Bread & Wine

Heard good things about Bread & Wine & finally got to try it for myself the other night.  Was pleasantly surprised.  The Old Irving neighborhood seems odd to have a restaurant this nice there, but it really does fit.  Parking was a bit hard on a Saturday night, be we found side street parking in a little bit.

I like the smaller size of the restaurant and the decor is really stylish.  We had a reservation & were immediately seated.  Our waiter was pretty good & pretty attentive.  The restaurant was crowded for a Saturday night , but all in all the service is good.  

Our group shared a charcuterie plate which was wonderful.  We all had the full dinner plates for our main course.  Other diners with me commented that the main courses were all good.....not the best ever, but pretty good.  I had the burger with fries which was wonderful & I've had burgers at a lot of good places in Chicago.  This was up there as good.  

The other diners I was with shared the Mudd pie & said it was good.  The coffee is served in a french press which was nice & I had the jasmine tea which was delightful.  

All in all, a nice restaurant on the north side & I would definitely go again.

I wish that I could give Bread&Wine 3.5 stars, but Yelp doesn't have that flexibility.  The restaurant has great atmosphere and some profoundly good aspects, but the food tripped me up a little bit.  Partly, I think I am personally out of sync with the heavy salty, rich food that is so ubiquitous in Chicago right now.  I admit that I am a fan of lighter sauces, vegetables and a great salad.  In fact, there was no great salad on the menu.  And, when I ordered the small salad with wheat berries, I asked for a substitution in dressing given that I have an allergy to miso - and the waitress balked and said that it was just too busy to make any changes.  I pleaded my case, and she did bring me a lemon based dressing that was very rich.  At least no miso.

Our group did start dinner with some yummy appetizers.  The fried Tofu, the octopus and the scallops were all different and very good.  Again, all but the scallops suffered from the too much salt trend, but they were tasty in small quantity.  At the table, we also had the Chorizo/beef burger which was pretty good and came with excellent french fries and the chicken/spaetzle/oat dish which seemed to be a bit over cooked.  But, again, there were no fresh veggies - nothing to clean or lighten the palate.

Dessert was probably the best course.  We had some very good french press decaf -- great flavor.  And, we had the salted caramel, popcorn panna cotta.  Wow. It was good.  Very rich and the caramel was certainly salty.  We split it four ways so it wasn't too bad.

It's a great little place.  Nicely decorated.  Has its own small parking lot and parking is pretty easy on Irving Park as well.  We would go back.  Maybe the menu will lighten as spring and summer approach.

Our meal at Bread & Wine was very pleasant.  We came under the impression that they would be offering extended restaurant week specials, but that was not the case.  Still, the service was good and the food was very delicious.  The raw scallop starter was delicious and very bright, and the main courses were all very tasty.  The interior is spare and trendy, but I think the main wall could use a larger piece of art.