Review: Broadway Cellars (Chicago)

Note: this also appears with my reviews over on Yelp.

After meaning to try Broadway Cellars for well over a year, my wife and I finally gave it a shot last Friday night. And it was great.

The place has a nice vibe. Stylish but not stiff. The decor is cool and contemporary, but has something of a personal or DIY feel.



I don't know exactly how to explain it, but it just didn't strike me as the rote implementation of a templatized corporate design or the pristine vision of some highly paid hotshot designer, but rather it's just the concept of the owners/management who may even have done it themselves and pulled off something pretty cool. (I could be totally wrong about this, but, for what it's worth, that's the impression I got.) Any slight imperfections kind of add to the charm. For example, it's hard to imagine an experienced design pro going with the unfinished wood wine racks in the back.



The artwork on the wall also provides a nice local feel. Applying the neighborhood coffee shop aesthetic to a sophisticated yet comfortable dining experience.



I suppose it has the risk of coming off as pretentious or contrived somehow, but both my wife and I felt like it worked. (Though, personally, I wouldn't be lining up to pay $425 for any of the pieces on display. That seems like a stretch. But then, I suppose having $50 price tags on them would run sort of counter to the semi-elegant vibe they are aiming for).

The mood is set from the beginning with the table setting. Sometimes the little details are everything, eh?



Here, the wine list is angled to reflect the votive light, the bread is warm and they set the oil and Parmesan dish up for you right off the bat. Voila. And the paper menu reinforces the casual, almost rustic kind of feel. The dishes may be sophisticated, but the atmosphere makes everything feel quite accessible.

We opted for the "Let's Hop a Cab" wine flight, despite my aversion to the cutesy name. One from California, one from Chile and one from Australia. Three 3oz pours for $15 - not inexpensive, but decent value for the option to sample such a range by the glass.



Our meal began with the crab cakes appetizer, which was excellent.



It took a little while to come out, but once we dug in it was clear that the time was more a function of perhaps a 'slow food' approach than any kitchen dysfunction. The dish was hot and fresh, the taste and texture of the cakes was sublime and the sauce added just the right spicy notes. Some places try to wow you with crab cakes the size or your head and some maybe crank out so many of them that you can tell they were made assembly line style yesterday morning, and others use so much oil that you might enjoy the first bite but need an iron stomach to get beyond two. These felt and tasted like they were made on the spot just for us. Really, really good.

For the main course, Judy ordered the seafood risotto and raved about it.



Seriously, every other bite triggered a "this is so good". She can be an easy grader at times, but she knows her seafood and this was the most exuberant she's been about a dish in a while.

I went with the Penne special of the night, which involved sausage and sweet peppers.



The sauce was nice, the sausage was good, but the Penne were a little overdone. The taste overall carried the dish, but it could have been excellent were it a bit closer to al dente.

Finally, though we were stuffed, our server got us to try the gelato.



Apparently it's locally made by a woman in her kitchen, very Recipe for Success style. It was good. I wouldn't say it was amazing, but it was definitely good. Of the three flavors we tried -- chocolate, graham cracker and cinnamon -- the cinnamon was the stand out. My wife was hoping for a bit more actual cracker in the graham cracker scoops and I agree it was maybe more subtle than it needed to be. But honestly, I was concentrating on the Selaks Ice Wine (just one of many nice postprandial options on their dessert menu) and the gelato was just an afterthought.