Bravo Tapas and Lounge

I believe I've found the worst restaurant in Chicago: Bravo Tapas and Lounge.

This is a new-ish Spanish tapas restaurant on Division that doubles as a restaurant and lounge. We began eating in the outdoor seating area in front until a little rain forced us to move inside.

Two clues foreshadowed our disappointment: first, the menu proudly declared that the restaurant was in the heart of the trendy Wicker Park neighborhood. How hip can it be if they have to tell us the neighborhood is trendy? Then, we're looking at the food and drink menus when the waiter tells us about their great sangria. But the sangria isn't on the menu. An oversight, perhaps? A way to conceal the price? In any case, we go ahead and order a pitcher, which turns out to be utterly flavorless.

We decide to order two dishes to start. First is a tortilla espanola. For the unfamiliar, this is basically a potato omelette, typically served slightly chilled or at room temperature. In the hands of Bravo Tapas , it was very cold, had no flavor, and had the consistency of a three-day-old leftover omelette.

The second dish was scallops with cured ham and asparagus. Slices of ham were wrapped around two or three thin pieces of asparagus and then cooked. A skilled chef can make cooked cured ham (such as proscuitto or serrano ham) taste wonderful. Bravo Tapas managed to render the ham completely dry and bring out every last granule of salt added during the curing process.

At this point we could see that this meal wasn't going to get any better and we would be best served by cutting our losses. We asked for the check. The two dishes and pitcher of sangria came to about $40.

Then we headed to Fonda del Mar for an excellent second half of our meal (a little guacamole to start, followed by the trio of ceviche, and shrimp in a vanilla sauce). This meal, including two excellent cocktails was also about $40, coincidentally (and probably too much food for us, after eating two dishes at Bravo).

So why did I call this the worst restaurant in Chicago, a perhaps overly strong critique? I'm sure it's possible to buy prepared food in Chicago that tastes worse than what we had at Bravo Tapas. (And to Bravo's credit, we haven't gotten sick, at least so far.) But what I'm reacting to is the combination at Bravo of terribly executed food with the feeling of a desperate attempt to push an ultra hip experience down our throat. There's clearly such a big difference between what the owners want us to experience and what I actually experienced.

Bravo Tapas and Lounge
2047 W. Division St.
773-278-2727

Fonda del Mar
3749 W. Fullerton Ave.
773-489-3748

I'll handle this one.

...
So, how were the portions?

A beautiful application of a fundamental LTH Principle of Action:

"If a dinner does not satisfy, have another."

Thanks for the heads-up on Bravo.

Hammond

whiskeybent wrote:I'll handle this one.

...
So, how were the portions?

That's funny. In fact, at Fonda del Mar we joked about getting so much ceviche for $10, and most of it was actually seafood. (Ever order ceviche and think that it seems to be about 20% seafood and 80% "filler"?)

People Tapas and World Music Lounge is RIGHT there, has outlasted the overpriced Del Toro, and makes a strong case for there being no need for another tapas restaurant in the area, especially one as middling as Bravo (where I similarly had the worst patatas bravas of my life and left after just the one snack and a drink).

People is not perfect, but the "new" menu items in the $10-16 range are creative, relatively generous of portion size, and delicious. Avoid the goat cheese in tomato sauce, but other than that, you should be happy.

http://www.lthforum.com/bb/viewtopic.php?t=13793

Darren72 wrote:At this point we could see that this meal wasn't going to get any better and we would be best served by cutting our losses. We asked for the check. The two dishes and pitcher of sangria came to about $40.

Then we headed to Fonda del Mar for an excellent second half of our meal (a

It's funny; a similar thing happened to me but at Sangria tapas bar on Weed St. After a terrible drink, slow service, and two inedible tapas, we cut our losses and headed someplace else to salvage the evening.

Made it to Bravo last night (wasn't my choice).

Despite the fact that the outdoor patio was full, service wasn't bad. And I didn't see the word "trendy" on the menu anywhere - although it was all over the faces, dress and demeanor of most of the other patrons and the waitstaff. I'm sure my mere presence reduced the trendiness quotient by several orders of magnitude.

The waiter was pushing mojitos, but I went with an okay Chilean pinot noir from the mostly South American and Spanish wine list.

We ordered three tapas/small plates - which really weren't all that small. It was plenty for two people.

The goat cheese appetizer with crostini came in a large bowl, with a soft goat cheese in the center smothered in what tasted like it might have been some of the finest marinara sauce ever to come out of a jar. Well, maybe not ... it wasn't Paul Newman's ... maybe a Prego or Ragu.

Chicken empanadas served with a little roasted red pepper and a chimichurri sauce ... the empanadas themselves had a tender short crust, but with a fairly bland filling. And mhays could give them a few tips on making a chimichurri that isn't so thin and oily.

The pulpitos were fairly good, if slightly chewier than I'm used to. The garlic-onion-pepper sauce was good to sop up with the bread.

Prices weren't cheap, but probably not too far out of line for some of the city's better tapas bars.

So, worst restaurant in the city? No, not that bad - maybe they've gotten their act together a bit since the original post. Among the city's better tapas bars? Not close. Maybe a solid C, or a C+ if I'm feeling generous.

Go if you're feeling insecure about your trendiness status and need to reassure yourself you can still be a beautiful person. For me, that train left the station years ago, if it was ever there in the first place.