New anniversary spot?
A dinner at Dear Margaret
Short updates:
Grand Park Music Festival has a bunch of classical concerts in Millennium Park. Taking your kid to see an orchestra, outdoors, for free, is great, but a big tip for people with young kids is to go to their open rehearsal rather than their main concert at night. It’s less people, less pressure, and no staying up late.
The death of Toumani Diabaté has hit me hard. I will have more to say next time, but it felt appropriate that we saw Béla Fleck, who’s played with Toumani on multiple projects, a few days after I saw the news.
Folks at Chicago magazine, including
who also writes , came up with Chicago’s 50 Best Restaurants. I’m glad the restaurant I’m writing about below made the top 10. The only violent disagreement I have is the inclusion of the Mitsuwa food court1.
When Julie and I got married in 2018, we did a very simple thing. We went to City Hall with a few friends to make it official, then we all went over to a restaurant for lunch with less than 20 people. Partly this was our preference, and partly this was me not having a job at the time.
Anyway, that restaurant was Nico Osteria, a fancy Italian place in Gold Coast that closed last year. We had been going there for our anniversary every year since then2, so we needed to find a new place this year.
We could try somewhere we’ve never been, or go to a favorite. That still left a lot of options open.
One place we considered was Maxwells Trading, run by former Nico chef Erling Wu-Bower. If I’m being honest about Nico Osteria, its best days were when he was there before he opened Pacific Standard Time in 2018. We had some great meals after that as well, but it was inconsistent. Alas, Maxwells Trading, which opened last year, is still really hard to get into.
We eventually landed on Dear Margaret, a French Canadian restaurant in Lakeview. We ordered takeout from them during the pandemic, and visited in person once in 2021. I thought then that that was one of the best meals I’d had in Chicago. When
wrote about them in April, I commented that I needed to go back to justify calling Dear Margaret a favorite3.As we sat down by the window, our server dropped off glasses of sparkling wine4. Somewhat surprisingly, this was a South African sparkling wine5, which obviously exists but I’d never had before.
We ordered some small dishes and 1 entree, which they coursed out for us. We first got the pommes dauphine (potato puffs) with caviar on top. We weren’t consciously thinking about having a bubbly and caviar to celebrate, but we did it. These guys are just about small enough to pop in your mouth, and it’s a fun bite with multiple textures and flavors.
There are 3 menu items that have been constant through the years: pommes frites, duck liver mousse, and fried smelts. Since we had a pregnant person (same as last time!), we avoided the charcuterie—almost half the menu. And we’d had the fried smelts before—they’re amazing. So we got the pommes frites. They cook them in beef tallow, the authentic choice that also adds more flavor.
Chef’s special of baby carrots came with the fries. What I know about Dear Margaret is that they’ll take some local produce in season and show it off. This was a simple dish where the honey highlighted the carrots’ natural sweetness. I’ve made something vaguely similar where the umami came from Parmigiano Reggiano, but there’s no comparison because the carrots here are so much better.
Their menu changes with the seasons, and sometimes more frequently. The escargot dish we got seems to have been an experiment and isn’t available anymore. This was inspired by the Japanese takoyaki (octopus ball), and even came with bonito flakes on top. It makes sense—you’re surrounding your chewy filling with carb-y dough. The dough here was a bit too mushy, but I loved that they were trying things like this.
The highlight was the sablefish, which you can barely see in the photo. They crisped the skin, while the flesh was tender and flaky. I just remembered that I’ve already written how I love it when fish is cooked perfectly, so I won’t repeat myself. The slightly sweet kohlrabi purée was a great match for the fish, and we were wondering if it was possible to reproduce it at home.
There were just 2 servers handling all of the dining room and the patio. This being a Thursday, the restaurant wasn’t too busy, but the service could’ve been a bit faster at times. When the server was at our table, though, I can’t think of anything she could’ve done better. We saw that they listed the names of all the cooks on the menu, which was nice, and they also listed all the front-of-house people on the wine menu, which seemed unusually nice.
Dear Margaret feels like a neighborhood restaurant that just happens to have exceptional food and service. It would be nice to make this our new anniversary place, giving us an excuse to visit at least once a year.
On the other hand, since their menu is seasonal, we would miss out on all the non-summer dishes. One thing that I like about this being a French Canadian restaurant instead of a French one is that the local vegetables in Chicago are more similar to Canada than to France, and this is much more true in colder seasons.
We want to keep returning to Dear Margaret, but it may not be for another anniversary. And we may be back to the drawing board for our next anniversary.
What I’m listening to now
So many options again: music about being young, poor, and partying in London, music from Somaliland, Joni Mitchell-like Japanese singer-songwriter in 1972, a jazz singer swinging her way through 11 beats per measure. But this was the clear winner.
Bab L’Bluz is a Moroccan-French band, whose name means “door to the blues” in Arabic. I’d heard their debut album, Nayda!, and I could see that they were adding rock elements to North and West African music. The album was pretty good and that’s why I remembered their name, but it felt like the merger was not complete.
They make it work in their 2nd album, Swaken, from earlier this year. The groove is much more compelling than before, which might have something to do with having a new drummer. The confident sound in the last half of “Imazighen” reminded me of when I first heard Bombino and Songhoy Blues. “AmmA” is another great song that is both North African and rock throughout6.
I do go there a few times a year because we go to Mitsuwa for Japanese grocery and it’s super convenient once you’re there. And yes, it’s good for a Japanese expat, as they wrote. But if I’m in the northwest suburbs (but not inside Mitsuwa) and looking to have Japanese food, it’s not my first choice. Chicago Ramen for one would rank higher.
Other than 2020, I believe.
What I wrote about the number of times we ordered takeout is inaccurate. It’s once or twice, not 2 or 3 times.
Also, I realized after re-reading his piece that there’s significant overlap in what we ordered. Definitely not on purpose on my part—I don’t want to compete with his commentary.
One of the inconsistencies at Nico was that they would sometimes give us a Prosecco, and sometimes not seem to know that we’re there for our anniversary. I’m not so entitled that I dock points for not giving me free stuff, but acknowledging the occasion seems like a bare minimum for a nice restaurant.
It was Graham Beck Méthode Cap Classique. This is pretty good marketing: ‘Affectionately dubbed the “President’s Choice”, the Brut was served at both Nelson Mandela’s inauguration and Barack Obama’s presidential win.’
I haven’t checked all the lyrics, but these 2 songs are overtly political. “Imazighen” is another term for the Berber people, and “AmmA” is about mothers.
We have actually gone to Dear Margaret for our anniversary too! Such a wonderful spot.
And we went around and around on which Japanese restaurants to include in the list before going with our casual go-to to try an array of different things. But so many great choices all across the city!