Acre, an American taproom and dining room

Don't know how I completely missed this. Charlie's Ale House on Clark, one door south of Anteprima, is gone (hip, hip...). The folks behind Anteprima have taken the place over. "Acre," the name of the new place, features "casual, seasonal American fare." There is both a tap room and a full-on dining room (with separate menus). According to an early piece in the paper that completely escaped my notice, "The tap room will offer sandwiches, soups, burgers and a few entrees, [Marty] Fosse says. The dining room menu will be grouped into Starters, Odds & Ends, Tidbits and other categories. Dishes will have a strong emphasis on sustainable, farm-to-table ingredients." Anyway, here is a Trib blog on the subject. And of course now that I know about it, there's stories everywhere. Seems to be open already...

Acre
5308 N. Clark Street
(773) 334-7600
Their website is here and includes a link to the menu

Acre Burger:


2 Top-Notch-style griddled 1/4 pound patties (cooked medium-well, per kitchen rules) with good sear and terrific beefiness from house-ground short rib/brisket/chuck mix. Excellent preserved tomato. Limp fries pictured above improved immensely on a subsequent visit, as did the housemade ketchup, although it still has no reason to exist. Ask for the housemade aioli instead. I've spent a few afternoons at Acre already due to good food, free wi-fi, and a kitchen that's open all day.

WIFI? I see a new lunch office in my future. I only had the Pork burger (forgot the kitschy name for it). Good, solid, and reasonably priced food for my first visit which was maybe 3 weeks ago so the details are a little hazy. I also had the opportunity to chat to one of the owners, Tim, and it was obvious he really cares about getting this right.

I rarely went to Charlie's but walked by it everyday. I hear passerby's occasionally question why it changed but to me it makes sense.

This is good news, Charlie's was mediocre at best. I love Anteprima, and I look forward to trying the new place, maybe over next weekend.

Despite what I posted in another thread, Acre is really worth a visit. We went last night and had a few snacks on the bar side (deviled eggs and the charcuterie plate were fantastic) and dinner in the dining room. While the dinner was uneven, there were several standout dishes including grilled beef heart, beef tongue, and a Flintsones-esque marrow bone.

My wife and I had dinner at Acre last night. There were some hits and misses.

We ate in the Tap room (the more casual side) and split the burger and the fried clam and oyster sandwich. Both sandwiches were great. Burger was cooked to a perfect medium rare. We didn't seem to have any preserved tomato on our burger though.

The fries were pretty bad. Limp. No seasoning. The homemade ketchup tasted like a very watered down tomato puree. Not nearly enough acidity. Thanks to Kenny's suggestion, we also asked for some of the aioli, which was excellent.

The clam sandwich came with a dish of apple and carrot chunks that had been roasted (and some point). This side was really a puzzle. It came out pretty cold. We weren't sure if it was supposed to be room temperature or warm; it certainly wasn't meant to be cold. The apple pieces were really mealy. In short, it qualified for one of the worst things I've eaten (lately).

The server was very friendly, but gave us a chuckle: when I ordered the burger medium rare, he said that this is how they prefer it because the "meat is so fresh". No mention of house ground, mixture of cuts, etc. But it was fresh. Good to know.

We ordered a bottle of Domaine Astruc, a Carignan from the south of France. The wine was misspelled as Astrul on the menu (I found out the correct spelling later). The wine was not good and was served a bit warm. Yes, we ordered it, but I was surprised that such a mediocre to poor wine was actually selected by someone to fill out a wine list at a place that seems to take beer, wine, and cocktails seriously.

We have reservations for the dining room side tonight. Looking forward to it and will report back...

HIt this place a few weeks ago when unwilling to wait at Hopleaf. Nice room, great tap. Over attentive service. Food was uneven. Crab Caesar salad was a confusion of texture and saltiness. Generous quantity of peekytoe crab was satisfyingly briny, but littered with bits of shell. In other preps I might have forgiven this, however there were a lot of other crunchy elements of a similar scale- fried capers (weird idea to me) and fluer de sel, so the overall texture came across kind of sandy and not entirely pleasant. The lettuce was entirely wrong to have called this a "Caesar", soft leaves of bibb. A more robust and authentic romaine would have perhaps provided a better canvas for the crunchy elements of the salad. The capers and pronounced anchovy with the salty crab made for a saline overdose. I also ordered the sausage plate and while I cannot entirely remember the menu description, I was expecting three types of sausage- I received two, one of which I believe was lamb based and not listed on the menu. No complaints though, the plate was piled high and the sausages were nicely coarse ground and clearly house made. The presumed lamb was popping with spices- coriander and orange peel. The pork sausage had a more subdued, meat forward flavor profile and was quite nice. They were served with a nice whole grain mustard and slightly undercooked fingerling potatoes. The biggest strike against the meal was our server explaining that "we should really come back on a Wednesday, since that is when the chef goes to market and the really good ingredients are featured". We were there on a Tuesday, which perhaps explains the inconsistencies between plate and menu.

Darren72 wrote:... Burger was cooked to a perfect medium rare. We didn't seem to have any preserved tomato on our burger though. ...
...when I ordered the burger medium rare, he said that this is how they prefer it because the "meat is so fresh". No mention of house ground, mixture of cuts, etc. But it was fresh. Good to know.

I know from talking to Marty Fosse, Acre's owner, that they're still tweaking a bunch of things in the kitchen. It sounds like the burger may be a completely different preparation from the one I pictured and described above. When I ordered my burger, they insisted that it had to be cooked to medium-well. I was skeptical, but the result was delicious.

This week, we made our first visit to Acre. We arrived early, so we we decided to have a
drink at the bar while waiting for our friends. Acre has a really nice draft beer list. (Not
quite up to Hopleaf's high standards, but still quite impressive.) Highlights
included Three Floyd's Dreadnaught, Dogfish Head Black and Blue, a few Stone brews
and a couple from Founders. The bartender was helpful, friendly, and more than happy
to pour a sample glass or two of anything we hadn't tried before.

While waiting for our friends, we considered the two menus -- one for the "tap room"
and one for the dining room. Although these are two rooms in the same space,
they are really treated like two different restaurants, sharing only the beer and wine list.
There was very little overlap between the food menus and we found that we were
interested in some of the dishes from each. Once our friends arrived and agreed that
both menus were tempting, we decided to have another drink and a few small plates
before to moving to the dining room for dinner. The separation is odd, and though we
had the reasoning explained to us, I still think they should just simplify and accept being
a single restaurant, rather than two. (We later learned that one might be able to ask
nicely and order a few dishes from the other side's menu.)

For our bar snacks, we chose:

Charcuterie Plate (country pate, trout rillete, chicken liver mouse, and an unidentified smoked sausage)


Deviled Eggs (with smoked trout, chives, mustard, and preserved lemon), and


Crispy Oysters & Clam Fries (with preserved lemon aioli).

All three of these were solid, and the house-made charcuterie plate is a smoking deal at $10.

When we moved to the dining room, things got a bit more hit or miss, but there were some very nice high notes, including:

Grilled Beef Heart (with mac & cheese)
They desperately undersell the star of this dish by listing it as "Cheddar Mac & Cheese with grilled, marinated beef hearts". I'm coming back for this dish. Best beef heart since Mado (R.I.P).


Sunchoke Gratin (with poached farm egg, wild mushrooms)
Surprise hit of the night, this is a rich, earthy, and very satisfying side.


Beef Tongue (with roasted poblanos, potatoes, beef broth, lime)
The kitchen was kind enough to spit one portion of this into 4 separate, little bowls. The thin slice of tongue was melt-in-your-mouth, but the broth really impressed. It was deep and complex and made me feel like I was having the secret pozole at one of Mike G's undiscovered (by white folks, at least) grocery store taquerias.


[Giant] Marrow Bone (with chipotle-tomato vinaigrette)
Who doesn't love a giant marrow bone? Not me doesn't. I mean, I do. The vinaigrette was tasty, but in this context looked like a pool of blood. A mistake, I think. Some green on the plate would have been nice too, but who doesn't love a giant marrow bone?


Sherry Poached Figs (with manchego, sherry vinaigrette, almonds)
Not everyone loved these, but I would happily eat a big pile.

While there were a few misses (I'm looking at you: bland flank steak, bland fennel salad,
all of the desserts) this is still a new restaurant that is trying very hard to find its groove
and make everyone happy.

We were pleased to learn that the menu will have a seasonal focus, and also that they plan
to source ingredients from local, small farms. (They've got a hog coming in from South
Pork Ranch this week.)

The staff and management are all very enthusiastic about Acre and interested in feedback.
These folks saw that we were enjoying our meal, came to ask us questions, and then
comped us dessert for taking the time to discuss the restaurant and the menu with them.
Overall, the service on both sides of the restaurant was excellent, and we thought that the
food was a relative bargain.

Ronna and I really appreciated the food, beer, and hospitality and are planning another trip
to Acre.

--Rich

I agree with those above who found Acre inconsistent but showing initial promise.

As a frequent solo diner, I find the rigid separation of the "dining" room and "tap" room menus a bit annoying. Sitting at a bar is much more convenient and less awkward than sitting alone at a table in a more formal room, which poses a problem for those like me who are more inclined to try the more imaginative fare on the dining room menu. There really is no reason whatsoever to not allow patrons to order from both menus. The split personality rooms/menus idea evokes lula's specials v. cafe menu dichotomy yet denies the very pragmatic values it serves, i.e. mixed parties w/r/t tastes and budgets. I like being able to go someplace where I can get a creative $29 seasonal entree while my stingy uncle can get a BLT. But there's no reason to think the people who prefer beef tongue over a burger are going to prefer one particular dining environment over another. There's also -- please correct me if I'm wrong -- no real administrative problem posed by serving both menus in both rooms. And I guess on an aesthetic level I just reject the idea that burgers and such are more appropriate for the bar environment as opposed to the more snout-to-tail gastropubby seasonal stuff next door.

Apparently someone posted something as I wrote this that says mostly the same thing ... I'm curious to see if they simply go to a one menu / two rooms vibe.

FWIW, one of my favorite restaurants in the world has implemented the same tavern vs. dining room menu philosophy with extraordinary success for an impressive number of years. At NYC's Gramercy Tavern, the drinks lists are available in both rooms, but the food is not.

queequeg's_steak wrote:There's also -- please correct me if I'm wrong -- no real administrative problem posed by serving both menus in both rooms.

There certainly could be. In the tavern they are hoping for lots of walk-in traffic at all times of day and night, and an unpredictable number of patrons. Unless you keep the menu limited, it's tough to avoid running out of stuff - which is the last thing they want to have happen for the reservations-holding crowd.

We enjoyed our meal in the dining room last night very much. I opted to have 3 items from the "first" portion of the menu starting with the Moonstone Oysters, followed by the Risotto, and finishing with the Arugula Salad. Oysters (3) were very fresh and presented simply with radish mignonette. The risotto portion was generous considering it was listed as a "first" course. The arugula salad made a nice finish - almost like a chesse course w/ it's blue cheese, pistachios, and candied kumquats.

Jonathan started with the Grit Corn Cake w/ Poached Egg, had the Beef Heart Mac 'n' Cheese (which as pictured and mentioned above really should be phrased that way on the menu as it's all about the beef heart.) It was a bold choice for him, but he really enjoyed it. He finished with the Poached Figs (also pictured above.)

With our "main" courses we also shared an order of the Roasted Baby Carrots w/ Horseradish Vinaigrette. These were a highlight for me but I'm a huge fan of freshly grated horseradish of which there was a generous amount.

Dessert was ordered on a last-minute whim with coffee - some kind of cake that was memorable only for how dry and tasteless it was. The scoop of ice cream couldn't save it. One bite was one bite too many.

We had the opposite experience from Jefe's - service, while knowledgeable of the menu and helpful with suggestions, was also somewhat inattentive. There were some long waits at various points throughout the meal for his attention - nothing horrible, but definately noticeable. We were also never offered a refill on coffees.

There were several other items on the menu I'm interested in going back to try and may have to go back just for more carrots...

LynnB wrote:We had the opposite experience from Jefe's - service, while knowledgeable of the menu and helpful with suggestions, was also somewhat inattentive. There were some long waits at various points throughout the meal for his attention - nothing horrible, but definately noticeable.

I should have mentioned that we ate on the casual, bar side of the place.

l loved the dinner I had with a friend. Their fois gras was out of this world, their beet salad very scrumptious, this is definitely a place I would come back to. Service was very good as well. Definitely a place to check out.

Gypsy Boy wrote:Don't know how I completely missed this. Charlie's Ale House on Clark, one door south of Anteprima, is gone (hip, hip...). The folks behind Anteprima have taken the place over.

My understanding, based on things I've read here, is that the folks behind Anteprima owned the place when it was Charlie's Ale House, too. No?

This was my understanding also.

We were in the mood for marrow on a cold fall afternoon but it appears the marrow is off the printed menu after only one week. Any other suggestions for today? Don't feel like dealing with Mag Mile traffic at Purple Pig.

Octarine wrote:We were in the mood for marrow on a cold fall afternoon but it appears the marrow is off the printed menu after only one week. Any other suggestions for today? Don't feel like dealing with Mag Mile traffic at Purple Pig.

Longman & Eagle has it, not that a response two days later is that helpful.

For those of you who have visited Acre, I wanted to get your impression of the two menus And whether it makes sense to keep the Chinese wall between the dining room and Tap Room menus. We have had a more than a few guests expressing displeasure with having to choose between the two menus. Personally, I'd like to combine the best of the two menus but there are some kitchen logistic we need to overcome. I appreciate your input.

Thanks.

Tim Rasmussen

I wanted to resurrect this thread for two reasons: first, Tim Rasmussen's immediately preceding post seeks input on a question I'd very much like to hear people's thoughts on because, second, we plan on going very soon. Also, any more recent visits?

Yeesh, what a world we live in when reports from just 2 weeks ago already seem outdated to people. Anyway, Acre announced via Twitter that starting next week, there will be just one menu for both rooms. I suppose we could still comment on Tim's question, though it seems moot at this point.

Yeesh yourself. I didn't say that the previous reports were outdated, I merely asked if anyone had anything new to report. And since I don't tweet, I was unaware of the announcement on Twitter. Seems a little early for cabin fever, but I do thank you for the information....

No need to thank me for giving you information on the matter in which you're interested. Happy to have helped.

Glad to hear about the change to one menu as we went for dinner last Saturday and were a bit torn between which side to dine in. In any case, we had the dinner menu. Overall the food was quite good. We started with the charred octopus which had this wonderful smokey flavor and I really enjoyed the pickled vegetables that were served with it. The octopus was unbelievably tender as you could easy cut it with a fork. I think Anteprima has one of the best octopus dishes and although this preparation was very different, it did not disappoint. The entrees were a bit less exciting. I had a pan seared grouper with creamed spinach and sunchokes. I enjoyed the simple preparation of the fish but it was over salted. In contrast, the spinach had no seasoning. My partner had the grilled pork chop which he was a fan of. The other odd thing was portion size - the pork was enormous whereas the fish was rather small. We just had chocolate ice cream for dessert (our 2 year olds request) and it was rich and delicious. We will certainly give it another try but it was a bit of a hit and miss but overall more hits.

ecs, thanks for posting. I find your comments about the oversalting a little troubling since we have had that exact problem on our last several visits to Anteprima. We're very fond of Anteprima but, some wonderful preparations notwithstanding, we've had problems with salt on all of our visits recently and I note that others have also commented on the same thing. On the positive side, their octopus garners many raves as well.

Kennyz: did the tweet indicate whether the new menu would be a "greatest hits" or how else the two menus would be merged? (The website still offers both menus.)

Gypsy Boy wrote:Kennyz: did the tweet indicate whether the new menu would be a "greatest hits" or how else the two menus would be merged? (The website still offers both menus.)

"merging...menus. Keeping best of the best" is how they put it

My partners Marty Fosse and Chef Carlos Y. just finished a mock up of the combo menu and we are looking at introducing this on Tuesday (12/14). The menu will include about 20-22 chilled and hot/warm apps; 3 sandwiches or so and a couple of soups; 7 -8 main/entrees; and 5-6 sides. The "tap room" menu will still be the weekday lunch menu and we'll continue to offer the brunch menu on Saturdays and Sundays from 11 am to 2:30 pm. Thanks for all of your private and public responses. This has been extremely helpful. also, if you stop in, please introduce yourself as I really appreciate all of the feedback.

crctim wrote:My partners Marty Fosse and Chef Carlos Y. just finished a mock up of the combo menu and we are looking at introducing this on Tuesday (12/14). The menu will include about 20-22 chilled and hot/warm apps; 3 sandwiches or so and a couple of soups; 7 -8 main/entrees; and 5-6 sides. The "tap room" menu will still be the weekday lunch menu and we'll continue to offer the brunch menu on Saturdays and Sundays from 11 am to 2:30 pm. Thanks for all of your private and public responses. This has been extremely helpful. also, if you stop in, please introduce yourself as I really appreciate all of the feedback.

Hi Tim - I'm wondering if you're still planning to serve the tap room menu all day, even after official "lunch service" ends and before "dinner service" begins. I've enjoyed several 3PM burgers already, and would very much welcome it if that continues.

Kenny,
Tim is working on the floor. Just registered not sure how this is going through.The Tap Room menu will run daily till 5pm and then we'll switch to dinner menu.The Burger will always be available. Look forward to speaking w/ you when you're in. all LTHER'S please say hi. Like the forum. Like your feedback.