As I've mentioned before, I recently put on a dealer in the Wicker Park/Bucktown area of Chicago on North Ave. One of the reasons I like these guys so much is that they share the passion for great food and wine just as I do. 
And they've turned me on to a number of great places to eat in the short time we've been associated. One of those places is the Meritage Cafe and Wine Bar on North Damon in Chicago (see map).
Meritage Cafe opened in 1997 as a contemporary American restaurant with a Pacific Northwest flair. Their menu consists primarily of eclectic seafood, but they also offer bison steaks, pork loins and duck on their menu.
The Meritage Cafe has had a string of great chefs over the years. Jonathan Harootunian (right) was the first executive chef of Meritage. Harootunian's signature French country with Asian fusion dishes were the hallmark and success of Meritage. Harootunian left in 2001 to become the executive chef at Courtright's, a 4-star restaurant in suburban Willow Springs (see map).
Dirk Flanigan (left), who cut his teeth at a number of restaurants in the Chicago area including La Tour, Madame B and Meritage's sister restaurant, Echo - all of which are now closed - slid over from Echo and took over Meritage. He kept the touch of French country cuisine with Asian fusion on the menu to go along with the seafood dishes that made Meritage famous.
In 2004, Flanigan left to open the ill-fated Blue Water Cafe in downtown Chicago. The restaurant was in business for less than a year before it closed. Troy Graves, the former Meritage sous chef under Flanigan, is now the executive chef and is more than ably continuing the fine tradition of culinary classics at Meritage.
The evening I took one of the guys from my dealer to Meritage, the place was half full. It was rather late, about 9 p.m. But as I've found with a number of eclectic restaurants in the immediate area of the Meritage Cafe, 9 p.m. is early for many people. It's not a big place and the solarium area on the north side of the building was closed off making the restaurant more intimate and cozy.
Everything looked interesting on the menu. I wanted seafood that evening so I went with the pan seared scallops with lobster risotto and asparagus. My guest took the chef's special that evening - salmon and escargot, with mushrooms and baby beets in a watercress puree.
We each got a salad - mine was pretty basic with greens and a house vinaigrette; while my guest went for the organic spinach greens topped with Maytag Blue Cheese and beef carpaccio with a spicy blueberry vinaigrette. He offered me a bite and I almost grabbed our waitress to take mine back and bring me one of those salads.
The wine list was nice - not large, but it certainly had a lot of choices. My guest told me that red wines upset his stomach. That's OK, since we were both going with seafood I picked out a 2004 Duckhorn Sauvignon Blanc.
The meal, of course, was outstanding. Both meals were light, but filling enough. The wine was a perfect complement. With some light jazz playing in the corner, the atmosphere added to the enjoyment of the meal.
After the meal, we looked at the dessert menu and I saw they had a lemon-vanilla creme brulee. I said, "Man, I really want that, but I don't think I could eat the whole thing."
My guest said, "Well, I'll split it with you." So we ordered it up with two spoons.
A couple minutes later, the waitress - who did a great job all night - came back and said, "I'm sorry, but the chef just informed me we're all out of the creme brulee for the evening. Can I interest you in something else?"
We were so crestfallen going from the prospect of having great creme brulee to getting completely shut out that we ended up passing on dessert. Oh well...
Our bill with tip was about $110 bucks - I didn't think that was too bad considering the bottle of wine was $47 dollars. The Meritage Cafe and Wine Bar is a neat little place with great food. It's highly recommended.
(Update - Meritage Cafe closed sometime in 2009. Too bad. It was a neat little place.)
Comments