Animale, casual deliciousness from the Osteria Langhe crew

As longtime fans of Osteria Langhe, we are thrilled that Animale has opened under the Western L in Bucktown. The concept, as reported around, is fast-casual but high-quality, with the kitchen staff also serving as waitstaff. They have some cute booths and tables and a surprise garden out back. We enjoyed the meatball sub (a special) with ciabatta, cheese, onion jam, and meatballs that were impressively savory and hand-ground with varying size chunks; side arugula salad was nice, threaded with roasted carrots; pappardelle with breadcrumbs, scallions, and beef delighted the toddler; bacon-wrapped sweetbreads wooed the offal-fan. Just really solid, creative, and delicious; we'll be back again and again and hope the neighborhood will too.

Animale
1904 N Western Ave
4:30pm-10:30pm

I also really enjoyed my meal at Animale. One of the best values I've come across; excellent quality (and creative) food, friendly vibe and we paid under $30 per/person for a large meal.

Glad to hear that things might be getting better than the so so meal I had opening week. I hesitated to post about it at the time because they had just opened and I hoped that the chef would be making some major tweaks. It sounds like he may have done so.

I like Osteria Langhe a lot, so was excited to hear about Animale. Two visits later (both at the end of June), I'm pretty impressed with the place.

Animale occupies a broad storefront just south of the Blue Line stop on a rather unattractive stretch of Western.



Decoration was still being applied to the façade when we visited. Outdoor seating is available around the corner, behind the restaurant.



The space is long and narrow, with booths along the window and a counter facing the open kitchen. A few tables are at the far end.



Menu is short but sweet, with almost nothing that's unappealing.



Everyone's here for the pezzi, right? How many order-at-counter places offer wood-grilled rabbit livers?





These things are great, tasting like chicken liver, only better. Those with even slight hepatophilic tendencies will likely love this dish. Skillfully cooked, with slightly seared edges, but still rosy and juicy inside. One of Chicago's great liver dishes, though rather autumnal and maybe not what one dreams about eating on a sweltering Chicago summer day.

Arancini are small but mighty.



Almost oozing with quality gorgonzola (saffron is welcome but nearly eclipsed), these are not light bites. Crust is thin, but crisp and greaseless as can be. Impressive. Pink peppercorn cream is tasty, but do you really need yet more rich dairy with such a dish? Maybe.

Sweetbreads are another winner.





The little glands are thinly wrapped in bacon, then battered and deep-fried. Somehow, every element is perfect—the delicate endocrine tissue not overcooked, bacon flavorful but not dominating, the coating crisp and greaseless. Endive leaves dipped in Calabrian chili paste are meant as edible serving platforms, to be eaten as a chaser. The order is important; eaten together in a single bite, the chili might overwhelm.

If any doubt remains that the kitchen excels at frying, the "Chunky Puppies" should remove it.



These approach my idea of fried potato perfection—thick cut, fried in flavorful fat, perfectly salted, with crisp crusts and fluffy innards. The marrow-enriched "Savage Sauce" is welcome overkill.

If a nice fluffy bun holding a thick, loosely-packed patty dripping with cheese is your idea of the ideal burger, it's probably best to skip Animale's and avoid disappointment.





They use thin griddled Piedmontese beef patties that have a definite density and chew. They remain juicy, however, and the substantial bun ably absorbs the abundant runoff. Thin slices of nutty Fontina barely melt, but pack a lot of flavor. More of that marrow-y sauce provides additional richness (as if more were needed) while house-made pickles give a bit of acidic balance (a little more tartness might help even more). This is a damn good burger, but probably not to everyone's taste. A four-patty behemoth is also available (but why?).

Food like this requires proper drink, but the license hadn't been approved back in June. I'm curious to see what's on offer these days. I'll certainly be back, but might wait a bit. Much of the menu strikes me as cooler weather food.

Animale
1904 N Western Av
Chicago
872-315-3912
http://www.animalechicago.com/

We gave Animale a try last week and left feeling like the general style just didn't mesh with our taste. You know that foodie platitude about starting with quality ingredients and letting them speak for themselves? Yeah, well the approach at Animale is pretty much the opposite of that.

Lingua & Coda is a lamb's tongue and oxtail shepherd's pie. Basically, braised meat topped with mashed potatoes. Holy shit was the braise salty. And so was the mash. Then they added parmesan.

The bacon wrapped, battered and fried sweetbreads were nicely fried, but again, flavors were way over the top. They were sauced with chile and honey mustard, and another healthy dose of salt. Sweetbreads are way too delicate to be subjected to this kind of aggressive seasoning.

Ferocious puppies (fries topped with pancetta, peppered onions, Calabrian chile relish, arugula, fontina, egg) were another wide miss. I have to take some of the blame here. This was clearly bad ordering on my part, but we looked at the list of ingredients and thought, "Hey, we like all of those things!" The potatoes were well-fried, but didn't matter. This perverted poutine tasted like nothing more than salt, chile, and fryer grease.

The burger (double patty, fontina, pickles, special sauce, ciabatta roll) makes it look like Animale may be seeking to elevate the archetypal griddle burger a la Steak N Shake, Shake Shack, Au Cheval, etc. Man do they miss their mark. The patties were just downright leathery, and that is the end of this short, sad story.

For all I know, the root cause of our disappointing meal could be one new cook with a heavy hand. We're not rushing back to find out.

*sigh*

This was at the top of my must-try list for a while and recently the opportunity to try it finally came up. I wish I could say that I loved it but some completely preventable service issues overshadowed the entire experience.

We were the only people in the place, more than 90 minutes before close, and wanted to try several dishes. So we ordered a bunch of items and specifically asked that the kitchen course them out a couple at a time. Unfortunately, the kitchen ignored our request and kicked things off by sending out 4 temperature-sensitive dishes all at once (2 small pastas, arancini, furious puppies). I enjoyed the pastas (pappardelle, spaghetti) but felt overwhelmed when 4 items showed up at once. And I was irritated that our specific request went completely disregarded. There was only so much we could eat when it was hot, so the arancini cooled off to the point of gumminess. As for the furious puppies, I'm not sure anything could have saved them. The potatoes were mealy and the toppings ended up being completely incongruous. Maybe it would have been better if eaten when it was hot. We'll never know.

Our feelings about a few other dishes were also mixed. We enjoyed the funky trippas but found the verdure sandwich to be a mushy mess. The burger was more or less a missed bet, as well. The Piedmontese patties were flavorless and they were cooked oddly -- their exteriors gray and with no evidence of any sear whatsoever. Again, it may have been a different experience had the food been brought out in a reasonable manner. When more dishes are served at once than there are people in the party, that's a problem. Though, I'm not sure anything short of a complete do-over could have saved that burger.

I'll likely return (I'm a big fan of Osteria Langhe) but I won't be in any great hurry to do so. More than anything else, I'm just baffled by what happened. We could not have been more specific in our lone request. Oh well. You can't win 'em all.

=R=

After two years in Logan Square, Animale is no more. Along with a menu of traditional Italian dishes, the restaurant was known for the elaborate tree mural plastered on the glass wall just steps from the Western Avenue Blue Line stop.

Fortunately, it's not all bad news. Instead of closing for good, the team of owner Aldo Zaninotto and chef Cameron Grant have transformed the space into Langhe Market, Italian Dining & Deli.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/dining/ct ... story.html

Dave148 wrote:

After two years in Logan Square, Animale is no more. Along with a menu of traditional Italian dishes, the restaurant was known for the elaborate tree mural plastered on the glass wall just steps from the Western Avenue Blue Line stop.

Fortunately, it's not all bad news. Instead of closing for good, the team of owner Aldo Zaninotto and chef Cameron Grant have transformed the space into Langhe Market, Italian Dining & Deli.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/dining/ct ... story.html

Langhe Market, the reconcept of Animale at 1904 N. Western Avenue, closed on February 15.

https://chicago.eater.com/2019/1/14/181 ... sures-2019

Can't say I'm surprised. The place was never very busy and the "reconcept" felt mostly like a name change with no huge change to the menu.