Benjamin's Highland Park

Always excited to see new places coming to the hood. There's a sign in the old Mimosa space on 2nd Street in Highland Park for Benjamin's New American food. Any inside info here?

My understanding is that every dish will cost $100, hence the name Benjamin's.

In all seriousness, no info yet, other than the sign on the building.

=R=

Noted this morning in Openings Closing thread.

ronnie_suburban wrote:My understanding is that every dish will cost $100, hence the name Benjamin's.

In all seriousness, no info yet, other than the sign on the building.

=R=

That would fly in Hp. LOL!!

Anyway it'll be nice to have another choice. Hopefully a reason to stay in town on a weekend night.

Fron today's Dish:

"After breaking into the food business at Brasserie T with Rick Tramonto and Gale Gand, then working in country clubs, Benjamin Brittsan now strikes out on his own with his namesake restaurant Benjamin (1849 2nd St., Highland Park; no phone yet), a North Shore fine-dining spot scheduled to open the week of July 1. The summer menu includes baked local goat cheese and piquillo peppers with honey, oranges, and crostini; whitefish with hazelnuts, fig mostarda, and brown butter; and handmade gnocchi with wild mushrooms, summer truffles, and pea shoots. Diners can also order Kobe-style beef to be seared at the table on a hot brick of Himalayan rock salt. There will be live jazz on Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays. “Another part of our ambiance is that we decided to define the cooking by also putting it into our décor,” Brittsan says. Huh? “Old World rustic with a little bit of contemporary flair.” Oh. That’s more normal than what we pictured."

It's open. Website's under construction - http://www.benjaminrestaurant.com/

Thanks Dave...I'm trying to get a menu to look at.

They have one of those window box thingys that held a one page menu. I didn't have time to look at it.

For those who enjoy jazz, there will be a solo jazz pianist every Thursday, Friday and Saturday playing an excellent Yamaha grand. As of now, the music will go fairly late. Full Disclosure: the current pianist is my jazz piano teacher.

Jonah

Anyone been yet? I may give it a whirl tonight as I am solo for the week.

Went to Benjamins last night and sat at the bar. I very much enjoyed my experience and will be returning, albeit with a different gameplan. First of all the room is beautiful with two dining room levels. The downstairs reminds me of a darker more updated version of Restaurant Michael's dining room. Very elegant and inviting in blacks and grays. upstairs there are several tables and a large grand piano that is used when they host a jazz musician on various nights (I'm not sure exactly which nights). I ordered the head-on prawns with pineapple slaw and the gnocchi with favas and ricotta. The prawns were delicious, well-seasoned and perfectly cooked. The slaw was a little strange and didn't pair all-too well with the prawns in my opinion though the slaw wasn't necessarily bad - just a strange pairing. The gnocchi was quite tasty though if I must nit-pick they weren't quite as light as I would have expected. Prices for food menu items were ok if a little high. I should have had brought my receipt with me to write this, but I believe the gnocchi and (3) prawns were each 14 dollars - a bit steep.

The wine list was ok but most certainly JACKED. I will definitely be going the corkage route next time I visit. Many of the wines available by the glass are at prices one would find a full bottle at retail, a fact I find very disconcerting. The reserve list is even more outrageous with prices over 2.5 times retail meaning the markup is even higher as the price of the bottle goes up. Insanity. Maybe it's a topic for another thread, but how restaurants have the gall to buy wine wholesale and then mark these bottles up to 2-3 times retail is beyond me, but if there are fools willing to pay these insulting prices the I guess then I guess that explains how they get away with it. As far as corkage prices go the bartender told me it is $15, but then I was told on Facebook that it's $20. Maybe they are still figuring things out.

Overall, I did enjoy myself and left satisfied and content. The food quality is there as are the service and decor. I just wish the prices were a little more inline with what I would expect at this level, especially as far as libations are concerned. If they brings things down to a more reasonable level Benjamins will probably be on the dining rotation.

I ate at Benjamin in a group of six on Saturday. It was okay, but I don't feel compelled to return. Both the food and the service left something to be desired.

The service started out just plain dreadful. At a nice restaurant, after a course is served, the server should check back with the table a minute later to make sure everything is okay. If everything is okay, then this takes no time at all. But if everything is not okay, it can prevent a mistake from becoming a disaster, and that's exactly what happened with us. They served the soup course to most of the table, but without any spoons. (Insert old joke here.) And we waited and waited for a chance to catch the server's eye, but he was too busy schmoozing with another table to look up. Five minutes is a long time to wait with hot food and no utensils. With the following course, he was asked for something which he promised to bring, but again we waited a long time. I had a word with the manager on duty, and his attention improved after that. But even so, it seemed like we waited a long time for food to come out, and when it did, it was not piping hot, which indicates a server problem rather than a kitchen problem. It normally takes us around 2.0-2.5 hours for a complete meal, whereas it took us about three hours even though this time we skipped dessert. Service was a big problem. Perhaps the servers at Benjamin think they don't need to provide more than minimal service to a group of six or more, because they know that a 20 percent tip will be automatically added to the check...?

The food was okay, not as good as it should have been. I had the appetizer of bison sliders with root beer glaze, which were skimpy on the meat, and the meat in one of the three mini-sandwiches was almost entirely gristle. My entree, salmon with cherry barbecue sauce, was tasty, although as noted above, not as hot (temperature) as it should have been.

The decor is nice and elegant; unfortunately, when we arrived at 6:00, the lights were turned way down so the room seemed extremely dark. (They turned the lights up significantly around 8:30, shortly before we finished.)

We enjoyed ourselves, mostly due to the company of friends rather than the food or service. It's a nice place but there are things they need to do to get their act together. I would excuse them if they had just opened, but in the three and a half months they've been open, you would think they would have ironed the kinks out.

I had lunch at Benjamin yesterday, having seen Dolinsky write favorably about it and hearing positives one or two other places; it was finally time to try. My buddy and I were one of just two tables during the lunch hour; the space feels cold that empty. There were two staffers in the front of house, and they were friendly and engaging.

The lunch menu is a hodge-podge; there are only five mains and only one is a sandwich. I decided I would be happier to just try a few different things from the starters and sides than choose one of these partially-inspired main dishes.

First out were the brussels sprouts, cooked with bacon, pomegranate seeds, and a little balsamic glaze. This was delicious, the sprouts were perfect and can't go wrong adding bacon.


The frites came next, they were fine but nothing special. The sriracha aioli was an OK idea, but I stuck with ketchup mostly. There was some mention of truffle salt or something on the menu, never tasted that.


As a "main" I had "wild mushrooms on toast", with some bleu cheese and arugula. This was OK but didn't really come together for either of us.


My friend had the salmon, which was OK but a little dry. The menu said something about being from "Jail Island", I don't know where that is but being in jail is not where I want my salmon.


We were then brought the dessert menu, with a half dozen choices at $8 each. I seemed to remember there being some desserts on the lunch menu, so I asked; the waiter insisted there were not, then when I pushed him, he suddenly remembered there were. The lunch desserts were either $4 or $5, such as the $5 brownie-a-la-mode we split.

This was tasty but how could you really go wrong?

There are 14 tables downstairs, and another half dozen on a mezzanine level next to a baby grand piano. One is a booth that is surrounded by curtains, but they are translucent so it's a weird effect; another is a banquette-only table for two. The interior is very Euro and high style... but...hmm, how can I say this...doesn't feel very Highland Park.


Lunch in total was $41 with tax for the two of us; we drank nothing but water.

I think I feel about Benjamin the same way I feel about M down the street. I am thrilled to have both restaurants in Highland Park, and would gladly choose either one over a place like City Park Grill. But neither feels quite focused or unique enough. I feel that based on the Brussels sprouts alone that the chef has got some game, but we didn't see it in full force.

I would be interested to hear if others have been more recently than the above-two reviews.

We went to Benjamin last night and I used the opportunity to test out my new S100 and developing RAW photos. The food was very good. We opted to get a bunch of appetizers instead of any main courses, which worked out just fine. Unfortunately they were out of scallops, so we couldn't get the scallop dish which looked very good.


Pretzel Bread | housemade pink peppercorn butter

We got a little excited and ate most of this before I could snap the shot. It was very good as far complimentary breads go.


Strawberry Balsamic Mojito | local strawberries, mint, balsamico, citrus infused rum, agave nectar

Unfortunately didn't get a whole lot of balsamic in this, but it was still tasty and refreshing in this warm weather.


Gnocchi | pistachio and mint pesto, peas, fava beans, housemade ricotta, black truffle essence

This was some of the best gnocchi I've ever had. Probably both of our favorites for the evening.


The Benjamin "Spicy Tuna Roll" | arborio "sushi style", sashimi tuna, spicy mayonnaise, wasabi caviar, soy bubbles, tempura

This I thought was just ok. It was good, but it didn't really stand out against much cheaper spicy tuna rolls from run of the mill sushi joints. Probably the best part of the dish was the quenelle of macerated tuna on the side.


Chilled Crab Salad | mango gellee, grilled baby gem lettuce, guacamole, rhubarb vinaigrette

Another tasty dish. The only thing I would say is that the mango gellee didn't seem to gel with the rest of the dish (pun intended).


Veal Sweetbreads | puff pastry poppadoms, oyster mushrooms, hazelnuts, sauternes emulsion

Very good dish. I really liked how oyster mushrooms and sweetbreads worked together.


Housemade Lamb Sausage | roasted pepper ragout, tzatziki sauce, local feta, mint

Again, no complaints.


Banana Caramelo | housemade crepe cup, cake batter ice cream, candied pistachios, butterscotch

Obviously I quite enjoyed the meal and didn't really think there was a flop among any of the dishes (besides maybe the sushi roll, which was still good). I can't wait to return.

Hi,

Benjamin's has now reopened as Benjamin's Tapas.

Regards,

I'll be there next week to check it out with a few wine friends. Will report back after.