Dinner at Nico probably costs about the same as dinner
across the street at Gibson’s, which ought to make one feel quite foolish for eating
at the latter. There were some exquisite
bites at dinner last night, but I still left feeling the way I always feel when
I eat near Rush & Division. Nico
fits right into a neighborhood where the people and the restaurants are just
not my speed.
We started with a striped jack crudo. Four paper-thin, miniature slices of fish totaling
maybe an ounce in weight were topped with radishes, chiles and lemon oil, all
of which complemented the fatty, mackerel-like flesh quite well. It was fantastic, but $20 for what amounted
to an amuse-bouche-sized serving of raw fish was tough to swallow.
I had the same problem with the lobster spaghetti, though
this time I started to feel as if I was being genuinely conned. We were told about the $45 price in advance
(it’s listed as MP on the menu), but the server described it as a 1-1.5 pound
lobster cooked with classic stuff and removed from the shell before stuffed
back in, its roe then tossed with the pasta along with other stuff from the
cooking. This was no 1-1.5 pound
lobster. It looked like one of those
langoustines you get at Mexican restaurants.
Half a pound, three-quarters at most.
Maybe 4 or 5 forkfuls of meat. I’ll
take part of the blame for being enough of a rube to order something like this,
but they didn’t have to take advantage so blatantly.
If dishonesty was the problem with the lobster, it was the
opposite that really baffled me with the fritto misto, which last night
included razor clams, oysters, and some kind of white fish. When the dish arrived I popped a fried oyster
in my mouth, and the server came over at that moment to ask how everything
was. As I nodded with approval, he gave
what would turn out to be the first of two very strange explanations of this
dish. “Yeah,” he said, “We got some
pre-shucked oysters in by mistake, and thought, what the heck are we going to
do with these?” He explained that they
contemplated sending them back to the purveyor, but then the chef said “What
the heck, let’s just throw them into the fritto misto.” That’s the $25 fritto misto, in case you’re
wondering.
It got worse. We kept
eating the fritto misto, which was all pretty good if a bit too greasy, and he
came by again to inquire about how we liked it.
I think I said something like “It’s quite good,” to which he replied, “Yeah,
we use the same fantastic fish we use for the crudos in the fritto misto. When they’re not fresh enough to serve as
crudos anymore, they become fritto misto.”
Did he really say that? As I’m
typing it now, I have the same incredulous look on my face as I had in the
restaurant, with what now tasted like a perhaps-just-a-little-rancid piece of
fish in my mouth. But yes, I’m sure
about it. That’s what he said. For better or worse, we’d lost our appetite
for fried fish at that point, and the rest was taken away by the runner.
Too full for pastry (or perhaps too queasy), we opted for a
couple of small scoops of ice cream and sorbet to end the meal. Both were disasters. Blood orange sorbet was loaded with ice
shards and tasted like nothing more than sugar-water. Pistachio gelato had decent texture but no
pistachio flavor at all. There’s quite a
bit of dessert pedigree in this kitchen, but I can’t believe that anyone
deserving accolades ever tasted these concoctions.
Given the choice between Nico and Hugo’s Frog Bar or Carmine’s
or whatever other hell holes exist around there, I guess I’d go back to
Nico. But more than anything last night
reinforced that, respected newcomers or not, this neighborhood is to be
avoided.
Nico Osteria
1015 N Rush St, Chicago, IL 60611
(312) 994-7100
