Speakeasy Supper Club

We're meeting some friends who live in Edgewater for a birthday dinner at the Speakeasy Supper Club (with a group of about 12). Evidently, it's owned by the woman who used to own Tomboy (which I think is a good thing). Has anyone been there recently? Any particular dishes that can't be missed (or, conversely, that should be missed)? Thanks in advance for your help.

Haven't been there recently, but the two or three times I've been there have been solid experiences. The menu at that time was divided into smaller plates and larger plates, the smaller plates were not necessarily tapas-style, but really smaller versions of entrees (I recall having a small piece of beef tenderloin garnished with a mixed greens salad) which effectively encouraged you to graze the menu as opposed to filling up on one large entree. Like Tomboy, I felt like the kitchen wasn't always up to the task when it came to executing some rather ambitious dishes, but I never left there feeling like I had a bad meal or that I paid too much.

I was there in December and it was a good experience as were my 2-3 previous visits. I really enjoy the pecan crusted grouper. However, I am new to eating fish, so you might not want to trust my judgement on fish dishes! The three to four times I've visited, everyone in our party really enjoyed their meals. If I remember correctly there is also a pineapple dessert that was a favorite. And a good bread pudding.

My one visit there over a year ago was wonderful. I liked how they had 1/2 sized entree portions. I think I ordered the same fish mentioned by a prior poster, and it was very good. I remember a tasty strawberry salad and a wonderful chocolate creme brulee highlighted with some sort of unusual ingredient, such as jalapeno. I thought I wouldn't care for the creme brulee b/c I'm not a big fan of creme brulee in general and the flavor was odd, but it was awesome.

Please report back. I heard for a while they had some changes in the kitchen that negatively impacted the food. However, my experience there was wonderful and good service at a fair price.

atmosphere is better than food-very friendly service-cool room

I thought the decor and the food were trying very hard to be cool, but in a way that was mostly successful. (Maybe cynics larger than I would have issues.) I had the ostrich wellington, which overcame its gimmickiness by being delicious. I ate there about a year ago also.

Like others on the board, I ate there about a year ago when I planned a milestone birthday for my best friend. I have planned several special occasions in restaurant and club settings, and I was really impressed with the gracious treatment we received from start to finish from the staff. There was never a sense that they were doing us a favor to host the party, or a cooler-than-thou vibe. The manager made a number of creative suggestions for the use of the space, timing and coordination of the event, and menu choices that made the party a great success. This was a big group, about 40 people, not nearly big enough to fill their larger room, but they happily let us use the stage for the toasts and skits celebrating the birthday girl. The manager mentioned that the stage was included to take advantage of patron's creative whims, and that in fact, this had led to a number of ad-hoc performances. This greatly enhanced the special-occasion feel of the evening. The BYOB set-up and the option to offer smaller-sized entrees made the dinner much more affordable, and due to the generous appetizers, no one left hungry. The only complaint came from one guest who had been looking forward to a martini that evening, given the name of the establishment. (We had planned only wine and beer.)What particularly impressed me was that we received a call the day after the party to notify us that bottles of wine were left over - they kindly agreed to our request to retrieve them later in the week. I am sorry to say that after this experience, I have not had occasion to return. I hope to remedy the situation soon.

I definitely fall into the other camp when it comes to Speakeasy. I've only eaten there once, but it was a lackluster experience. It was a couple months ago, but a few things that stuck out...

1. Host: I (a female) walked in alone about 5 seconds after a gentleman who walked in alone. The host either asked or recognized that we were separately. (I can't remember which.) He asked the gentleman if he'd like to wait for the rest of his party, or be seated. The man asked to be seated. The host then came back and ignored me...never gave me the option of being seated. Rude and sexist, I thought.

2. Appetizers: One appetizer we ordered was escargot in puff pastry. Sounds interesting, but it was a bowl (the size of a cup of soup) with about 6 snails in a tasteless sauce all together in the cup, which was topped with puff pastry. A complete mess...since the sauce was flavorless, the snails were, too. The ratio of puff pastry to snails was off. You had to fish around for snails. It just didn't work. We had another appetizer (maybe eggrolls or potstickers?) that was decent, but not too memorable.

3. Entrees: I, too, ordered the pecan-crusted grouper that Hellodali mentions. I can't remember if this was on the regular menu or if it was a special. I've always loved grouper, and order it whenever I have a chance. If you're like me, you envision a piece of grouper to be a tender, flakey white filet, anywhere from 1/3" to 3/4" in thickness. This was like no grouper I've eaten. It was a steak, very firm in texture (overcooked, too), at least an inch in thickness. (And I didn't think it wasn't particularly good.) When I got home, I actually did a google search and found that the grouper is a huge fish that can weigh several hundred pounds, so I guess it's not inconceivable that there's a steak on there somewhere. I didn't bother to ask the waitress if they'd substituted another fish for the grouper. A good waiter, in my mind, should have said to a patron, "The grouper? Great choice. If you've eaten a lot of grouper in the past, I just wanted to let you know that these are grouper steaks, so they'll be a little thicker and denser than the filets you might be more familiar with." (My companion had the duck, which was terrific.)

4. Dessert. We ordered the something described as bananas flambe. Again, it's been a couple months since we were there, so I might be off on a couple of the specifics, but when it was served to us, both my dining companion and I looked at it, then tasted it, and said, "No matter how creative you want to get, there's no way this can be described as bananas flambe." If I recall it included a few pieces of a banana bread or cake of some kind, some ice cream, and a sauce. Can't remember if there were pieces of banana on it. There were no warm or hot components to the dish, indicating to me that it had never been flambed. (I didn't care if they lit it on fire in my presence...a little warmth would have been proof.)

So that's my less-than-happy experience with Speakeasy. I always liked Tomboy, so I was disappointed that this wasn't as good.

Just wanted to quickly report back on our experience. Candidly, upon pulling up to the place I wasn't particularly impressed. Our short wait in the "bar" area didn't do much to change my initial impression. (What's the point of having a lounge/bar without a liquor license? Evidently the lounge primarily is used as a place for the employees to smoke.)

However, once we were seated, things changed for the better. The dining room is very nice and they did an excellent job with our party (of about 14). The server was very friendly, and the place has a relatively "hip" vibe without being overly pretentious or trendy. And the BYOB policy is a huge plus for the customer (although, I suppose this can be said about any BYOB restaurant), as our party easily would have spent several hundred dollars on wine.

The food was quite good. We started with the duck (not chicken -- apparently they were out) potstickers and I had the tuna (a special). My wife and several others had the hanger steak special (which I also tried a bit of). While I wasn't totally blown away, I thought that everything was solid, and everyone in our party was very satisfied with whatever he/she ordered. If I lived in the neighborhood, or reasonably close, I definitely would make another trip back to this place.

Me and three friends went for dinner last weekend and had a very disapointing meal. Two of the four of us cook professionally so might be a tad bias but here goes....

Friend 1: ordered the Scallop appetizer for $8.00. The plate arrived and one it was one single scallop and the sauce. That's it!!! I asked the waitress if she was serious, only one small scallop...her reply "if you read the menu it says scallop, no "s". Yes, you only get one" Whatever...it was overcooked and burnt on one side.

Me: Tempure Artichoke Hearts. One word to describe them "slimy" They were obviously canned hearts as they were total mush on the inside and left me whole mouth feeling dry and metallic. The sauce with it was unmemorable.

Friend 2: French Onion soup...passable

Friend 3: Get this...the waitress said the special salad tonight is Langoustine served grilled or raw. Raw? a languistine?? Anyone ever eaten a raw shrimp? Not so tasty or sanitary for that matter. For kicks we decided to order the salad and see if the waitress would again ask us "grilled or raw". Yup, that was the option....we wisley (or so we thought) chose grilled. The langoustine arrived and was so completely over cooked that it was mushy and we were unable to remove the meat from the shell and my friend ended up eating right through the shell. Nasty!

Well dinner soon arrived.....

Friend 1: Risotto....ok, maybe they think their customers are stupid, but instead of recieving proper risotto (arborio or carnaroli rice) they served us risotto made with Jasmine Rice and apparently water. It was a sloppy mess, with absolutely no flavor. Even my non chef friend knew she wasn't getting the right rice. It was obviously a long grain variety.

Two of us had the Halibut which was ok, the side of rice was completely overcooked, however.

Can't even remember what my last friend had.

So.....in short an absolutely horrible experience and I have been there before and enjoyed it, but that was 1 1/2 years ago. Embarrasing show of culinary skills coming out of that kitchen. Will never go back.

I live 3 blocks from the restaurant, and I have had good experiences there, though our last visit in December had mixed reviews.

I think the menu is very interesting (esp. for this neighborhood!), BYOB is a huge plus, and the servers are very friendly, knowledgeable and hip without being pretentious. I really like the ambiance there -- the exposed brick, the lighting, the arty panels on the walls (we went on a night without a performance so noise level wasn't an issue). I recall that some of our items were delicious but my dad said that his entree was disappointing. From the other posters, it seems that the food has gone downhill in the past 6 months. We went right as many tables were seated at the same time, so we did have to wait a long time between the appetizers and the entrees.

I'm so sorry to hear that a neighborhood fave of mine is going downhill. Next time I am in there, I will report back.

Some friends that live up in Edgewater wanted to check this place out on Friday night. I dutifully gave them the LTH once-over, and then did the obligatory yelp.com search only to find their number disconnected. Not too worried, we drove up there, only to find all the lights off and the doors locked.

Anybody know if it is shut down for a vacation, or closed for good?

I'm not sure of the details but I think it's been closed for at least a month or two.

I was fond of this place -- it was a nice operation and i had a couple of good dinners there -- but perhaps they couldn't sustain the BYOB thing.

The owners were the same people (i think!) who used to run Tomboy in Andersonville and The Room on Broadway (also extinct).

Gone for good.
After months of utility co.'s shut off stickers on the doors, they are done.
The owner of the building has petitioned to change zoning to accomodate a condo development w/ retail on first floor.
Not sad to see them go, although it was good for the neighborhood, the owners' business practices are notoriously bad.
Hopefully, Viet Bistro will get it together and actually open successfully one of these months...

My book club group was there last year for two of the members birthdays and had a really fun time. We were planning on going back in February, oh well
We're all in the northern suburbs and now will be looking for something similar-we really liked the byob aspect because a couple of the girls aren't drinkers. Any suggestions? We would like to stay near north or in the northern suburbs because we plan on getting together on a weeknight.

Diane wrote:We're all in the northern suburbs and now will be looking for something similar-we really liked the byob aspect because a couple of the girls aren't drinkers. Any suggestions? We would like to stay near north or in the northern suburbs because we plan on getting together on a weeknight.

There are some good choices in Edgewater:

Indie Cafe, which is Thai/Sushi, also BYOB
5951 N. Broadway
Chicago, IL 60660
(773) 561-5577

Broadway Cellars, not BYOB but many choices of wines by the glass, and flights
5900 N. Broadway

Lots to choose from on Argyle, with almost all of them BYOB, e.g.
Tank Noodle
Pho Xe Tang - Tank Restaurant, 4953 N. Broadway, Chicago, 60640

And then there's Andersonville, with many possibilities, especially:

Sunshine Cafe (they have been away on vacation for a long time...check before heading out) - Japanese Noodles
5449 N Clark

Hama Matsu is BYOB, Sushi,
5143 N. Clark St., Chicago, (773) 506-2978 ...

Let us know where you end up next!

Sunshine Cafe is still "on vacation". It's been about 4 months now. My hopes for them to reopen are pretty much at nil now.

Viet Bistro is minutes from opening, if their interior would have them believe. Last night people were working inside, the paper is off the windows and the tables are set. Maybe they even opened tonight. They're directly across the street from the now defunct Speakeasy.