The Bedford

The Bedford

Wandering about aimlessly last night, after getting rebuffed at Burger Bar and turned away at Ruxbin, we settled on The Bedford, located in an old bank building. It was not easy to find, so even after we parked in the general area, MikeG and I wandered a bit more. There’s no signage, in keeping with a current trend.



The valet was a giveaway: target acquired.

Inside, in keeping with a current trend, flat screens. It was kind of sad to see the old space trendified, but at least the screens provided some light, which is a problem in a subterranean, practically cavernous food zone like this. Fireplaces line a wall, which is also helpful from a luminescent perspective, but they made the place feel strangely like a big family room filled with strangers.



The cocktail lounge ( in keeping with a current trend toward vault theming) is in the vault itself, and in that hushed space you can sip decent cocktails surrounded by safe deposit boxes. I would like to go back to the The Bedford just (and pretty much solely) to hang in this space for a while. It looked cozy, friendly, kind of off-beat and cool... and very secure. I feel I could chill in there for hours, slurping stuff and feeling like Auric Goldfinger in Fort Knox. In case of thermonuclear war, this is where you'd want to be.



Dinner started with some excellent little oysters (called “Stingray,” a Chesapeake variety and a new one on me – plump, firm, nice balance of sweet and salt) and deviled eggs:



$1.50 per half egg seems a little high to me, and I prefer my deviled yolk mixture a little less extruded looking, but what the hell. They tasted okay and proved a good cocktail accompaniment.

The Cobb Salad ticked me off:



This was the laziest damn Cobb Salad I’ve ever seen. I don’t even think it’s appropriate to call it a Cobb Salad. It isn’t. Maybe in keeping with a somewhat less-than-current-trend, it’s supposed to be deconstructed (though it's actually more unconstructed); I thought it was just stupid.

Fortunately, my entrée – the duck confit – came through for me.



This was a tasty dish. The confit (seeming slightly crisped on a grill, an unorthodox but acceptable practice) on cheesy polenta with salsa verde (and, I swear, a little mint in there) was very good: the greenery was good against the richness of it all. I found myself sweeping up the bowl. There was an egg on top, but somehow I lived.

Would I go back to the Bedford? Yes, to sit in the vault and drink.

The Bedford
1612 W. Division
773-235-8800


http://www.bedfordchicago.com/

I don’t even think it’s appropriate to call it a Cobb Salad. It isn’t.

Damn right it isn't! What a disgrace. I would have sent it back.

Is that a head of lettuce with dressing on top?

Hell -- that's not even a frakking WEDGE. Sarah's right -- it's a head of lettuce with some lumpen groupings and a whole lot of drippy dressing.

They should be ashamed of themselves. Cobb salads all over the world are filled with disgust and disdain.

I don't think it was technically ice berg, though it may have been; it was a little more bib-like. However, one thing that defines the lettuce in a Cobb Salad, whatever kind of lettuce it is, it's chopped. For $15, this was a low-value dining experience.

What were the cocktails like?

FWIW, anyone searching for the entrance to The Bedford might consider peeking into the CVS in the same building. It's the most impressive CVS I've visited: the original bank ceiling is intact, actually in very good condition and is a great example of Classical/Gothic Revival/Medieval/WTF ornament not uncommon in American civic architecture of the early twentieth century. Damn shame they covered the original marble floor with crappy CVS signature carpet.

Bad cell phone picture:

h_s, I had a Bedford Bramble that was kind of childish, sweet, with ginger ale (selected based on the unreliable authority of our server).

I remember taking the corner at Division, looking into the CVS and remarking, "Wow, that is the coolest CVS interior I've ever seen." It's dramatic.

I've had nightmares about the Cobb Salad picture since you posted it ... it looks so awful!

I would however quibble that Cobb is not defined by chopping but by the ingredients - chicken, hb egg, avocado, chunks of blue cheese and bacon - ideally in a good but simple vinaigrette NOT gloppy faux bleu cheese dressing. I had not run into so many "chopped salads" until I moved to the Midwest ... in fact Cobb's are ideally rather nicely composed (Sable does this well btw) with the various components either parceled around the bed of greens in quadrants - egg here, bacon there, etc or at minimum with the egg sections arranged symmetrically around the perimeter.

And Bibb would be smaller leaves with more "ruffling" than seen in the pic I believe ... Treasure Island actually stocks very nice little Bibb heads normally and they (like Cobb Salads) remain one of my most favored food groups. My grandfather used to grow Bibb in his infinitesimal back yard and considered Bibb the only lettuce worth eating ... I often think he was right.

Siun wrote:I've had nightmares about the Cobb Salad picture since you posted it ... it looks so awful!

I would however quibble that Cobb is not defined by chopping but by the ingredients - chicken, hb egg, avocado, chunks of blue cheese and bacon - ideally in a good but simple vinaigrette NOT gloppy faux bleu cheese dressing. I had not run into so many "chopped salads" until I moved to the Midwest ... in fact Cobb's are ideally rather nicely composed (Sable does this well btw) with the various components either parceled around the bed of greens in quadrants - egg here, bacon there, etc or at minimum with the egg sections arranged symmetrically around the perimeter.

And Bibb would be smaller leaves with more "ruffling" than seen in the pic I believe ... Treasure Island actually stocks very nice little Bibb heads normally and they (like Cobb Salads) remain one of my most favored food groups. My grandfather used to grow Bibb in his infinitesimal back yard and considered Bibb the only lettuce worth eating ... I often think he was right.

According to this recipe claiming to be for a “classic” Cobb salad, the lettuce is iceberg and it’s chopped.

The lettuce at The Bedford could very well have been iceberg, but it was much more tender (and, yes, tasty) than what you'd usually associate with that bastard breed of leaf. I've found that a lot of local lettuce this time of year is more tender than it is later in the season.

There are many reasons why what The Bedford is serving is not "classic," and I do think chefs have license to play with classics and make them their own, but at some point the paradigm is so messed with that it seems misleading to refer to a dish as something it is very much not.

There's a Larry David bit related to all this...

Goodness, you are right!

But it's so much better non-chopped!? Or at least I think so ...

And I am so happy to see the original had a vinaigrette not gloop on top!

Thanks for the review, David. I've actually been looking forward to visiting The Bedford just for the ambience. I don't know any other restaurant that has as cool of a setting.

You say you would go back for a drink, but by the sound of it, you didn't have a bad dining experience. Yes, the salad looks a little haphazardly constructed (or unconstructed), but your last comment did say it was tasty. Did you have an actual issue with the food or just the layout?

incite wrote:Thanks for the review, David. I've actually been looking forward to visiting The Bedford just for the ambience. I don't know any other restaurant that has as cool of a setting.

You say you would go back for a drink, but by the sound of it, you didn't have a bad dining experience. Yes, the salad looks a little haphazardly constructed (or unconstructed), but your last comment did say it was tasty. Did you have an actual issue with the food or just the layout?

I thought the duck confit was very good (and with the salsa verde, kind of a new taste, so that was even better) and the salad was not bad tasting at all, it just wasn't a Cobb salad, and my expectations were not met (here, I don't know whether my expectations or the salad is to blame). I should add that, unfortunately, I almost never go to the same place twice, so unless a place is astounding, I just never go back there.

All that explanation aside, you should probably go there. The Bedford has only been open a month or so, and they're probably still working out the kinks, so it wouldn't surprise me if you had a very good dining experience there.

is that egg on the duck sous vide? it certainly looks it.

GMFcooks wrote:is that egg on the duck sous vide? it certainly looks it.

It could very well have been sous vide; it was uniformly very soft all the way though, with a slightly runny yolk.

A friend & I ate at The Bedford last night and left with mixed feelings.

The food was good, but most of the dishes seemed to be near misses. In other words, with just a little more *something* each could have risen to the level of being great/memorable/crave-able. Instead, most of them just left me wishing it had been prepared a bit differently.

The menu is one of these ambiguous types that is divided into categories such as meat, seafood, etc., but not into appetizers and entree. (A couple exceptions: It does have two sections for snacks and sides.) Instead, you're supposed to judge plate size based on price and the dish's placement within the category...dishes toward the top are small and generally grow in size toward the bottom.

We decided to craft a tasting menu, to be split between two of us. Our menu:

deviled eggs: hot sauce and powdered bacon ($1.50 each)
* These could be a great flavor combo. Two minor problems, one mine, the other The Bedford's: I didn't pay enough attention to the "bacon powder" part of the description, so I assumed that the bacon was incorporated into the deviled filling. No, the egg was sitting on bacon powder. (I had quickly tasted the powder--which was in such quantity that it kept the eggs from tipping over--and assumed it was just a neutral stabilizer. I got burned a couple weeks ago when I assumed a clam shooter was sitting on a bed of ground horseradish & ended up eating a generous spoonful of salt chaser.) Alas, I ate half of my egg without the bacon powder, which was terrific once I had a second bite with bacon powder. My other complaint: The egg white was a bit overcooked & rubbery.

beets: tri color beets, horseradish puree, rye crisps, candied nuts and honey vinaigrette ($13)
* Tasty, only minor complaint was that there wasn't enough of the horseradish puree.

heirloom tomato: grilled speck, melon, manchego and scallion oil ($13)
* Another good dish, but nothing to write home about. I wish there were more variety in how their dishes are plated, because this one visually looked almost identical to the beets.

wild salmon tartare: marinated cucumber, shallot, coriander yogurt , rye crumbs, caper berries, quail egg ($14)
* Mason jar trend alert! With a little more of an acidic element, this would have been a great dish. As it was, it was a little bland unless you happened to get a bite with a caper berry. Served with too-small (but very tasty) homemade crackers.

yellowtail sashimi special: sous vide egg, yellow tomatoes and other things I don't remember (price unknown)
* Good, but not great/memorable. I wish the yellowtail pieces had been cut into consistently sized pieces. Some were far too thick. I'm the kind of person who wants a piece of each (or most) elements in each bite of a dish. Unfortunately, there wasn't enough egg or tomato to go around, but the bites I had with all 3 elements were terrific.

charred baby octopus: crispy pork belly, grilled peaches, pickled carrot, basil aioli ($16)
* Probably the best dish of the night. Flavorful, well-cooked octopus & pork belly? Who can argue with that! Well, I can: The ratio of ingredients was also off in this dish. There was far more pork belly than octopus & only 2 small slices of peach. Our server had described this as a "small entree" but there were only about 3 octopus tentacles in the entire dish, each about 1.5" long.

donut holes: cinnamon & sugar dipped with a coffee-cream dipping sauce (price unknown)
* These were great, even if the donut holes were a bit dense. It was obvious they were freshly fried & not too greasy. A bit more crisp on the outside than your normal donut hole, but I love fried stuff, so I wouldn't complain. The coffee cream sauce was intensely coffee flavored...really terrific.

sorbet: strawberry & basil ($2, comped)
* Comped because it was my friend's birthday. Who can argue with the strawberry+basil combo? I'd almost describe their sorbet as whipped--very light & fluffy, not at all icy. This is the kind of thing that, given a big container of it, I'd probably eat the entire thing without realizing it.

Cocktails: We had tried two different cocktails, the Cucumber Cooler and the Bedford Bramble. Both were flavorful but relatively weak.

Service: Service at The Bedrod is a bit strange, for lack of a better word. It's almost as if they're overstaffed/trying too hard.

Specifically, they have a ton of runners/busboys who are very eager to the point of becoming obtrusive. On the other hand, we never saw our waitress as each dish arrived, and only once did she stop by while we were eating to ask how the food was. But the busboys were always there--a few times in a bothersome way.

Once, my dish was taken away while my dining companion was still finishing his food. Another once or twice, the busboys tried to take away the plate we were sharing while where was still food on it. My rule: Don't take plates with food on them without asking first.

Plates & silverware were removed & replaced after every course, regardless of whether we'd used them. That's fine, but the table was also wiped down & silverware set down on a wet table. That grosses me out. Once I left the table & set my napkin on the ledge to the side of the table because a piece of octopus had landed on the table squarely in front of my seat. I came back to find that the table had been wiped, the octopus had relocated (but not left the table) and my napkin was put back on the table. In other words, the busboys are trying, but not trying hard enough/in the right way.

Bottom line: I can't imagine rushing back to The Bedford, particularly when there are so many other fantastic places in Chicago, but could see myself giving it another shot a year down the road.

With few options available after seeing a show at The Chopin the other week, mbh and I found ourselves dining at The Bedford. I think I can speak for the both of us when I say we were pleasantly surprised.

As DH alluded to, the space was quite trendy






Though I had heard good things about their drink program
Bitter Was The Case That They Gave Me


Our meal began with their
Hand Cut Frites with béarnaise



Sauce was a bit funky, but their frites were crispy and delicious

Entrees included
Creamed Kale Crostini grilled bread, frisee, lardons, hard boiled egg, lemon vinaigrette


Charred Baby Octopus merguez sausage, croutons, harissa aioli, fennel, moroccan olives,
orange

The star of the show. Octopus had a nice chewy, smoky texture. mbh and I were quite happy.

Duck Bolognese papardelle, dried cherries, rapini pesto, duck cracklings, pecorino

Papardelle was a bit overcooked but this dish was still quite tasty.

Country Style Pate pork and foie gras terrine, prune preserve, peasant bread, petite salad,
mustard vinaigrette


The Bedford isn't a place that I would seek out given the scene but if I find myself in the area, I have no issue with stopping in for a quick bite.

The Bedford, a swanky restaurant that turned a former bank vault into a subterranean cocktail lounge, has abruptly shuttered, according to workers who say they got the news on Monday that the business is closed "effective immediately."

https://www.dnainfo.com/chicago/2017042 ... ion-street

A special place in hell for those that fuck over their staff by pulling something like this.