Old Town Brasserie

Hello,
Has anyone been here? How is it?

Old Town Brasserie
1209 N. Wells St
Chicago, IL
312-943-3000

I was there last night with a party of four. For starters we had duck consomme, house made pate and a lobster ravioli with shrimp and foam. All of the starters were delicious. For main course, we had a special of crispy sweetbread with braised tripe, duck leg confit and seared breast, and a veal hanger steak. Roland Liccioni is in the kitchen and the food shows it. I would strongly recommend a visit. Prices were about $6 for soup, $10 for an appetizer and $18 to $27 for a main course.

The front of the house is a bar and unfortunately they allow smoking. It wasn't a problem for my table, as we were in the back of the house but there are a number of tables in the bar area.

This is a very welcome addition to the Chicago dining scene.

Has anyone else been here recently?

In two visits to OTB, I've had some terrific renditions of classic French dishes. Tournedos of beef leave an imprint on your mind so strong that you consider dubious methods of acquiring the funds necessary to eat here every night. Oil poached lobster is sweet, succulent, and texturally perfect. The kitchen is really working on all cylinders at OTB. Service, on the other hand, ranges from clueless to merely trying-hard.

We had dinner at Old Town Brasserie tonight (joint celebration of my birthday and the Father-in-Law's birthday).

The interior of the restaurant is gorgeous, with lots of wood and nice soft lighting. The crowd is a little Viagra Triangle (my appoligies to either those taking Viagra or to triangles, I mean no offense), which had me worried at first, but after tasting the food that was just an afterthought.

I started with a selection of three housemade pates: chicken liver, duck and (I believe) something pork-based. All had just the right amount of richness and it was very obvious that a lot of care went into making them. The Wife had a salmon and crab terrine which looked beautiful. I only managed to snag a small bit...her plate was cleaned pretty quickly.

For my main course I went with the duo of rack of lamb and Kobe beef. The lamb came in the form of two nice sized chops cooked to an absolutely perfect medium rare. This lamb was nice and lamby (in a good way), rather than just being tasteless generic meat product. The Kobe beef had been braised for 72 hours. It sounds silly and trite, but the best word I can use to describe the beef is "luxurious". It had such a lovely richness, it's just hard to explain here. Go taste it, you'll understand. I also managed to get a taste of the cobia, which was a special tonight. The fish was perfectly cooked, the sauce (didn't get what is was) was nice and light and complimented the fish beautifully. The table also got an order of fries served with a curry aioli...delicious.

I had a coconut souffle for dessert which was fantastic and light as a feather (it also didn't hurt that I ordered it with chocolate sauce instead of the default coconut sorbet).

Service was professional and efficient.

Here's what I like about Old Town Brasserie. It's the type of place that will satisfy many different types of diners. The "foodie" can eat with the "non-foodie" and both will leave satisfied. It's a nice dinner without being fancy, appetizers around $10 and main courses in the $20's.

Based on the crowd there tonight and how good the food was, I think this place is going to be around for a loooong time. I will definitely be back.

This restaurant has been #1 on my "must try" list for a few weeks. Simply put, Roland is the man.

Thanks, Josh, Kenny and deesher for the reports. I'm assuming that the smoking issue is, well, no longer an issue.

=R=

We were also there last night, and in terms of value (these prices won't be around for long IMO; you can even cop a good bottle of wine at under $40), quality of food (see below), ambience (energetic, bustling), and service (attentive, well-paced), it is simply the best bistro experience we've had in Chicago.

Let me add to the above dishes the artichock terrrine (altho it was somewhat dominated by the flavor of truffles, which is not necessarily a bad thing in my book) and the duck breast/confit (the breast cooked perfectly rare, but seared with a crisp skin and thin layer of fat intact). The latter was so good, it will be difficult for me to order anything else, altho some of the items in the above posts are awfully tempting.

Grab a reservation while prices are still at this level. If you like French bistros, this place is tops.

One note: unless things have changed, I do recommend reserving a table rather than trying to dine at the bar. While this is the opposite of my preference at most restaurants, at OTB the service staff has been either ill-equipped or unmotivated to make bar dining a pleasant experience. Obtaining a place setting, wine bottle, and even food after it was cooked were all rather challenging for me, and the bartenders were visibly annoyed when they saw people were planning to eat.

This is rather sad, as the bar is beautiful and has the potential to be loads of fun. Note also: my negative comments in an earlier post were about the service at the bar - it is entirely possible that dining in the main room is a much better service experience.

It is too bad about the bar. The bar itself is gorgeous, but it also seems like a pretty cramped space to enjoy a meal (not to mention any service issues).

[ The crowd is a little Viagra Triangle (my appoligies to either those taking Viagra or to triangles, I mean no offense), which had me worried at first, but after tasting the food that was just an afterthought.

Just curious, If no offense was intended, what was it that had you worried?

Tommy2dogs wrote:[ The crowd is a little Viagra Triangle (my appoligies to either those taking Viagra or to triangles, I mean no offense), which had me worried at first, but after tasting the food that was just an afterthought.

Just curious, If no offense was intended, what was it that had you worried?

Just making a joke about something that went down here the last couple of weeks. Moving on...

jesteinf wrote:It is too bad about the bar. The bar itself is gorgeous, but it also seems like a pretty cramped space to enjoy a meal (not to mention any service issues).

Sitting at the bar, facing out towards the street a few Friday's ago during a light snowfall, sipping a well made martini was just right. The bar had a good vibe and our service at the bar, for just drinks, was great.

Dinner was excellent and the lamb duo was the early favorite for my personal dish of the year.

Dang.

Called for a table for a week from tonight and they're completely booked.

Asked (for my future reference and yours) how far in advance the place gets booked up for a Friday or Saturday, and the gentleman said three weeks.

A brasserie would have been perfect for the occasion, so does anyone have other suggestions along those lines? Word (here and elsewhere) seems to be that Brasserie Ruhlmann is overpriced for the food quality, and we've been to Brasserie Jo lately and wouldn't mind someplace else. The burbs, maybe? I realize there aren't a whole lot of options in this category (which is one reason Old Town Brasserie is such a hot ticket), but thought I'd ask.

How about La Sardine or Le Bouchon? More of a traditional Bistro than Old Town Brasserie, but the food is always good.

Bistro Campagne is always good as well.

Cafe Matou would be my pick.

We went to Old Town Brasserie last night. We had a late reservation, but were actually seated about 10 minutes early. I was glad because you could barely move in the bar area because it was so packed. I have to say that I absolutely loved the place. The food and service were wonderful, and I really liked the casual atmosphere. I couldn't believe the quality of everything for the very reasonable price. We got out of there for about $150 plus tip with a bottle of zinfandel, two appetizers, two entrees, a Grand Marnier soufflé, and two after dinner drinks. I was only mildly disappointed that they didn't have the lobster ravioli, but the scallop ravioli that it was replaced with was truly decadent. We also had the smoked salmon terrine, the roasted duck breast, and the nage de homard, which was described as oil poached lobster, seared scallop, Israeli cous cous and lobster sauce. Everything was tremendous and I'll definitely be back.

So, finally went to OTB recently, and it was outstanding and really reasonable. Between the three of us, we had the artichoke terrine, excellent and very subtle, a salad lyonanaise perfect, and the snails with roquefort and tomato was rockin... We each had the lamb and kobe duo. the kobe short ribs are cooked in souevide for 72 hours and served with two medium rare lamb rack/chops. The sauces were outstanding. We had two souffles, one hazelnut and one coconut. both were excellent, although I liked the hazelnut better. I am not a huge coconut fan. Between the tree of us, we had 6 cocktails and a lovely 1/2 bottle of wine that was tremendous. I am not into wine but it was really nice. The service was flawless and the food is what Roland is known for. And may I say that, the Chef is excellent form. Roland is one of the best chefs in the city, if not the country and it's nice to be able to afford the price point. Including tax, and a 20% tip, $300.00 total. The best meal that I have had out in a long long time. Please go there and enjoy.

I'm scratching my head today thinking about the distinctively unpleasant experience I had at Old Town Brasserie last night. In fact, I cannot recall any single dining experience at which I've encountered such complete indifference and inconsideration as I did last night. And given how much I was looking forward to it, the experience was especially disappointing.

In 1996 I had one of the most memorable and enjoyable meals of my life at Le Francais, with chef Liccioni at the helm. As a relative neophyte to fine dining at the time, I was concerned going in, that it would be stuffy, stodgy and overly formal. Happily, the exact opposite was true. We were treated warmly by a well-trained staff who had good senses of humor. We were immediately disarmed, made to feel welcome and treated kindly. The food was glorious and stunning, and in many ways, that meal changed my life.

Now that chef Liccioni has moved into a supposedly more informal brasserie venue, the last thing I expected was pretense and snobbery coming from the FOH, but that's exactly what we encountered last night, and we received it in droves. From the moment we entered the restaurant, we were treated like our presence was a burden. Considering I'd made the reservation a month in advance, I was confused as to why. It's not like we'd shown up naively without a reservation and begged to be seated. We asked for no favors other than a venue in which to spend our money on a (hopefully) fine meal. But even taking us to our table was done with a sigh, although I have no idea what that sigh meant. I have always defended chef Roland -- even going so far as to question publicly why he was left off a list of Chicago's 50 Top Chefs a few years back, when he was back at Le Francais for his second stint. But at Old Town Brasserie, he's got a cast around him that aren't doing him any favors. It's ironic to me that in the less formal Brasserie setting, the air of pretense among the FOH'ers was so palpable -- especially when it didn't exist at all at Le Francais (or at Les Nomades, during Roland's run there).

Perhaps part of the problem with OTB is simply one of design. Clearly, there are too many tables in this restaurant and they are obviously way too close together. Does this reflect naked greed on the part of management or simply obliviousness? I'm not sure but no one in the joint seemed to be comfortable. Looking around the room during our meal, seating one party nearly always seemed to involve moving a table, or one patron fighting to squeeze past another patron who was already seated.

Our party of 4 ended up in the very back corner of the restaurant at a table that was so crammed into its space, it could barely be serviced by the staff. And I'm not exaggerating. We had to hand some of our used plates to the busboys because they could not otherwise reach them. One of my companions was served a soup terrine minus its lid because there was just no way for any staffer to reach the terrine and remove the lid once it was placed on the table. Facing the wall as I was, I had the 'pleasure' of the busboy's genitals being mashed into the back of my right shoulder repeatedly over the course of the evening. I joked that I didn't know figs were on the menu. And speaking of menus, the one I was originally given had both food and wine stains on it. Damn! It bemused me to receive such a shoddy experience from a staff who acted as if they were bothered by our very presence. Oh the irony!

Maybe this led to the FOH's generally lousy attitude. Perhaps they'd also had enough of forcing diners into spaces too small and trying to do their jobs in a restaurant that was clearly too small for the number of diners it housed. Maybe we'd done nothing more than stroll unwittingly into ongoing battle, the proportions of which we may never truly know. But I'm speculating.

Still, regardless of the reason behind it, service was uniformly uneven, if such a setting even exists. Twice, we had to ask for more butter. Water was not refilled without our asking. On more than one occasion during the meal, food and wine arrived at the exact same moment, which was really annoying -- especially since we'd asked at the outset for the meal to be 'conversationally paced.' Entrees were placed in front of the wrong diners. Dessert souffles, which had to be ordered well in advance of dessert time, arrived at the table before the individuals in our party who didn't order souffles even had a chance to order their desserts. And one person at our table never even got to order dessert because our server simply forgot to ask him and then walked away too fast for him to do so. At one point, another table's dessert showed up at our table. I'm not sure we would have known had it not been for the 'happy birthday' inscription on the rim of the plate.

Foodwise, things were better but still up and down. Appetizers were excellent, with pates and terrines all being masterfully-created and delicious. Duck consomme, which I loved 12 years ago at LF, was too salty. But the Salad Lyonnaise was very tasty and contained rendered bacon fat in the dressing. The special truffle salad was also quite tasty. Main courses were mixed: Ribeye was cooked perfectly but pretty bland. My veal strip loin was cooked to the right doneness but it was hard and dry, although the calf's liver which accompanied it was great. But both fish/seafood entrees were well-liked by everyone at the table. Souffles were tasty but the passionfruit creme brulee was truly awful -- with its way-too-soft texture and oily finish -- but they took it off the bill, at our request.

Unfortunately, pretense, snobbery and maybe even a bit of fattism are what I will remember most about my first (and possibly only) experience at OTB (which is ominously just one letter away from OCB, which stands for Old Country Buffet). There are so many other great places in town where the cost for a similar but better meal is no higher, or even lower. When I think about some recent meals I've had at Vie for example, this experience at OTB verged on laughable. For me, the 2 best moments of the evening were arriving at the restaurant (before I knew how lousy our experience would be) and leaving it, after which our mood collectively lifted. After spending a few hours at a Weegee's, a very nice lounge, we made a late-night stop at Jimmy's for a few hotdogs. Four of us ate there like Kings for $18.90. But more importantly, we were treated with a sincerity at Jimmy's that was completely absent at OTB. Perhaps the FOH staff at OTB should make a little field trip to the corner of Grand and Pulaski to see how it's done.

=R=

Weegee's Lounge
3659 W. Armitage
Chicago, IL 60647
773 384-0707

Jimmy's Red Hots
4000 W Grand Ave
Chicago, IL 60651
773 384-9513

That's awful, Ronnie. And in stark contrast to my two recent visits (one last week, one about 10 days before that).

Knowing OTB from those two visits, I can see exactly how what happened to you happened to you, but can thankfully report it didn't happen to us. (Suffice it to say that based on my experiences there, nothing you report causes me to go WTF, but on our nights relative to yours everything was tilted just a few degrees toward the forces of light and away from the dark, and those few degrees were enough to make all the difference in the world. If that makes any sense.) For instance, for us, the FOH seemed to be doing its best under the challengingly busy circumstances--they didn't have time for idle chitchat, but neither were they hostile, and there was none of the "heavy sigh" treatment you got. When (on the second evening) they were running behind in seating their reservations, we were kept reasonably well-informed at the bar. On both nights our party was given a table against the wall (first the side wall, then the back) but in neither case were we crammed into a corner like you were. The place is crowded, and can get noisy, but for us it was a "festive" kind of crowded, and the noise level was not so loud as to make table conversation difficult. On both nights our waiters were competent and friendly. On the second occasion I had the veal and liver combo platter as you did, and agree the liver was out-of-this-world, while in my case the veal, unlike yours on the night you were there, was pretty near perfection as well. I started with a mushroom tart, with layers of sliced mushrooms interlaced with truffle paste, that I also thought outstanding. Drink and wine service at the table was fine. If we'd had the experience you did, I would be in no hurry to go back, but as it was I left the restaurant both times very high on it and eager to return.

Ron, yikes! Sounds like a terrible experience. I would agree that it's a cramped room, but we might have (fortunately) been in a better spot than your party.

Given the laundry list of things that went wrong (none of which are excusable given the pedigree of those behind OTB), are you planning on contacting anyone at the restaurant? I would be very tempted...

jesteinf wrote:Ron, yikes! Sounds like a terrible experience. I would agree that it's a cramped room, but we might have (fortunately) been in a better spot than your party.

Given the laundry list of things that went wrong (none of which are excusable given the pedigree of those behind OTB), are you planning on contacting anyone at the restaurant? I would be very tempted...

Yeah Josh, I'm not sure what to do. Part of me wants to just let it fade away and part of me wants to let them know about it. But what's so frustrating about the entire situation is that while we were there, we were continually mentioning things to our server but rather than address them, she and the busboys just kept 'steamrolling' us, so to speak. In fact, during our meal, I noticed owner Bob Djahanguiri making the rounds in the dining room and I was hoping that he'd come by our table but he didn't. Maybe he has learned to simply avoid diners seated at that particular table.

I was just looking at the pictures I took of our meal and the food depicted in them is truly beautiful. But viewing them also reminded me of some additional service gaffes that I failed to mention in my initial post. I'll not bother to list them all here but they just reminded me of how odd and off the whole experience was. 2 souffles each come with a sauce that's supposed to be applied tableside. The waitress sauces the chocolate souffle and then walks away from the table without saucing the pistachio souffle. We ended up saucing the souffle ourselves (is that what the kids are calling it these days?) but I am still curious about what happened there. Was it because she couldn't reach it? Was it because she was remarkably forgetful? Was it some form of hostility? I guess I would like to know and maybe I will write a letter. If I do, I will certainly report back here on any response I receive.

In any case, I don't feel like our experience warranted me taking the time to post a bunch of pictures but I would like to share one image of a beautiful "wild" mushroom terrine. Now, I think it's actually a misnomer because the mushrooms were almost certainly not foraged but they were exotic, and the resulting terrine was utterly delicious art on a plate . . .



"Wild" Mushroom Terrine at Old Town Brasserie

What a shame that a restaurant with this pedigree could be so remarkably sloppy up front. I guess I probably should send a detailed note to Mr. Djahanguiri and give him a chance to address a situation of which he may not be aware. *Sigh*

=R=

In 1996 I had one of the most memorable and enjoyable meals of my life at Le Francais, with chef Liccioni at the helm.

Don't forget it was his now ex-wife Mary Beth who ran front of the house at Le Francais. She would have been a useful asset to this enterprise. (I know, she has her own thing going on. I just wanted to point out food wasn't the only element to their success at Le Francais.)

Regards,

You know, I hate to say - I had a very similar experience at Old Town Brasserie as did Ronnie. I was equally surprises by my FOH experience. Our reservation, like Ronnie's, had been made well ahead of time. We arrived to a burstingly packed restaruant and were directed to the bar (where no seats were available). We waited over an hour for our table. And let me explain, the bar is not a comfortable place to wait. In fact, we were hovering over the table seated next to the bar and were very much in the path of the servers. When we were seated, the restaurant emptied within 15 minutes and tables were available throughout, which led me to believe that like doctors who overbook, the host had simply made too many 7:30 reservations.

When we arrived our table, our server was less haughty and more clueless. My favorite of the gaffes was when she rattled through the many, many (at least 10 apps and entrees) specials, she told us that most of them have been on the menu for at least a month. One would think that if your specials are done monthly, you would print a new menu. Our food was good, as was the wine, but for a restaurant created by such industry vets, the FOH was surprisingly sloppy. But then that's not even the worst service experience that I've had in March. I will detail a much more egregious example at a very surprising locale shortly.

MAG wrote:We waited over an hour for our table. And let me explain, the bar is not a comfortable place to wait.

Did they at least buy you a drink?

They bought us a round of drinks.

MAG wrote:They bought us a round of drinks.

That's good, but over an hour wait with a reservation is still grueling. Was it a weekend night? The nights we were there, when our experience was good, were both weeknights. On the first, the restaurant was crowded, but we were seated right away. On the second (as reported above) we had to wait in the bar--but nothing like an hour. Twenty minutes I'd say. During which time they at least let us know they hadn't forgotten about us. Then at one point (about the fifteen minute point), I inquired as to our progress, and the host said we could have a table by the front window right away, or one in the restaurant proper that would be available in five minutes or so. I told him we'd prefer to wait for the latter, and, true to his word, it was just about another five minutes. I appreciated his having given us that other option, though.

As with ronnie's report, nothing in yours exactly surprises me, but I remain cautiously optimistic that we'll have good luck again on our third visit, whenever that might be. If your visit turns out to have been on a weekend night, I'll take that as a cautionary tale in favor of weeknights.

An hour of wait if the entire party was present at reservation time is unacceptable under just about any circumstances. Personally I wouldn't have waited that long, I would have gone elsewhere. That's a really bad way for a restaurant to start a meal.

LTHForum,

Thought I had posted about our Old Town Brasserie experience with Ronnie_S and bride, though remembering the meal should not not be a problem as human nature seems to lean to keeping negatives fresher than positives.

Dispassionate sums up the meal for me, it's not just the staff was phoning it in, they really did not seem to give a damn. Our waitress reminded me of a hooker who does her nails and talks on the cell phone during session, but, to keep the analogy consistent, the bus boys more than made up for her lack of interest by constantly rubbing their genitals on my elbow as they squeezed past. I should have banked the hundred I spent on my wife, had a couple of hot dogs and the spent the remainder at the Admiral theater, at least there I'd have interacted with the opposite sex.

Food wise our meal was uneven, and it seemed dishes with components prepared in advance such as pates, terrines, salads and simply composed for service fared noticeably better than cooked. Which seems to speak volumes about the talent of Liccioni's staff.

As Ron alluded we were in terrific moods just prior to entering Old Town Brasserie which had an oddly negative mood dampening vibe, exiting to fresh air and bustling Wells St was as if waking from a mildly disconcerting dream.

Our evening was saved by carefully crafted cocktails and terrific conversation at Weegee's and capped by hot dogs with a side of attitude and, more importantly, generosity of spirit, at Jimmy's.

Enjoy,
Gary

G Wiv wrote:Our waitress reminded me of a hooker who does her nails and talks on the cell phone during session, but, to keep the analogy consistent, the bus boys more than made up for her lack of interest by constantly rubbing their genitals on my elbow as they squeezed past.

Hehe . . . reminds me of the old joke about knowing when it's time to paint the ceiling.

In any case, I did receive a prompt reply from the restaurant after I wrote my letter. I've been invited -- along with 3 guests -- to come back for a weeknight dinner -- minus gratuity and alcohol -- on the restaurant's dime. I've been instructed to contact the assistant manager to set it up.

I haven't decided whether I'll take them up on it or not. Honestly, I'd rather offer to come into the restaurant anonymously and have another meal. If it's a reasonably acceptable experience, I'll pay for it in full and that will resolve the matter for once and for all. If not, they'll pay for the 2nd meal and refund the entire cost of the 1st meal, too. But it's not really about the money. I don't doubt the restaurant's ability to give me a great experience if they know I'm coming. What I still wonder about, however, is if my first experience was typical or an aberration. What is the standard, representative experience at Old Town Brasserie really like? Ultimately, that's the only measure of a restaurant, any restaurant, that really matters.

=R=