Only 30 minutes into my 31/2-hour meal at Esmé, the server dropped off a bowl of ice cream with something black on top. This initially felt both delightfully absurd (dessert at the start of the meal?) and confrontational.
After all, this wasn’t a scoop of vanilla with maybe chocolate sauce, but ice cream made with white sweet potato and peanut miso crowned with a heaping spoonful of caviar. And “bowl” doesn’t quite do justice to the mesmerizing, custom-made object, with the reflective and soothing surface of pearl.
At first, the dish is all about the interplay of sweet and slightly savory ice cream with the incisive saltiness of the caviar (Platinum Osetra from Holland). But as the ice cream softens, it transforms into a velvety sauce that envelops the slippery, briny orbs. This is when the hilarity of the combination strikes you: How could something that feels this wrong be such an outrageous pleasure?
This is Esmé at its best: Daring and defiant, yet studied and polished. A great bite here can lodge itself in your brain and refuse to let go, leading you to spend hours researching random topics not normally on your radar. This explains how I found myself discussing ceramic glazing techniques with David T. Kim, the owner of DTK Ceramics, who made the piece for Esmé.
According to chef-owner Jenner Tomaska, that dish reminded him of spoons made from mother of pearl, which are traditionally used for tasting caviar. (The name of the bowl is Mother of Pearl.) He also thinks the combination isn’t as outlandish as it might seem. “When I think of caviar, it’s at the start of the meal and typically is served with potatoes, like a potato blini or a potato chip,” Tomaska said. So having an ice cream made with sweet potato is merely a “slightly more whimsical” approach. (The combination also isn’t unprecedented, as New York chef Wylie Dufresne did something vaguely similar with ice cream and caviar as far back as 2005.)
What a 180. Before it opened, to say I was skeptical of Esmé was an understatement.
I’ve never in my 15-year food writing career encountered a chef less willing to discuss the food to be served at his upcoming restaurant as Tomaska. When he and Katrina Bravo, his wife and business partner, announced Esmé earlier this year, they highlighted a long list of things they hoped to accomplish with the project, including partnerships with local artists and a philanthropy angle, but politely refused to explain anything related to the menu.
At the time, I thought it felt a bit rich for a restaurant to ignore its primary focus, especially one with a 10- to 15-course tasting menu that charged $185 to $200 per guest, plus another $125 if you wanted a wine pairing. With these prices, Esmé staked its claim among the ranks of Alinea, Oriole and Ever.
Turns out, Tomaska and Bravo just wanted to let the food do the talking. “To tell you what I’d be doing, but not show you, would fall short,” Tomaska said. Of course, even without the particulars, there was reason to be hopeful. For the past 10 years, he’s been one of Chicago’s great culinary talents. He spent much of that time at Next, Nick Kokonas’ and Grant Achatz’s constantly evolving West Loop restaurant.
I thought my initial impression was right at first, because each meal at Esmé begins with a comedy of errors in simply trying to find the front door. Though the address is 2200 N. Clark St., the entrance hides around the corner at the intersection of West Webster and North Sedgwick Street. During an evening there, we watched as basically every guest wandered the sidewalk aimlessly for a minute, before a host or Tomaska was forced to chase them down.
But once inside, you’re immediately struck by what Esmé is not. Instead of dim lights and shades of gray, the room feels expansive, with large windows that allow sunlight to stream in. “Usually the more expensive the restaurant, the darker the dining room becomes,” Bravo said. “Our guests are enjoying all the light.”
This also allows you to properly see all the artwork hung throughout the space. Before the restaurant opened, Tomaska and Bravo expressed how they wanted to support the local art scene. Once again, I was deeply skeptical. Restaurateurs often say things like this before opening, and then fail to deliver. But so far, it’s been working. “All the art from the opening sold in three weeks,” Bravo said of the work by Danielle Klinenberg, a local artist. “People are walking by on the street and asking about the art; it’s become such a thing. People will wave from the windows.”
Just know there’s not much time for gawking when you first walk in, as you are whisked to a standing table where a server presents you with a glass of Drappier Carte d’Or Champagne, or the preferred nonalcoholic beverage of your choice. Shortly thereafter, three tiny canapes show up, including a crunchy cylinder affectionately known as the “cheeto.” (This led to a whole other research hole, as I tried to figure out how a kitchen of Esmé’s size created something like this. Turns out they adapted a grain extruder with a 6-horsepower motor.)
Consider this just the beginning of the canape parade. Once seated at your table, seven more miniature dishes arrive, all perched dramatically on serving pieces resembling volcanic rock. Ease of eating varies. I could have devoured a dozen of the trumpet mushrooms, each elegantly speared for easy consumption. The salmon mi-cuit, named for the French technique of partially cooking salmon, tasted gorgeous, but consuming it with a tiny spoon felt fiddly.
As interesting as some of the canapes are, the meal doesn’t really kick into high gear until the aforementioned sweet potato ice cream, which leads into another highlight, the bean bowl. Featuring a kaleidoscope of color — pink tuna belly, green ribbons of cucumber, and perfect spheres of melon — in an invigorating liquid, it reminds me of Schwa at its most mercurial.
Presentation differs dramatically for each course. The most dramatic course features Tomaska unearthing a salt-baked sturgeon from what looks like a primordial piece of earth. (It’s actually a serving piece from another local producer, Aron Fisher of Facture Goods.) In contrast, the spatchcock course is presented simply on a white plate. It would look familiar to any well-to-do Chicagoan dining 100 years ago, with half a roasted quail sitting next to a red wine-poached pear from Seedling Farms.
For a recently opened restaurant of this caliber, service is remarkably polished. Course descriptions are short, but when I complimented the silverware, our server brought over a book of the designer’s work. When my dining companion didn’t want the full wine tasting, beverage director Tia Barrett happily helped pick a couple glasses to go along, including a mesmerizing 2015 Domaine Michel Caillot Bourgogne Blanc Les Herbeux ($20 for a glass, $80 for a bottle).
If you can afford the wine pairing ($125), it’s thrilling to see how Barrett’s picks skip around the world from popular wine regions to less heralded ones, yet always enhance what’s on the plate. A reserve wine pairing is also available for $250.
A sliver of Tomaska’s personality does peek through with the pierogi, inspired by his mother. “I always wanted to put a pierogi on a menu,” Tomaska said. Here the humble Polish dumpling is given its fine-dining due, as the mashed potato is replaced with gooey, funky raclette. The thin covering is browned until crackly and crisp on one side, and it rests in a charred onion liquid that seems to contain the essence of a dozen bowls of French onion soup.
This would certainly be enough, but the pierogi also arrives draped in black truffle shavings, which get lost in the mix. I love truffles as much as the next food critic, but unlike the Mother of Pearl bowl, which upended traditional caviar presentation, this seems more like an excuse to justify the price tag.
In general, it does feel like Esmé is still grappling with the trappings of what it means to be a fine-dining destination in Chicago. A year after social unrest and numerous pandemic-related restaurant closures, no one has effectively figured out how to create a community restaurant for all Chicagoans. With its prime location in affluent Lincoln Park, Esmé represents only a select part of the city.
Of course, it’s impossible to expect one restaurant to answer all these questions, and Esmé is just getting started. Bravo has a host of philanthropic events in the works, and a more approachable bar menu is currently being rolled out. (Because of its price, I only visited the restaurant once for this review.)
But Tomaska and Bravo promised a place that highlighted local artists and producers in an invigorating space that was as much a gallery as a restaurant. I thought they’d get lost in all these different concepts and forget about the food. The team at Esmé proved me wrong.
nkindelsperger@chicagotribune.com
Esmé
2200 N. Clark St.
Tribune rating: Three stars, excellent
Open: Wednesday to Sunday, 5 p.m. to 10 p.m.
Prices: Tasting menu $185 per person Wednesday and Thursday; $200 per person Friday to Sunday. Reserve wine pairing $250; wine pairing $125; nonalcoholic pairing $95.
Noise: Very conversation friendly
Accessibility: Wheelchair accessible, with restrooms on first level
Ratings key: Four stars, outstanding; three stars, excellent; two stars, very good; one star, good; no stars, unsatisfactory. Meals are paid for by the Tribune.
