copperblue

I have been hearing some amazing things about a new restaurant on Illinois Street named copperblue. Has anyone been there yet? My wife's birthday is coming up and she has mentioned the place a couple of times to me, also hearing some great reviews.

Been there twice. I'm not fond of the interior (my wife loves it), but I love the food. Service has been a little spotty but the youngish manager is very interactive on the floor and will notice if things aren't going smoothly. Give it a try.

Chefly Politics Chicago Copperblue

When chefs imagine themselves politicos, watch out. Bad enough that Arnold, Rosie, Mel, Barbra and Tom are on our case, but Grant and Charlie? Entering the new Streeterville restaurant, Copperblue, one finds - where mints are often stationed - a bowl of campaign buttons, advertising Chef Michael Tsonton's belief that Chicago's foie gras ban should be overturned, and Alderman Joe Moore, up there with Kim Jung Il on the axis of evil, should be routed in our municipal elections. Chef Tsonton serves "‘it isn't foie gras any Moore' duck liver terrine with pomegranate jelly, warm sweet pepper salad, cinnamon vinaigrette, and country bread," a concoction that reads as unappealing as Moore's resolution. We received an invitation to a fund-raiser sponsored Chicago Chefs for Choice to help defeat the bad guy Moore (November 17th: www.dongordon.org/contact_rsvp.html at Copperblue; $150 per). I had expected that chefs for choice were lobbying for fetuses on the menu, stem cells without the medical middleman.

Not to worry, chef. There still are kittens, tender when stomped as vigorously as if they were Cabernet. Societies (government, religions, ethnic associations) routinely decide collectively what foods are to served and which are to be avoided. That Chicago bans foie gras places liver in the same category as ortolans, absinthe, and the pancreas of supermodels. Food is morality on the plate.

Copperblue, recently opened near Chicago's Navy Pier, has received considerable buzz. The Tribune's Phil Vettel awarded the restaurant three stars, suggesting that foodies place the restaurant their culinary map. For those visiting Navy Pier or the Chicago Shakespeare Theater, Copperblue, located in a nearby apartment building, should be on the map. Visitors to the pier were limited to Riva, a seafood house, which provides competently prepared food among the fast food and casual cuisine choices.

The claim that Copperblue is a three-star restaurant did not accord with my recent visit with some friends ($90/person, including cocktails, wine, three courses, tax, and tip). Copperblue is one of the least prepossessing luxe restaurants in town. One can spy the ductwork, not part of Eurostyle industrial decorating, but a result of the obdurate limits of its physical space. The paintings by Cleveland artist Paul Schuster, depicting the theme of "work and play," were pleasant enough in their heartland-friendly style.

Service was fully competent, although I was startled by how casually the waitstaff were outfitted. Stuffy they were not. For a mid-range restaurant one could not complain about shirts not fully tucked and outfits seemingly from the back of the closet, but if Copperblue wishes to compete with nearby Tru or Les Nomades, the staff must appear professional as well as be professional.

And the food. Chef Tsonton (and his chef de cuisine Victor Newgren) revere Mediterranean cuisine, the flavors of Iberia, the Midi, and the Casbah. Even when I enjoyed the creations, I felt that a bit more plagiarism might have sparked the plate. Tsonton and Newgren divide the appetizer and entree menus into "work" and "play." It is difficult to ascertain their division - or for the server to explain it. Dishes closer to a molecular, modernist cuisine seem to be considered play. But lamb kidneys in alfalfa with mustard cream is "work" while a "simple salad with a warm oven roasted fall vegetable ‘crepenette'" is play. The best predictor of whether a dish was work or play was whether an ingredient was in quotation marks (a nasty little habit I blame on Thomas Keller). No dish in the work category used quotation marks, but all but one in the play category did, including the unhappy "it isn't foie gras any Moore." Punctuation has replaced gustatory vision.

As appetizer, my wife selected the season's soup, cream of artichoke (work), I chose "Smoked Squid-Scallop mousse ravioli, walnut gelée, Tellicherry pepper cream" (play), and a friend opted for "‘ham & these' crispy saffron and Spanish ham rice croquettes with sofrito fondue" (play). [Sofrito is vegetable accompaniment, a Spanish cross between mirapoix and salsa]. The artichoke soup (with a soupcon of sofrito) was righteously smooth and intense. Creating silky cream soup is a skill that every fine chef must have, and Tsonton and Newgren do. While this was not the season that smoky artichokes are available at the farmer's market, it brought playful smiles all around. The ravioli was the highpoint of the meal. I loved how the squid mousse added a pungency to the mild scallop. Instead of sweet'n'sour, this was subtle'n'ardent. The plate was petite, more a tease in a ten course tasting menu than a main appetizer, but the artistry was evident. In contrast the croquettes, perched on thin rounds of apple, were pedestrian. Far more generous than the ravioli, my companion felt no desire to clean her plate, and I, the recipient of a croq, had no desire to help. The ham wasn't intense, and what the "heck" is "ham & these," a pun without flavor.

Entrees consisted of "ragout of lamb confit, artichokes, grilled fennel, fennel puree and sweet wine vinegar" (work) and "organic duck 2-ways: duck leg spice ‘ras el hanout,' roasted duck breast, candied cauliflower, kabocha squash, and vanilla-lemon balm vinegar foam" (play). Surprisingly Chef Tsonton had removed his signature "lobster poached in butter and rue with herb-filled whitefish roulade and warm caviar gelée." That a new restaurant would excise a dish that had been receiving glowing evaluations seemed a strange choice. The lamb was a study of browns and greys, lacking in eye-appeal. Might this be what Chef Tsonton means by work? But the taste was pleasing throughout. I admired the play of fennel "two-ways" with the rich lamb. Perhaps work referred to the beige food, but not the flavor.

The duck leg was another highpoint, crisp and redolent of the souk. Spices might have been more intense, but the duck made the plate alive. In contrast to the leg, the duck breast was unmemorable (as were several crescents of Kabocha squash), sweetened by the joyously candied cauliflower. Today the claim to serve foam has such cachet that chefs claim it, even when a light sauce lacks foamy bubbles. Vanilla-lemon balm vinegar foam falls beneath its own verbiage, more oddity than accomplishment.

The taste that I had of the "Mediterranean spearfish," poached with "popeye" olive oil [get control, chef] with piperade (Basque sofrito?), and warm spinach soup didn't impel me to try a second; it too was left unfinished.

Desserts proved disappointing, neither was finished. "Hazelnut Milk Chocolate Cream with Espresso Cake, Cappuccino Ice Cream, and Cinnamon Syrup" might have kept one up all night, but not because of delighted memories. It was bakery-average. "The Bosc" - a vanilla and Chardonnay poached pear with brown butter cream, puff pastry with amaretto ice cream was more successful, even if the puff pastry didn't measure up. Desserts seem an afterthought at Copperblue with the exception of the closing amuse, a nifty coconut tapioca pudding with chocolate crisp, more compelling than its sibs.

Copperblue has the virtue of location. When attending Shakespeare or an art fair at Navy Pier, Chef Tsonton's cuisine deserves consideration. Several dishes were compelling and delightful. The restaurant is worthy of two stars with its two-star prices. It is a notable new restaurant. But in its current incarnation, the restaurant seems unwilling or unable to be a premier restaurant (and here, of course, the price point matters). Perhaps Chef Tsonton is distracted by the politics of his larder, slighting the aesthetics of our plates.

Copperblue
580 East Illinois
Chicago (Streeterville)
312-527-1200
www.copperbluechicago.com

http://www.vealcheeks.blogspot.com

Has anyone been here recently? I'd love to hear some reports on whether it's gotten better/worse since the last review by GAF. I was privy to a strange rambling conversation on foie gras today, which dwelled momentarily on ordering "turtle soup" at copperblue (apparently their codeword for foie gras). I'm rather tempted to give the place a try, and will report back if I do.

We heard about the restaurant through some parents at our child's school and gave the restaurant a try. We had a wonderful experience.

We very much felt at home - in the comfortable sense. Attentive service, comfortable surroundings, warm and friendly. The menu was well prepared each element on the plate served a purpose - to cut the richness, add richness, provide texture or just to make the overall flavors meld and jump.

For example, we had the duck that was perfectly seasoned accompanied by a bean and bacon saute all in sauce that had just enough orange to pull together all the flavors of sweet, salty, smoky and richness.

We also ordered the braised lamb shank that came with a parsnip puree,
swiss chard, olive tapenade - again salty, slight bitterness from the greens, earthiness of the olives. Delicious.

It's clear that a lot of thought goes into these dishes - very creative in the pairing of flavors, twists on classic combinations. If you study the menu, you can see the cerebral process of all the pairings.

At the end of the day, though, what matters is whether the food is well prepared, the service is good and you felt that you got a value. We experienced all of the above. Don't miss it.

I agree with the posts above. Copperblue is an unusually designed, windowless ground floor room that exceeds its spatial and young staffing limitations with highly competent and sometimes imaginative deliveries of classic Mediterranean fare.

I most recently engaged the house manager in advance while setting up a 40-person conference dinner for last Thursday; he was very pleasant and was able to arrange a good menu at a pricepoint that beat our other candidates handily. Leaving behind the cutesy work vs. play concept, we had a choice of:

warm winter vegetables with butternut squash puree /
roasted tomato-ginger bisque with manchego and jamon serrano

braised lamb shank with parsnip, chard, and olive tapenade /
saffron seafood lobster-broth risotto /
Gunthorp Farm chicken paillard with couscous and fennel

banana-pineapple warm butter cake with creme anglaise /
chocolate financier with raspberry preserves

Luckily, I was able to sample everything, and was particularly pleased by the fact that the "house-made" tapenade, preserves, and broths tasted just that, rustic and fresh. I appreciated the dedication to local farms and (mostly) seasonal ingredients - rich cuts of Indiana chicken and lamb, and local rasperries, mussels, squash, parsnips, and chard as well. The best dish was arguably the tomato-ginger bisque, with a fresh and intense sweet-sour note from the ginger, with sharp manchego and unapologetically porky jamon. The lamb was fork-tender, nestled on a bed of sweetened parsnip puree and topped with citrus-dressed chard. I wanted much more of the delicious black olive tapenade, but they were barely keeping up with changing plates and refilling wine glasses. The seafood was fresh and the shrimp particularly large and well-seasoned. The desserts were beautifully plated if fairly basic - the butter cake was baked in individual rammekins around a pocket of caramelized pineapple and banana slices, and the financier was denser than customary, richly chocolate, and served with a generous portion of the preserves.

The array of serving plates was fun - super-deep sinuous soup bowls that would have been at home at Moto, stretched-out porcelain trays for the entrees, square-indented frosted glass for the desserts. Bread service - ciabatta-style rolls - was excellent and frequent, but got in the way of timely delivery of entrees and drinks since, at least for our event, it was apparently a standing policy that nobody could be seen breadless.

Interestingly, our 6:30 reservation for 40 took over the entire restaurant for the entire night, and as I mentioned, it wasn't that rich of a menu. I gathered that they ran with a minimal staff to come out ahead. The space was just the right size for us (this is not a big restaurant) and, barring a few group-service hiccups, the overall experience was smooth and enjoyable.

I have been one time prior and had a much more adventurously-seasoned Moroccan lamb entree (with strong harissa), and got in and out quite quickly before an evening of theater. I think this is a very reasonable place for Shakespeare / other Navy Pier outings or other lakeside events; I'm not sure I recommend it for out-of-towners on first visits since there is literally no view or surroundings of interest, so you feel somewhat captive. But for those locals looking for a not Aigre-Doux-expensive take on Moroccan-influenced modern Mediterranean cooking, it's worth a taste.

Santander-

Any chance you can share your price point? I'm looking to do a group dinner for about 45 people in late April.

Thanks.

-Mary

I'll PM later today (and to anyone else that wants it). I don't want to hold them publicly to a figure since there was some haggling and special concessions involved.

Hubs and I were at copperblue last september for our 25th anniversary and had a wonderful dinner.
I would recommend it highly based on our experience, but haven't eaten there since as we don't actually dine downtown very often.
Here is what I wrote immediately following our dinner when my memory was fresher:
"We just ate at Copperblue for our anniversary and it was wonderful! It was recommended by the concierge at our hotel, and is truly a hidden gem. It's in the ground floor of Lakepoint tower, and after we walked on Navy Pier and there were fireworks, which was fun, but you could also have had drinks at Riva, etc, or on a party boat. We had the 5 course menu tasting, paired with 1/2 glass per course of wine. The server asked if there was anything we especially wanted to try or didn't care for and we mentioned a couple of dishes and also mentioned a wine preference or two.
After an amuse of melon soup, the first course was a crispy pork belly with not foie, I could eat that pork belly every meal for the rest of my life it was that good!
Next was an amazing heirloom tomato salad. Perfectly seasoned, paired with a delightful spicy chilled rose wine. A phenomenal lobster/seafood saffron risotto, and then a wonderful grilled ribeye. For dessert we finished off with a chocolate cake and lemon fluff and blueberries, paired with a Riesling icewine. Service was fabulous! I wouldn't hesitate to recommend this place to anyone! BTW our bill (before the tip came to $194) "

Actually the not foie was, but you know it's Chicago so it's not.
Anyhow- we enjoyed our meal, and the room was very pretty.
(and can you tell I'm a sucker for pork belly?)

On a recent swing through Chicago I stopped in for my first visit to Copperblue. What I discovered was a gem of a place on the North Side with a friendly staff and absolutely fantastic food. I savored a luscious lamb dinner and an excellent wine recommend by chef, Mike Tsonton. Tstonton is a gracious host and his passion for fine dining really shows. The digs are cozy but tastefully appointed and though I was alone on this trip, I will no doubt be back again with my sweetheart for more lamb. Keep it up Copperblue!

I ate at Copperblue a few months ago with my visiting family from Indiana and Las Vegas.

I was especially impressed by the hospitality. Chef Michael was a very friendly and attentive host, even putting up with my overly chatty mother. Our waitress was knowledgeable and attentive as well. I can't remember her name, but she just moved here from New York (I believe worked at Per Se).

Favorite dishes:
Gnocchi and Braised Rabbit
Salmon
Pork Confit
Ice Cream / Sorbet Trio

Not my favorite:
Braised something

I also really like the decor of the room. Each piece of art is unique, yet cohesive and meaningful. I believe that the chef told us that one piece was inspired by his two daughters.

I would recommend Copperblue for anyone looking for a mid-upscale, intimate, special meal.

My wife and I visited Copperblue this weekend before taking in the current production of Midsummer Night's Dream at Chicago Shakespeare Theater. (For what it's worth, this production is amazing. I'm seldom "wowed" at the theater these days, but this one did it. Fabulous. Go now as it closes on 12/7/08.)

Copperblue has a very comfortable and friendly atmosphere. They looked understaffed on this Saturday night, which I guess seems believable given the holiday weekend. Regardless, the pace of the meal was perfect, frankly, except for the fact we needed to make our 7:30 show. We sat down at 5:40 and at 7:05 we had to call for the check without time for dessert or coffee. Again, if not for the show, this relatively simple meal that was on pace for two hours would have been a refreshingly pleasant change from the assembly line feel of many recent dining experiences.

My wife and I both started with the mushroom bisque. It was nice. I could have used a little more mushroom and less bisque, but it did hit the spot on a cold night. My wife then had seared scallops with some chunky bits of pancetta. The scallops were a wee overdone, but seemed fresh and had good flavor. I had the seafood risotto. No complaints. A little lobster meat, a few muscles and clams in a rich lobster broth. It was tasty and a welcome alternative to the previous two-day turkeyfest.

For us, Copperblue will not become a destination in and of itself. However, I think it's clearly the best selection in an otherwise barren Navy Pier, especially if you're not worried about kids or out-of-towners.

A friend of mine just got this email from copperblue:

Our Last Call

Not often in life does one get the opportunity to see their dream come to life. A dream founded on work so hard, so daunting, so tireless, anything less than joy would have made it a nightmare.

copperblue became that dream. A dream we shared with you.

We have sold copperblue, and are closing her doors on Saturday, December 13th 2008. After so many years on the same road, I and my business partner, chef and best friend, Victor, have decided to travel different paths.

I hope you will find time to join us for a "last meal" before we say goodnight. One more week, one more memorable evening.

Please call and let us know your coming. 312-527-1200

Thank you so very much for all your support and friendship over the last 3 years.

Chef Michael Tsonton and everyone at copperblue