Late night chow off Michigan Ave

OK- we get in to O'hare at 9:30 and don't think we'll be to the Westin until near 11- is there anything fine dining or otherwise that's open late that's not total junk bar food? Price isn't a concern here as much as getting a quality meal and ideally having a nice bottle of wine.

Take a very short cab ride over to Quartino, which is open till 1am and a good small-plates Italian joint, with a decent wine list.

Quartino
http://www.quartinochicago.com
626 N State St
Chicago, IL 60610
(312) 698-5000

You just can't beat Smith and Wollensky for this sort of meal.

Wollensky's Grill is open til 1:30!!

http://www.smithandwollensky.com/chicago.htm

jkseger wrote:You just can't beat Smith and Wollensky for this sort of meal.

Yes, I agree, S & W is my choice for a late night full-on loop meal. Can't beat a couple of dirty martinis and a Colorado steak (dry-age bone-in rib-eye) at midnight.

Those are very nice, quality recommendations you've been given so far, but it needs to be pointed out that you can get cheezborgers until 2 AM, and it's a nice place to decompress.

Giovanna

avec is short cabride away as well... kitchen open til midnight during the week, 1am on fri/sat.

615 W. Randolph

So, thanks to all for all your help for this past weekend. I wanted to throw a quick note up about Aigre Doux. We decided to go there for our late night eating on Friday night- we didn't sit until 11:15 and were clearly the last people seated in the restaurant. Now I'm always wary of being the very last people in a restaurant as the kitchen tends to phone it in for the last meals of the day. This was not hte case at Aigre Doux.

We started with cocktails- I had a booker's perfect manhattan, rocks, no fruit- executed perfectly. She had a french martini and I got a small taste of it- wonderful balance. This is the sign of a great bartender. Things are off to a very good start.

I get the wine list and menus. This is an incredible list, stocked with geeky stuff, more traditional items, as well as an aspect close to my heart - a lot of female vintners. Because of the level of females on the list I decided to go with a California Cab-sav fruit bomb by Kathryn Kenedy. Man she makes great wines. If you see her stuff on a menu, vertically it's one of the finest selections of wine I've seen. A side note though- her stuff, even when fairly young needs to be decanted. That oxygen really helps it come out to play.

OK- food.


I started with the oxtail ravioli- perfectly cooked to have just a slight amount of chew to them, wonderful meat inside, served in a browned butter sauce with a variety of mushrooms on top and throughout. I knew right away that this was going to get good, and fast.

She had the white asparagus. Now I didn't taste hers, because I don't like asparagus. OK, I admit it, I eat just about everything, but no one has ever gotten me to like asparagus so I've just given up on it.

For mains I had the maple glazed duck. When they say maple glaze they aren't screwing around. This is heavy on the maple, but it doesn't detract from the duck whatsoever. The duck was wonderfully fatty, crisp on the outside and tender and supple on the inside. It is served with a side of duck sausage which was a great creation, though a touch on the dry side.

She had a seafood pasta that was basically spaghetti noodles cooked al dente with a matching of a homemade lobster stock/sauce reduction with lobster and shrimp on top and throughout. I had a small taste of hers as she was guarding the plate with her life. The lobster was full of flavor, fresh, and delicious as was the pasta which was clearly very fresh.

We skipped dessert, mostly as we were exhausted and full.

All in all, a stunning meal for sitting at 11:15. Service was excellent, staff was very nice, and the kitchen went full force into the night. We were the last ones to leave, and we were glad we did as we slept hard, but full.