Oak Park Ave on the Blue Line gets you within five blocks, and if you time it right you could also drop in to Taste of Brazil and/or the Oak Park Bakery, or finish with a Big Guys nightcap.

mgmcewen wrote:The chef from Autre Monde had some of the best food and he was really friendly and nice. He reminded me a lot of Paul Virant. Plus his name is Dan Pancake, which was awesome. A friend who works at Argonne told me this morning that he also works part time at there as a nuclear scientist, which is crazy! I mean being a chef is hard enough without also dealing with radioactive waste. Either way, have to make it out to Berwyn sometime. Is the train a feasible route?

Shades of Jeff "Skunk" Baxter, Steely Dan/Doobie Brothers guitarist and missle defense expert. Very cool.

Autre Monde is celebrating its fifth year with a greatest hits menu for both plates and cocktails; this is a good time to try it if you haven't been. The sage-mezcal cocktail, fried artichoke leaves with preserved lemon aioli, and octopus in smoked paprika and capers with long beans and fingerling potatoes make for some powerful contrasting flavors and textures. Pancake & Partridge (chefs) continue to execute at a high and creative level, making crackers and sausage in house for the charcuterie board, confidently dealing out whole branzino and ribeye, and delivering what for me is the best hazelnut confection in the city, an unfailing pot de creme where you can practically taste sun, soil, and tree in the nut and cocoa. This place and Big Guys a few blocks apart really tell the story of a transforming Roosevelt Road corridor at both ends of the foodie spectrum.

It's funny that they're offering a greatest hits menu. I've had a few hits here, but the reason I rarely return is that the menu has always seemed pretty set, with the same dishes offered again and again with only slight variations (say, ingredient/seasoning). Like, there will always be a short rib dish, there will always be a flatbread, there will always be three pre-mixed cocktails and some other fine but never bold stalwarts. I've always liked their quality/execution and lack of pretension, and I would not hesitate to recommend it, but for something I wish was in my regular rotation I've similarly long been let down by the lack of surprise and variety. As much as this place is indeed "what we've been waiting for," Big Guys down the street is the spot that keeps giving me reasons to come back (to such an extent that I have to pace out my visits!). New dishes, inspired takes on old classics, special dishes that rotate in and out of the menu that I look forward to for months (turducken, Rudolph, big ham, reuben, turkey club). Just generally more exciting to me, or at least to my stomach. But Autre Monde? I don't know, it plays it weirdly safe for a place that is otherwise relatively ambitious for the neighborhood.

I visited Autre Monde two nights ago, when they launched their new fall-inspired winter squash menu. After reading your reviews, I had pretty high hopes... but I can't say that my experience matched yours. Has anyone else been there recently? Is it still up to snuff?

Everything was... competent. But there were a few oddball things that really made me go, "huh?": being led to the patio through a dark passage as the server said, "oh, we should light these candles"; a server that seemed to be chewing gum, in a tee-shirt, who did not clear plates or refill glasses as they were emptied; baked chicken that was good, but served with what I'd swear were a couple of Costco artichoke hearts on the side; a mezcal-based drink that tasted of old band-aids and not much else; another pumpkin drink that had WAY too much cinnamon dumped on it; the salad featuring "roasted delicata" that had a only few tiny slivers of squash.

The place was pretty empty -- there were exactly zero other people on the patio the whole time we were there -- so it's not like they were being slammed. The whole experience left me lukewarm, and so I'm posting here to see if others have noticed a slide downhill, or I just managed to pick an off night.

I do want to say that while the chicken was not transcendent, it was juicy and hot when served. The risotto with red kuri squash was the best thing of the whole night. The brown butter-butternut squash gelato was a bit one-dimensional but was beautifully smooth without any ice crystals, something that I know is a challenge when freezing something that includes produce.

It just felt odd that a place that has been in business as long as this one had so many little issues. You'd think after all these years, they'd have ironed out the wrinkles long before now.

I was there maybe six weeks ago and found it to be pretty mediocre. There has to have been some significant changes in management or the kitchen. I would not return.

I visited Autre Monde for the first time in a while last week, and indeed the menu had been simplified, but the front of house and owners and chefs appear the same to me. The flatbread with guanciale, taleggio, and honey was excellent, and I'd really continue to go back for the warmth of the room, a flatbread, and some drinks.

Some oddities do persist. My first libation - a sour - unmistakably had a soda / juice with artificial sweetener, which I can't abide other than in occasional imported radlers. They kindly remade it. The duck breast pintxo was cold and tiny, with some really funky fig jam, I'd wager unintentionally so. I wish they'd get back to generous hot small plates including the basic roasted vegetables and tapas they used to shine at for more accessible pricepoints, but I think the neighborhood market has demanded otherwise.