Bread & Wine

We just made our third trip to Bread & Wine in the Old Irving neighborhood this weekend. Bread & Wine is a wine market/wine bar/bar restaurant that opened about 7 months ago. The place continues to grow on me. It's got pretty much everything I look for in a neighborhood restaurant: a great selection of reasonable and interesting wines by the glass, they use excellent, seasonal ingredients, prices are reasonable, and the people that work there are incredibly friendly. We also really like the low-key, casual vibe of the place. We were greeted with a 'welcome back' on both our second and third trips (we didn't cause a scene or anything on the first trip, either).

Highlights from past meals:
-Charcuterie-mostly house made and interesting cheese selection.
-We love the flank steak with semolina gnocchi. While the idea of the dish itself is nothing groundbreaking, execution and ingredients are perfect. The cube-shaped 'gnocchi' have a crisp exterior (sorry Kennyz) and a fluffy, pillowy interior.
-They make a great burger--it's actually two patties--one ground beef and one chorizo--on a pretzel bun with onion jam.
-This last trip, I had my favorite dish yet--housemade basil cavatelli with housemade pepperoni and, I believe, Fresno chilis--just awesome
-The smoked pork loin special with popcorn grits from this weekend. They make a popcorn 'stock', then use the stock to make grits and they stir fresh ground popcorn into the grits while they're cooking (or something like that--I had a glass or two of wine in me when I got the description).
-The salted caramel corn panna cotta is amazing.
-They had an olive oil cake with lemon curd on the menu in late spring--hoping that one makes a comeback.

The seating: On weekends, they generally seat pairs of diners at the bar facing the open kitchen on high (backed) stools. We love getting to chat with the chefs so we actually chose that seating even at less busy times. But for those that don't, you may want to mention seating preference when you make a reservation. They now have a few outdoor tables on a little flower-box enclosed patio.

Monday nights, they have offal specials, Tuesday night is a prix-fixe menu, and I believe there are some other specials. They have free parking in front (and there's a small stretch without meters if you go about a block west of the restaurant on Irving (north side of the street)

Bread & Wine
3732 W. Irving Park Rd
Chicago, IL 60618
773 - 866 - 5266
breadandwinechicago.com

I have been to Bread n Wine three times so far and I am so glad to have a good restaurant in the neighborhood. Best thing I have had there? The caramel popcorn panna cotta. THe room looks great. The Tuesday special is outstanding most of the time.

We live in the neighborhood and are glad to see another option at the fine dining end of the spectrum. Have only been once, but we're favorably impressed. It's on the list to return.

Nice room, ambitious menu, well executed food, easy parking.

Worth a try.

We had another great meal at Bread & Wine last night. Unfortunately, I forgot to take pictures of the appetizers and desserts. We started with the charcuterie plate--standouts were the hickory smoked blue and the house-made kielbasa and mortadella. I'm generally not a big fan of cold soups but I had a few spoonfuls of the chilled corn soup and it was outstanding. The semolina gnocchi were again excellent--nothing fancy but a perfect crispy/fluffy snack. For entrees, four of us shared the lamb saddle with pan-fried radicchio(?or red cabbage), the basil cavatelli with house-made pepperoni and fresno chiles, and an oil poached white fish with some type of pickle (not watermelon rind but something similar) and Szechuan peppercorn aioli--all were terrific. The basil cavatelli continues to be one of my favorite things I've had there but I was most impressed with the white fish (probably in part because I never would have ordered it for myself)--it was perfectly cooked and incredibly flavorful. We split a seasonal dessert--blueberry corn cake/pudding with lime shortbread and the salted caramel corn panna cotta. I really want to try making the panna cotta at home; the flavor combination is ingenious and it doesn't seem like it would be that hard to make. They just got a mention in the New York Times, along with a few other Chicago market/restaurants.

Oil-poached whitefish with Szechuan peppercorn aioli:


Basil cavatelli with housemade pepperoni and fresno chilis


Lamb saddle with radicchio

We tried out Bread & Wine for the first time on Saturday. We really enjoyed it and will definitely be back. The housemade charcuterie was really good, especially the mortadella, summer blood sausage and a really good chicken liver mousse. And as others have mentioned, the popcorn panna cotta was also very good. But I was really impressed by the mussels steamed in beer, sriracha and blue cheese. Even with such strong flavors, they were definitely well-balanced and the flavors played surprisingly well together. I would go back for this dish alone - it's one of the best things I've eaten in a while.

Some friends and I went to Bread & Wine last night for a quick bite. Apologies in advance for not remembering all the dish details. We shared the flap steak, fluke special and curry tofu over rice noodles. The steak was perfectly prepared (medium-rare) with great flavor. It came with what seemed like a vegetable lasagna -- thin strips of root vegetables layered with cheese. Excellent. The fluke was also quite good, although I didn't really like the lentils that accompanied it. The curry tofu dish was an interesting preparation, but wasn't my favorite. We shared a bottle of Hitching Post Pinot Noir (half-price wine on Wednesdays with some restrictions). No dessert -- we dined later than we planned as it was.

Overall, we enjoyed our meal. The only ding to the night was uneven service. We were greeted warmly and seated promptly. Our waiter came to the table asking if we wanted to order drinks. After asking about any specials (and needing to request both food and drink specials), we needed a couple more minutes. You know that nervous feeling when you send someone away? I had that feeling. We ultimately had to ask someone else to get our waiter so we could place our order. Whoever came out took our order in place of our waiter. There was also a long wait to get our check. It's not like the restaurant was super-busy. I'm over-tired this week, so I know my patience was short. My more patient friends also noticed the time gaps. The food was good though so I'd definitely go back if I'm in the area.

Stopped by on a soggy Saturday for dinner. Food was excellent. We had some cheese and bread. I guess it works, but they charge $2 for bread. For dinner I had a great Lamb Meatball with Roasted Cauliflower. Light and delicious. The better half had the outstanding Sea Trout. No dessert. the service has not changed since The GP ate there. Felt that was a place for fancy food, but you didn't walk away hungry.

I've stopped in since my visit of 2013 and had excellent service at the bar. We stopped for a drink on our way to another event. The bartender was very personable and service was good at the bar. I recall enjoying the drinks, but don't have any details on what we had.