New Tapas Bar in Logan Square [Azucar]

Driving down Kedzie yesterday I saw that a new Tapas Bar is about to open next to El Cid in the space formerly occupied by Fusion Hair Salon. It's called Azucar. Looks pretty nice.

Does anyone know anything about this place?

Azucar Tapas & Bar
2647 N Kedzie Ave
Chicago, IL 60647
773-486-6464

I've met the owners and they seem like great guys -- live nearby and wanted to offer something a little different to the Logan Square restaurant scene.

They've been taking their time with the space, making things right. I believe they're set to open in March -- basic tapas menu, nice wine list and cocktails. One of the owner's brothers will be the chef -- not sure of his background/pedigree, but I know these guys have put a lot of thought into the place. Hopefully the results will be good ones. It sure adds a nice bit of texture to the streetwall.

I've known one of the owners for nearly my entire life, and let me tell you, he and his business partner have impeccable taste. Knowing each of their styles and personalities, I can pretty much guarantee that food and beverage offerings will all be top-notch and the service outstanding!

detroitkitty wrote:I've known one of the owners for nearly my entire life, and let me tell you, he and his business partner have impeccable taste. Knowing each of their styles and personalities, I can pretty much guarantee that food and beverage offerings will all be top-notch and the service outstanding!

n.b., detroitkitty. Apres vous, le deluge.

I've got my dreams. Other than Lula, there's not too much to eat within walking distance of my house, so I have high hopes.

Unless there's something out there that I'm missing.

IdeaofProgress - If you're not a vegetarian, I'm a fan of Wednesday night 1/2 price cheeseburgers at Dunlay's. A blue cheese burger and fries are outstanding and can't be beat for $4.50!

There's also a new organic bakery on Diversey/Sacramento that's supposed to be good.

Of course, El Cid II is a couple of doors down from Azucar.

And I've always been a fan of Sai Mai thai restaurant on the 2500 block of California.

I think all of these stand up to Lula in their own ways -- and I've been going there since '01.



Cheers,

rachel

rachel2025 wrote:IdeaofProgress - If you're not a vegetarian, I'm a fan of Wednesday night 1/2 price cheeseburgers at Dunlay's. A blue cheese burger and fries are outstanding and can't be beat for $4.50!

There's also a new organic bakery on Diversey/Sacramento that's supposed to be good.

Of course, El Cid II is a couple of doors down from Azucar.

And I've always been a fan of Sai Mai thai restaurant on the 2500 block of California.

I think all of these stand up to Lula in their own ways -- and I've been going there since '01.



Cheers,

rachel

Unfortunately, I am a vegetarian. but Sai Mai is great, as is Buena Terra. I was more referring to the Kedzie part of the Square.

Speaking of, is this Tapas place open yet? Anyone eaten there?

I believe they open today, so go forth & enjoy....and then let us know

Cheers!

I tried El Pollo Loco on Milwaukee Monday night and was very pleasantly surprised with the "flame grilled" chicken. Crispy outside, moist inside, grilling right in front of you. Decent sides- pinto, black beans, mac & cheese(who knew it's Mexican), et al.
For years I have irritated fellow diners at chicken places that charge more for white meat by asking if I could have just dark meat for less-it seemed logical, but no one ever did it. EPL charges less for dark meat! My new fast food heros.

Azucar is open and there are already a couple reviews on yelp.com. I can't wait to try it! I'd go tonight except my wife's outta down. Doh!

Went last night. Crowded, but not uncomfortably packed for a Saturday night. The host was very friendly and the sangria was good. It had a little fizz to it, which I like. The atmosphere is a little dark and earthy. It feels like an intimate little tapas place. So I guess those are the good things. Food and service still need time to improve. Had meatballs, grilled shrimp, and patatas. They ran out of Manchego so we went with the typical goat cheese. None of these items alone would warrant a return. I think this is just the kind of place, if it wasn't too crowded, that would be nice to chill at, have a couple drinks, a couple snacks and leave it at that.

I have an acquaintance that waits tables there and she said that they've been staying every night till the wee hours of the morning after closing discussing what works and what doesn't work, so I think they're going to be tweaking the dishes for a while. I bet they'd be receptive to some constructive feedback (though I'm not sure what form it ought to take).

had a good experience there last night.

Sat at the bar next to some girl who was reading a book, chit chatting, and eating all at the same time. My SO and I somewhat quietly debated over what we would order. Elaine interjected, saying she really was enjoying her goat cheese and we should try hers. We politely declined eating the stranger-next-to-us' food. She kept insisting... We went back to our decision making, then debated what this girls' deal was. She later insisted we try some of her pork too. We didn't. We ordered our own and it never came. Guess we should've tried hers.

Some of what we did consume:

- Patatas bravas. Every tapas place on earth has this. I'm usually not too excited by it, but I always seem to order it. It's a good benchmark to compare other places to. Theirs is good. They don't mix the spicy red sauce in with the potatoes like some places do, it was served as a dip, which made for crispier potatoes.
-Sea Bass - *wonderful* ... Just wonderful. The fish itself was good, but the sauce it was served atop was even better. It tasted like some sort of creamy lobster bisque, I couldn't resist dipping my bread in it.
-Skirt steak. Very nicely charred outside. Tasted good.
- Asparagus - prosciutto wrapped asparagus with some sort of mustard. Good, not too exciting... could probably do without.
-Cinnamon custard dessert (a la creme brulee).. Yummmmy.
-Red wine soaked pear with cheese and pistachios. OK.

...Sangria... A big complaint seems to be they don't have Sangria by the pitcher. But their Sangria is much more like a mixed drink than the sugary Sangria found elsewhere. When ordering, you can choose to top it off with Champagne for $1 extra, or otherwise they put a splash of 7up/Sprite on top (the rest is all liquor I believe). Go with the Champagne, it's a wise choice even though it's cheap Champagne.

The service was very friendly. The place is owned by two guys (Robert, and his partner... don't know his name) both of whom were very nice and conversational. It was very neighborhoody feeling. The bartender was very friendly and available for conversation too. We didn't have any shortage of drinks... Many drinks later, Robert poured us the apparently mandatory free shot (Pama pomegranite liquor and grey goose vodka... yum). My only complaint about the service would be that the food took a somewhat long time to come out for a tapas place. Typically with tapas, you can order a few things, decide if you want more and order more if so. If the food always takes that long to come out, you'd probably never leave unless you did order everything all at once.

Sitting at the bar was a pleasant experience. We got a nice corner spot, which was every bit as roomy as any table would have been.

the block north has free parking on the opposite side of the street and it was very easy to find any number of spots-no meters

the meaty tapas entrees were somewhere in the $10-12 range, other things were $6-8ish. Check came out to $107 for 2...we had 4 or 5 rounds of drinks at least, though.

They seem to be getting a lot of press. We noticed it because of the Chicago Reader mentioning it... I just was reading something about it on Menupages and noticed a mention of David Hammond... is that the david hammond of LTH, and does he work for menupages?
http://blogs.menupages.com/chicago/2007 ... r_blu.html ...also, at some point Robert mentioned that a "Check, Please" producer came in but they turned them away because they were swamped with all the press already (not sure of the logic here...)

I too had a good experience and yelped about it--however in the interest of full disclosure I know a waitress there and I think she "hooked us up" so to speak

Yes indeedy, Azucar is another tapas bar/restaurant in Chicago. It is that.

As predicted by me, and no doubt many other people, tapas is becoming a hot concept (the dishes are plural, the concept is singular) no doubt in part because it's a liquor-friendly one, and I had been keeping an eye on a place that opened not too far from my house, Ole Lounge (not to be confused with Ole Ole, or maybe it IS to be confused with it). But early reports on Ole Lounge haven't encouraged me to take my recently-in-Spain self and family there for Americanized tapas and loud drinks, so tonight instead we checked out the slightly-more-promising Azucar! (it would be more promising without the "Viva la munchies at TGI Fridays"-like Exclamation Point!)

In a nutshell: liked the food, still didn't think it much resembled anything had in Spain, and indeed it supported the theory I've advanced that Spanish food in America winds up being subtly Mexicanized or Italianized-- the dominant spice was cumin, and more of it than I had on anything in Spain. There were also green flecks on a lot of things, as you'll see, something we never saw in Spain (where green vegetables are, generally, somewhat rare). Some of it was pretty nicely prepared, almost all of it was tasty, but the moments in which I was actually reminded of Spanish food I'd had were few. On a certain level, of course, that doesn't matter if it tastes good, which it mostly did.

The light was good so I took a lot of pics. Things we had:



The empanadas mentioned above, which the kids ate happily, and these patatas bravas decorated with Silly String-like ropes of pepper sauce. Potatos fried delicately, sauce didn't have that much flavor. Can't anybody just make a big sloppy plate of potatos in tomato sauce like Iberico's?



Queso de cabra, and like Twist's, closer to pizza sauce than crushed tomatoes.



Meatballs in a sweet tomato sauce. I ordered these for the kids but found them a pleasant surprise, not heavy, not just bland meatloaf-flavor.



Some sort of red pepper salad thing on hummus. Gluey and with no dominant flavor, this was a real miss.



And these were a real hit: scallops, perhaps overcoated with cumin, but with a nicely balanced broth with roasted onions and various other hearty flavors worked into it.



Grilled Spanish chorizo, a little too dry for grillable sausage in my mind, but if any dish came close to something we had in Spain, this was it, reasonably closely evoking the grilled fresher chorizo at Maceiras.



Pork tenderloin. Again, too much cumin, but the other stuff around (dried cherries and so on) helped, mostly (spinach seemed out of place as a flavor in that company), and somebody definitely knows how far to cook pork like this, and no further.



We had two desserts-- one of donuts and chocolate sauce, which came very close to the late-night Spanish snack of churro and chocolate to dip it in, and this "strawberry tart," which was actually much more strange a dish than that name suggests-- an eggy, sweet ice cream, a salty manchego "mousse," and a shortbread-like wafer underneath. The sweet vs. salt thing was so pronounced I was instantly reminded of desserts at places like Schwa and Achatz-era Trio, which seems way too ambitious and quirky for a fairly simple place like this. Anyway, the salty manchego overpowered the sweet and the fruit, it didn't quite come off.

Service could hardly have been friendlier, maybe the presence of the kids helped, maybe they're just glad to be there. Price struck me as maybe just a hair high for this amount of stuff, but we did over-order, I think you could be economical here and still have a good time. Is Azucar! at long last the authentic great Spanish restaurant in Chicago? Well, no. But it's a nice neighborhood place, with an outdoor dining space overlooking the blue line station, that seems to have gotten past its minor growing pains described above and settled in for a long life in Logan Square.

Wonderful pics Mike! Rare to see restaurant food pics with such a nice element of natural sunlight.

I ate at Azucar over the weekend and had a very pleasant experience. My group ordered:
- Scallops, one of "catches of the day" - very good
- Chilled asparagus with prosciutto - ehh
- Portobello mushroom - detected some cinnamon in here, which was nice
- Roasted red pepper with cheese - very good
- Seared tuna - very good
- Patatas bravas - sauce on the side, as noted in previous posts - good.

All in all, the total came to $101 for our party of 4 before tip with food and 6 glasses of sangria with champagne. Service was good and extremely friendly, and the wait for a table (as they do not accept reservations) was about 30 minutes.

Azucar now has a website if you want to check it out before you stop in.
http://www.azucartapasrestaurant.com

JO2 wrote:Azucar now has a website if you want to check it out before you stop in.
http://www.azucartapasrestaurant.com

Very nice site. Not listing prices is a bit of a pet peeve, though.. Maybe you can pass it on, if you know someone who works there?

Mrs. JiLS and I very much enjoyed a blizzard dinner at Azucar! this past Thursday. She, with a canceled flight traveling by blue line from O'Hare, I swerving up from the Loop, we met up for a quick drink at Winds Cafe, then trundled through the snow to Azucar! (I shall use the ! with no further comment). We were very nicely impressed, and wondered (aloud) why we'd taken so long to get there. Item one in Azucar!'s favor, the reasonably-priced wines (although for the time being, Spanish wines are still categorically well-priced and good, Azucar! has put together a very attractive and affordable cellar). We definitely over-ordered, knowing we were doing so, but here's what we had.

Olives. Yep, among the best (and most overly-generous) olive appetizer I've encountered. And I'm not an olive lover.

Pate. Whipped like a mousse (I was expecting a thick, country pate; ah, well). Served with grilled bread squares, a mustard that was the perfect foil for the rich fluffer-liver-nutter goo, and some marinated cherries that would've been better in the Manhattans we downed at Winds Cafe prior to dinner, but were an interesting contrast to the unctuousness of this dish.

Boar-meat Stew. With Bacon. And Blue Cheese. Need I add more about this dish? OK, it was perhaps a bit too much of a smack in the face (strong, strong flavors predominate), but it was also immensely satisfying and, after a few bites, the pain subsides.

Pork Belly. A special. Beautifully succulent pork belly, at least two inches thick (as astutely noted by Mrs. JiLS, served like a "pork cheesecake") surrounded by figs and with a sugary sweet maple crust on top. But for the sausage dish that was to follow, I'd have scarfed every morsel. As good as any shot at this dish I've tried, and daring in its shear quantity (such a mass of fatty meat; they must deeply trust their audience).

We also greatly enjoyed the sausage described above by MikeG; in some ways, the highlight of our meal.

Our dessert was half liquid (a sterling presentation of a nuts and berries cocktail) and half solid (the little doughnuts). Note that this is a nice blend of flavors, for those seeking a more complicated dessert option here.

The friendliness and engagement of the personnel at Azucar! can't be over-emphasized. I kick myself for failing to get here sooner.

JimInLoganSquare wrote:Azucar! (I shall use the ! with no further comment).

If that's the way it's gonna be, shouldn't it be ¡Azucar!
?

germuska wrote:

JimInLoganSquare wrote:Azucar! (I shall use the ! with no further comment).

If that's the way it's gonna be, shouldn't it be ¡Azucar!
?

Hey, that's what's on their sign. Maybe you should talk to them.

Some friends brought a few dishes from Azucar to a party recently and they (the food, and the friends too) wonderful. If I recall, they brought croquettes, meatballs, and the grilled artichokes. I was impressed also that the food was quite good as carry-out.

This is a pretty weak review for me but as i forgot to post about it nearly 3 months ago... Four of us had a post NYE (all of in different locals for the actual eve) dinner at Azucar and we had a lovely time. I'm honestly having a hard time remembering the plates as there were so many of them and it was so long ago (no camera to be polite). I don't remember any dishes being pure clunkers and several were standouts. We pretty much agreed that the scallop dish was the highlight (including the gal that doesn't eat bivalves) and that all the seafood offerings were right on the money. Dinner and drinks for four wasn't cheep, nor was it near high end pricing (I recall about $250.00 with many drinks and tip). Azucar is certainly a welcome addition to my 'hood and, even if it isn't the best or most faithful tapas in town, I'm happy to return.

Seems like the only thing that motivates me to write is a bad time. Perhaps that’s why the junior high portion of my memoirs is 1,500 pages long.

So here’s what happened at Azucar on Saturday night.

We step off the blue line after a long day in Grant Park. Tired. It’s humid, still a bit hot, but a great night to be out with a beautiful girl. As we walk out of the station, she leans in close and whispers those three little words every man loves to hear: “I’m Still Hungry.”

Azucar comes into view, and having never been, I decide to kill two birds with one stone. Afterwards, we go to Azucar.

We walk in and are greeted by an enthusiastic host. He strides over, elbows flying, like the grand marshal of the Rose Parade. “Hey boys and girls! How are we this evening?” His face glistening, his smile maniacal. His flair was disarming. Otherwise I’d be scared. Instead, I’m just concerned, like when you find a raccoon in the trunk.

He seats us, and we settle in. It’s a long time before we get a waiter. Long enough to drink two full glasses of ice water. The Ice Water Guy was on.

So our server shows up, he’s slammed, a couple of large, rowdy parties seem to have arrived just moments before us so I’ll give him a break. Nothing really jumped out at me on the menu. I was hoping for some cold tapas, but aside from olives and a couple of green salads, nothing cold. We order three tapas and a couple of mojitos.

I should stop for a minute to let everyone know that I’m a huge tapas fan. Rather, I eat tapas a lot. Small food goes well with my big drinking.

Tortilla de Patata: This was a button cute omelette, literally as big as a button. It might not have even been a whole egg. Flat, with sliced potatoes arranges as one would arrange pepperoni on a pizza. Nothing like the thick "quiche-like" slices I'd had before. The flavor was subtle (read=bland) and this tiny lillypad was swimming in grease. My significant other and I both come from families where if you didn’t eat fast, you didn’t eat. For her, it was older brothers. For me, it was my dad. Usually we’re stabbing each other’s hands for that last piece. Neither of us wanted the second piece. Probably the worst thing I ate all day, and I spent 9 hours at the Taste. $7. Speaking of the Taste…what a contronym. Waiting in line for something you’re not quite sure you want. Nothing is particularly good, but there is a lot of it. Like a keg party.

Next up was a coca (flatbread) with manchego, prosciutto, pears and a balsamic reduction. Decent, and we were hungry so it disappeared in 6 bites fast bites. Unremarkable, but the best thing we had there. I think it was $10.

Scallops: These came highly recommended by the server and the host. Three medium sized scallops, a bit crusty on each side, likely intentional, but otherwise cooked nicely. They were tiny compared to the hackeysack-sized scallops I’ve been seeing on plates lately. What killed the dish for me was overseasoning. They were essentially swimming in soy sauce with hunks of supersalty prosciutto (or some similar meat). Good thing they were tiny. Any more sodium and I would have been convulsing on the floor like an epileptic panda. Also they were $14, which struck me as high, but I don’t claim to understand the scallop market.

We lingered with empty mojito glasses, chewing on mint leaves for moisture. We considered a few more tapas, dessert or at least another drink, but by the time our server returned, all we wanted was out. We were bummed. Thirsty. Salt crystals forming around our lips. We shuffled home and drank a couple of Dark N’ Stormys to wash the memory away.

I was eavesdropping on my fellow diners and they seemed to love everything so my experience may be unique, but I’ll never know.

I was at Azucar Friday night!, for the same reasons as Lookjerk: been on my "to try" list for a while, and I love tapas. I was really disappointed.

The atmosphere was great - dark but not too dark, cool decor. The service was really sporadic. It just took forever to get our tapas, and they weren't too busy - maybe the room was half-full (should have been my warning sign when we first arrived). And it really should not be that hard to get BREAD at a tapas restaurant!! We plowed through the first two small pieces and when we asked for more, it took a good 10 - 15 minutes to get it and it was cold because "the rest is getting warmed up". THey delivered that hot bread after we'd received the check. ha.

I get it, small plates. But for the prices, these were TINY. We tried the cocas also, just one with a spanish cheese and argula. three little pieces, a few bites each. PIquillo peppers stuffed with cheese was really good, but again tiny for a $10 - $12 pricetag! Patatas Bravas & queso de cabra just to try some old standards, both were realy unremarkable. I really felt like we paid waaaaay too much to go home not full. The sangria also was disappointing - I tried both white and red and both were extremely sweet and severely lacking in alcohol. More fruit juice than the good stuff?

I'm glad we tried it just to check it off the list, but I wouldn't go back or recommend it.

A group of us stopped by Azucar last night after a last-minute change in plans. The meal was terrible. We ordered dates stuffed with almonds, which came out ice cold. The plate had six really little dates. If there were more on the plate, this would have been a decent bar snack. We also had empanadas, meatballs, and croquetas, all of which were really bad. The croquetas were esp disappointing because a friend brought these to a party a few years ago and they were quite good, despite being carry-out. The croquetas last night were more like a dried chicken meatball, not light and puffy as they should be. We also had an artichoke dish, which tasted like canned artichokes tossed in oil and vinegar. We paid for these and headed to the bar at Longman and Eagle for good drinks and a couple of appetizers to finish off the evening.