In December of 1985, Cafe Ba-Ba-Reeba! opened on Halsted Street as Chicago’s first full-fledged tapas restaurant, introducing scores of customers to the joys of these delightful little nibbles from Spain.
In the nine years since, tapas in Chicago have graduated from an arcane curiosity to a fully accepted dining form. Tapas restaurants such as Ba-Ba-Reeba! and Emilio’s Tapas Bar & Restaurant play to standing-room-only crowds nearly every day they are open, and more than a dozen restaurants, from downtown Chicago (Cafe Iberico) to the far suburbs (Taste of Spain, in Buffalo Grove), offer some form of tapas.
Tapas-style dining has reached such a level of acceptance in the Chicago area that non-Spanish restaurants have joined in. Tuttaposto, a Mediterranean restaurant, offers a few tapas on its menu. The pan-Hispanic restaurant Mambo Grill features two dozen tapas-style appetizers on its menu. The recently opened Distant Mirror Cafe combines tapas grazing with Mongolian cooking in what is certainly a unique concept.
Bossa Nova, whose dishes reflect culinary influences from around the globe, is particularly tapas-heavy, offering more than four dozen tapas on its menu. And there is Santa Fe Tapas, whose menu consists of tapas-style interpretations of Tex-Mex and Southwestern American cooking.
When Piatti opened late last year, chef-owner Sami Signorino dubbed it a “Mediterranean tapas” restaurant. In 1985, such a designation would have required a page of explanatory text; today, nearly all her patrons have at least an idea of what Piatti is about.
But not all. Signorino says she still receives calls from people inquiring, “Is this a topless restaurant?” (Callers get a polite denial, or a comical one, depending on which employee takes the call, Signorino says.)
And there was the memorable night when a woman called Piatti, wondering if her husband was dining “at that awful topless place.” The hostess, who thought the woman said “tapas,” confirmed the husband’s presence. Shortly thereafter, a furious woman stormed into the restaurant, confronted her husband and threw a glass of wine in his face.
“And then she turns around,” Signorino says, “and sees my waitstaff all in T-shirts and realizes this isn’t a topless restaurant. And now she’s upset and crying, and her husband’s laughing. But they’ve come back since.”
That experience aside, tapas clearly have arrived. And the man who has been here for Chicago’s entire tapas history is Emilio Gervilla, whose three tapas restaurants (with another on the way) qualify him for the title of Chicago’s “Tapas King.”
“Tapas is no longer a fad or trend,” declares Gervilla, who owns Emilio’s Tapas Bar & Restaurant (Hillside), Meson Sabika (Naperville), Emilio’s Granada (Geneva) and who will open yet another tapas restaurant at 444 W. Fullerton Ave. in a matter of weeks.
Gervilla cites several examples to demonstrate tapas’ continued acceptance. Families with children, he notes, are becoming a significant part of his clientele. Patrons are dining later in the evening, an unusual occurrence in the suburbs. And from time to time, Gervilla is called upon to put together an all-tapas wedding reception, in which tapas are brought to each table, four or five at a time.
Gervilla says that one reason for tapas’ popularity is the wide selection of nibbles available. “People want variety,” says Gervilla, and they get it with such exotic dishes as beef tongue, blood sausage, rabbit, octopus, sardines and anchovies-along with more familiar creations of veal, shrimp, mushrooms and ham.
To best appreciate tapas, a certain free-spritedness comes in handy. At most tapas restaurants, plates are brought to the table in no particular rhythm or order. It’s also helpful if you have a willingness to experiment with new dishes, something that the very nature of tapas-little tastes of food at low prices-encourages.
“If you try something different and don’t like it, you’re not stuck (as you would be with a full-sized entree); you just go on to the next tapas,” Gervilla says. Consequently, he says, customers are more daring than they might be otherwise.
One notable exception, however: “People don’t like fish with bones,” Gervilla says.
Signorino believes tapas-style dining is popular because it is so eminently practical in these hectic times.
“The standard soup-salad-entree restaurant meal is not very functional to people with busy lives,” she says. “With tapas, you can customize how you’re going to eat. You can eat a few dishes, or a lot. You can get small portions of many types of dishes, and get a wider variety. It’s very easy to have an extraordinary meal with four, five choices for under $20.
“But as the customer, you’re in complete control,” Signorino says. “You can have the salad first, you can have it last. I have no problem turning a tapas into an entree, if that’s what the customer wants.”
(Another approach would be to request multiple orders of the same tapas.)
Flexibility is certainly one of the strengths of any tapas restaurant, but the food itself is key. The best tapas restaurants take lusty, robust flavors and balance them delicately. Good tapas eating is not one long progression of dominant flavors, but rather a series of complementary tastes.
One of the great treats for food-fanciers visiting a city in Spain is to do a tapas tour of town, sampling one or two with a sherry in one bar, then moving on to another … and another.
We did much the same thing in our research (though, mercifully, not in one evening), visiting 10 notable tapas restaurants and tasting five to seven dishes at each stop.
To make comparisons easier, we ordered the same dishes at each stop, whenever possible. (As you will see, this was not always possible.) In the course of our tour, we affirmed the appeal of Chicago’s most popular tapas restaurants, noticed a few areas for improvement and, we think, uncovered a jewel or two:
Arco de Cuchilleros, 3445 N. Halsted St., 312-296-6046. This narrow storefront space, with its wood floor, exposed brick walls and pressed-tin ceiling, has the feel of a neighborhood bar, albeit not especially a Spanish bar, except for the huge paella pan that hangs on the wall near the kitchen. The father-son team behind the bar are lively and friendly, and there’s live guitar music. The wine list is limited; the sangria’s on the sweet side.
In general, the food we sampled was out of step, at turns overly reliant on garlic or pepper or excess oil. Which is a shame, for the patatas ali-oli (boiled potatoes with garlic mayonnaise) would be fine if not so wildly over-garlicked; calamares a la plancha (grilled calamari) are well-cooked and then buried under pepper-paprika oil; the sauteed shrimp would be very good with a little less garlic and a lot less oil. Best of the bunch is the tortilla espanola, a nice Spanish omelet with potatoes and onions.
Cafe Ba-Ba-Reeba!, 2024 N. Halsted St., 312-935-5000. The best-known of Chicago’s tapas restaurants, and the largest and prettiest. Crowds arrive early and often at this restaurant, and there’s almost always a wait for a table-this time of year, the tables in the outdoor garden are especially popular. However, the bar area is large, and there’s a second bar in back that’s just about the last place to fill up. (We got two places at the bar-and we could have had six-even as the hostess was quoting a 40-minute wait for tables.) You can order from the full menu at either bar. Service is very good wherever you sit, it seems.
The star of our visit was the bunelos, shrimp and salt cod with two sauces, creative and very tasty. The slice of tortilla espanola is small, but it’s custardy and good. The sausages, imported ham and manchego cheese are excellent in all their menu appearances. Sangria is quite good, and the wine list is extensive.
On the downside, the octopus was curiously bland (it looked great when it arrived). An order of grilled shrimp produced four good shrimp and one spoiled one that wrecked the dish.
Cafe Barcelona, 7414 W. Madison St., Forest Park, 708-366-7750. The decor is totally no-frills; dinette-style tables and chairs, textured paint on the walls, a few Spanish travel posters here and there. But the food is inexpensive and plentiful-so plentiful that it exceeds the definition of tapas-and often good.
Dense and lean chorizo sausage consists of two plump, bratwurst-sized links for $4.50, with a little red wine sauce underneath. Shrimp are grilled shell-on, split down the middle for easy retrieval and doused with a bit too much herbed oil, though the shrimp themselves are tasty. The tortilla espanola arrives as a whole tortilla (though small, about 5 inches in diameter) and is filled with diced chorizo. The pulpo (octopus), served warm, is dusted with paprika; it’s very tender and tasty.
When things fall short of expectations, underseasoning is often the culprit, as with the very bland sauteed mushrooms and the slightly under-garlicked patatas ali-oli. Sangria is adequate.
The restaurant just began offering an additional Continental menu featuring chicken Kiev, steak Diane and chicken ala orange (sic). It would be a shame to see the restaurant’s focus shift away from tapas.
Cafe Iberico, 739 N. LaSalle St., 312-573-1510. This place has the casual, rustic, relaxed feel of a real tapas bar. There’s even, in fact, a long and quite busy bar in the place. And you notice that, as the evening goes by, more and more of the customers are speaking Spanish.
The chorizo y morcilla, featuring three types of sausage served warm, is very good, as is the almejas, soft and flavorful squid in a not-too-sharp vinaigrette. The grilled shrimp were a bit small but were meaty and had very good flavor.
While not as consistently good as Ba-Ba-Reeba! or Emilio’s-the tortilla espanola here is dry and somewhat crumbly, the pincho de solomillo (beef brochette) tough-the prices are reasonable and the atmosphere authentic.
Emilio’s Tapas Bar & Restaurant, 4100 W. Roosevelt Rd., Hillside, 708-547-7177. Emilio Gervilla’s first tapas restaurant still brings in the crowds, and little wonder; factoring in consistency, quality and atmosphere, this is arguably the best tapas restaurant in the Chicago area.
When Emilio’s opened in 1988, this restaurant was clearly decorated on a tight budget. Things are rather more lavish now, though not at a sacrifice to the casual, country feel, and the restaurant has been expanded twice, including a spacious outdoor area that’s very popular.
The tortilla espana, custardy and rich tasting, was a hit; the large slab comes with a bit of dressed greens and tomato for your trouble, too. The pulpo (octopus) is delicious, seasoned mildly but with a fairly strong cilantro presence. Sauteed mushrooms, a mix of wild and mild, taste particularly good, thanks to a dash of sherry in the sauce. Pan con tomate, jamon y queso is a winning mix of tomato-topped bread, Serrano ham and manchego cheese, though the ham is slightly fatty-a condition intensified by a gloss of olive oil. The chorizo is good and spicy, the blood sausage intensely rich and dark.
Emilio’s Granada, 14 S. 3rd St., Geneva, 708-262-1000. The most recent addition to Emilio Gervilla’s empire is this 90-seat cafe a few blocks west of the Fox River. Apart from one or two dishes, the menu is virtually identical to that of the Hillside property. The sangria is just as good, service is just as good. One big difference may be that only two tables-both in the bar area-are available to smokers.
Standards-in the form of good ham, sausages and cheese-are being kept up nicely here. The tortilla espanola was so cold it must have come straight from refrigerator to table; otherwise it was the same good tortilla, thick with custard and perfectly cooked potatoes, as at Emilio’s Tapas Bar. An irresistible dish is ostras a la pimienta, barely grilled oysters with creamed leeks, perched atop thick slices of potato. Ditto the grilled fillet of salmon with tangy melon relish.
Little Spain, 4801 N. Milwaukee Ave., 312-685-0782. Jefferson Park is not the first neighborhood to spring to mind when tapas-hunting, but a storefront operation at Lawrence and Milwaukee Avenues is turning out some pretty impressive stuff.
Walk past the compact and comfortable dining room and grab a seat at the bar, which is what most people were doing the night we visited. (It helped that there was a soccer game on the TV.) About 20 tapas are offered each night, along with a full menu. Have a drink, but skip the sangria, which is practically soda pop.
The pulpo a la gallega, octopus with little bits of delicious potato and a thorough dusting of paprika, is a treat. The plate of tomato-topped bread, Spanish-style ham and manchego cheese was impressive; the cheese and tomato bread were terrific, and the ham, though not imported, was certainly decent enough. The sauteed mushrooms are strictly domestic, but there’s evident care in the cooking and the mushrooms are quite tasty. Ditto the tortilla, which arrives a touch warmer than room temperature, less custardy than other versions but undeniably worthwhile.
Sausages are of good quality and perhaps a touch oversalty. The butterflied shrimp tasted good but had lingered a minute or two too long in the saute pan.
Mambo Grill, 412 N. Clark St., 312-467-9797. The long, narrow restaurant is suitably cramped with a young and upscale clientele. Service is well informed and willing to make recommendations-which comes in handy, for there are many exotic dishes on this pan-Hispanic menu.
The aperitivos served at Mambo Grill aren’t strictly tapas; portions are too large, for one thing, and some items require a knife and fork. But chef Jonji Gaffud’s aperitivos are plentiful enough and creative enough (and inexpensive enough) to make tapas-style dining an attractive possibility.
Hongos rellenos, stuffed portabella mushrooms with a manchego cheese crust, are huge and tasty. Plaintain chips, served with three sauces (the chimichurri sauce is best), are very pleasant nibbles. That chimichurri sauce saves the day with chicken antichuchos, which otherwise would be too bland. The nacatamales, a corn husk filled with corncake, chorizo and olives, is the best of the three tamales featured on the menu. The pasteles (duck-filled banana leaf) would be better with more duck.
Piatti, 215 W. North Ave., 312-266-2929. A lively and colorful place that gets its name from the hand-painted plates (by the mother of chef-owner Sami Signorino) that adorn the walls and the creative Mediterranean tapas served here.
Bruschetta with pesto, tomato and melted fresh mozzarella arrives warm and good; it’s a hit, as is the grilled squid, in a well-seasoned balsamic vinaigrette.
An enormous portion of roast garlic mashed potatoes is good but uneven; one forkful will have a strong garlic presence, the next may have none.
Sangria is good but very fruity. The reason may be that the fruit and wine are kept in the same container (at Ba-Ba-Reeba and Emilio’s, they are separate, combined only when making up an order); we visited later in the evening, so the fruit and wine had been cohabiting for some time.
The two small dining rooms are augmented this time of year by a very pretty enclosed courtyard.
Santa Fe Tapas, 1962 N. Halsted St., 312-404-9168. As the name suggests, the tapas here are done with a Southwestern-American inflection, though several of chef Daniel Castro’s dishes are based at least somewhat on traditional Spanish tapas.
What makes Santa Fe Tapas especially noteworthy, however, is the all-you-can-eat tapas deal for $15.95, available any night the restaurant is open. We ordered $50.35 worth of tapas (yes, we were being greedy) for just $31.90. (Because every tapas after the sixth or seventh one is essentially free, customers can order even the weirdest-sounding tapas fearlessly.)
Hits from our binge include the crispy duck with chipotle and spicy fruit relish, and glazed pork tenderloin with cole slaw and spicy peanut sauce. Blue corn crepes with smoked salmon and cilantro cream cheese offer an interesting range of tastes. Mushroom caps are plain, but the spinach-crabmeat filling helps. Grilled calamari has no grilled taste, but the calamari pieces are very tender, and a lime salsa perks them up a bit.
The festive decor includes stucco-finish walls washed in sunset shades, loud and lively music and a wide-ranging beverage list that includes a decent wine selection and an impressive assortment of tequilas.
