasted brioche. It was an exceptionally simple and rustic rendition, lightly seasoned and coarse bordering on chunky. Nothing exceptional by any means, but ably prepared and very enjoyable.



Onion soup is always one of my first visit benchmarks for a new bistro, and while I wasn't feeling it tonight due to the heat, my ladylove stepped up. Technique, patience and care transform one of the least glamorous ingredients available into a deep, intense, impossibly satisfying dish. Onion soup separates kitchens that get it from those that don't. Sadly, Café Bernard's rendition fell closer to the latter end of the spectrum. It had the flash, with beautifully browned cheese, delightfully mushy chunks of bread and soft onion throughout. But the flavor just wasn't right. And I don't mean that it was one of those weak versions that came across as onion-flavored water. There was intensity there, but its character was unusually bright. The high notes sang, but the deep, sweet, mellow roundness that grounds a soulful dish like this was missing. If this was an intentional choice, I think it was a poor one. It came across as off-balance and unsatisfying.



I'm picky enough about pasta that I probably shouldn't be ordering it in a French restaurant. But the lobster ravioli called to me, so I gave them a try. The sauce was actually rather nice. It was lightly creamed but a touch watery, perhaps, and it had a bold, gnarly, parts of the lobster that aren't used in the other lobster dishes kind of quality to it. And I absolutely mean that as a compliment. The ravioli themselves were a little less exciting. I'm not going to hold a French bistro's pasta dough to the same standards I'd use at a trattoria, so let's just say it did the job. The filling, however, was rather dry and dense and belied its "lobster mousse" billing. It was an okay dish, it just fell a little short for me. Taking some bread to the sauce was the best part.



For an entree, I bit on one of the day's specials, a piece of haddock served with a sautéed leek and saffron sauce, as well as mashed potatoes and some simple glazed vegetables. The potatoes were heavily seasoned and nicely creamy, and there's only so much you can say about glazed vegetables... they were good... but the fish really left something to be desired. In some ways, it suffered from a problem similar to the soup's, that of a lack of balance. The sauce was fragrant and acidic, but it was heavily skewed toward the bright end of the flavor spectrum and it felt incomplete. It's not that I think fish needs to be buried in complex sauces. Quite the contrary, I love it when a perfect piece of fish needs little more than some salt and lemon to shine. But this just needed... something... I'm not certain what. But again, the dish just felt incomplete. On top of which, the fish itself was... okay.



My ladylove fared marginally better. She had a pork tenderloin with cherry sauce and caramelized shallots, served with the same potatoes and vegetables as my fish. The tenderloin was served whole, pressed flat and pan-seared. It looked a little overdone on first cut, but was perfectly juicy and tender on the tongue, so no complaints there. The sauce, however, had balance issues again. We were surprised to find that the sauce was laced with an abundance of some type of smoky dried chile powder that wasn't unwelcome, just a little raw and un-subtle, as though it had been tossed into the tail end of a quick sauce rather than left to simmer and develop. The dish came across as more Southwestern than French, which would have been fine if it weren't somewhat clumsily so. It fared much better cold, out of the fridge as a late-night snack.

In the course of doing a nit-picky error analysis, I worry that I've given the impression that our dinner was worse than it was. It wasn't a bad meal, by any stretch. It was a decent meal... just "meh", as my ladylove put it. And this coming from a woman who's been subsisting on Atkins bars and lettuce salads for the past five months and for whom anything else tastes AWESOME right now. Maybe the restaurant or I had an off night, I don't know, but that doesn't change the fact that I can't visualize a situation where I'd choose Café Bernard over some of the other options in the city.

I have amazing memories of Cafe Bernard and the Red Rooster. I use to live on the second floor above the restaurant. Bernard lived in the apartment next door. Some mornings I could hear him play the accordion.

My roommates and I would order food from there and they would let us bring our meals upstairs to eat and then we would return the dinnerware back to them.

During the summer months I would sit out on our fire escape and watch the al fresco diners below. It was fun to romanticize about each diner’s story...it sort of like a little piece of France (in my mind).

My impression of the Red Rooster had always been, a casual restaurant where the menu was inexpensive and the atmosphere cozy. Where Cafe Bernard was a little more upscale.

Is Cafe Bernard out dated? I don't think so. However my experience with Cafe Bernard was a little bit more intimate than the average diner there.

Amy

A 35 year old bistro with a white-bearded French chef and owner who plays the diatonic accordion and sends plates up to his neighbors is exactly the kind of place I want to love. But last night, speaking strictly as a one-time visitor who ate at a sidewalk table, I couldn't.

LTH,

Cafe Bernard seems the opposite of the Yogi-ism "Nobody goes there anymore because it's too crowded.", as no one I spoke to seems to have been in the last 20-years, but the place was full to the top of it's chapeau on a recent brutally cold Friday evening.

We started with duck pate, coarse ground with a tasty ring of duck fat and a well managed cheese plate, which included morbier, ripened goat, brie with actual character, munster and sweet juicy grapes.

Duck Pate


Cheese Plate


I thought the French Onion soup lacked depth, broth thin with a salty note, though the mellow richness of roasted goat cheese on the spinach salad more than made up for soup shortfalls. Interestingly, Cafe Bernard bucked the baby spinach trend using larger spinach leaves, resulting in a deeper vegetal flavor.

Spinach sald w/roasted goat cheese


Cafe Bernard was three for four on the entrees, the beef in the Filet au Poivre being uncharacteristically chewy. Bouillabaisse was the clear winner of the evening, rich multi layered saffron scented broth, clams, mussels, tender squid, silky salmon brought together in rich harmony by a raft of rouille topped toast.

Bouillabaisse


My daily special of Goose breast w/fig demi glace was interesting, by which I actually mean interesting and not as a euphemism. In my limited experience with goose I was expecting a richer gamier version of duck and was somewhat surprised by the neutral taste. I did not sample the Grilled Atlantic Salmon w/cabernet reduction sauce, though it was consumed with gusto by our pescovegetarian friend.

Goose breast w/fig demi glace



Cotes du Rhone with our meal and finished with rich Velvet Chocolate Cake and four forks.

Velvet Chocolate Cake


I was fairly enchanted by Cafe Bernard, which is not to say there wasn't a fumble or two, but the overall effect, friendly efficient service, fair pricing, including wine, intimate atmosphere have me planing a Cafe Bernard Roast Duck a la Orange outing in the near future.

Enjoy,
Gary