For a true taste of the South, point your car northwest to placid Bangs Lake in Wauconda. Sitting comfortably along the lake’s southern shore is Biloxi Grill, a five-month-old restaurant well worth your time and travel.
A lot of people have discovered Biloxi Grill already — not surprising, given that owners David and Catherine Koelling developed a sterling culinary reputation during the 10 years they owned The Greenery in nearby Barrington. Every one of Biloxi Grill’s 240 seats is filled on weekends, and even weeknights are pretty well attended.
The Greenery was a formal, fine-dining restaurant (under capable new ownership, it still is); Biloxi Grill is almost the antithesis of that. The atmosphere is rustic, crowded and noisy. Tables are topped with vinyl-coated cloth; decor includes lots of weathered wood, a salt-water aquarium and an artificial oak tree covered with genuine Spanish moss.
There’s nothing artificial about the cooking, however. Everything is prepared from scratch and the quality of the ingredients, in particular the seafood, is unassailable.
Oysters, for instance, are very good, whether you get them raw (doused with bourbon vinegar and sprinkled with cornmeal cracklings) or cooked (sauteed with bacon, thyme, artichokes and spinach). Pristine blue crabmeat is served simply, dressed with a light mayonnaise with Old Bay spice and sprinkled with crispy filaments of deep-fried carrot.
Crispy nuggets of deep-fried catfish are a nice pass-around starter, served with a tartar sauce made with pickled okra. Homemade andouille sausage, coarse and moderately spicy, pair with excellent red beans and rice.
You don’t want to skip any of the soups, and at Biloxi Grill, you don’t have to. The “soup sipper” provides a tasting of all four soups, including the day’s feature; our assortment included velvety peanut soup with ginger and roasted garlic, garnished with champagne grapes; blackeyed pea soup with coarse vegetables and bits of smoked chicken; a smokey and sweet corn-crab chowder; and seafood gumbo, loaded with rock shrimp.
Biloxi Grill is serious about its barbecue, but there’s no repetition in its preparations or sauces. Indeed, sampling the barbecue offerings here is like taking a geographical mini-odyssey. The barbecued shrimp dish is a New Orleans-style barbecue, the shrimp sauteed with black and cayenne peppers and a little paprika, and finished with cream and shrimp stock. Pulled pork is doused with a South Carolina mustard-based, vinegary sauce, complemented by slightly vinegary coleslaw. Dry-rubbed baby back ribs are served with Tennessee barbecue sauce, a tart, tomato-based sauce with onions and peppers. And a hefty pork chop is slathered with a peach-poblano sauce that’s close in structure to Midwestern barbecue sauces.
Other entrees include cornmeal-crusted silver mullet, a sweet Gulf fish that rarely makes an appearance this far north, and pecan-coated catfish, served with a complex sauce of butter, red pepper and homemade worcestershire. Sunburst trout, a beautiful, pink-fleshed fish, is served with julienned vegetables, including okra, asparagus, zucchini and peppers; fish and veggies are bathed in a butter of sesame, ginger and garlic.
Most entrees come with one side dish, but you can order them separately. Pepper- and garlic-seasoned hushpuppies are must-tries, along with creamy grits laced with cheddar cheese and Koelling’s mix of collard and mustard greens. Hoppin Johns, as the menu calls it (you could argue Hoppin Johns or Hoppin John for days), is almost nouvelle here; Koelling mixes couscous in with his blackeyed peas and rice for textural interest.
The desserts make an indulgent finale. Southern berry cobbler, a wonderful mix of summer berries, its pleasant tartness modified by a scoop of vanilla ice cream, is not to be missed, nor is the bananas Foster sundae. Plantation fudge cake is pretty much what its name implies, a wedge of chocolate studded with pecans and raisins and laced with a little bourbon. And there’s also a black cow, made with vanilla ice cream and Coca Cola (at Biloxi Grill, ice cream and root beer is a brown cow, and you can have that, too).
Service exudes Southern hospitality and charm, but needs extra drilling on the basics. We ordered pan-seared beef tenderloin — excellent, by the way — and our waitress neglected to ask our temperature preference, and there were one or two other problems in our visits.
The wine list is full of simple, price-conscious selections that work well with the menu, but there are a sizeable number of premium wines available, too. The beer offerings include some Southern microbrews, and whimsical cocktails include a Biloxi-tini (made with pickled okra juice) and a Georgia-tini (peach Stolichnaya vodka and a splash of peach puree).
The large main dining room, and the smaller Pecan room (which accommodates the bar and smokers) have large picture windows, and there’s a good-sized wood deck outdoors, too. Most patrons, then, get at least some view of picturesque Bangs Lake.
Which, if Biloxi Grill really catches on, may be renamed Bangs Bayou.
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Biloxi Grill
(star) (star) (star)
313 E. Liberty St.
Wauconda
847-526-2420
Open: Dinner Tues.-Sun.,lunch Tues.-Sun.
Entree prices: $8.95-$18.95
Credit cards: A, DC, DS, M, V
Reservations: Recommended on weekends
Other: Wheelchair accessible
Rating system
(star) (star) (star) (star) Outstanding
(star) (star) (star) Excellent
(star) (star) Very Good
(star) Good
Satisfactory
Unsatisfactory
Reviews are based on no fewer than two visits. The reviewer makes every effort to remain anonymous. Meals are paid for by the Tribune.
