Feb. 03--Despite all the awards and praise heaped upon Duck Inn since it opened on a quiet corner in Bridgeport in late 2014, I wasn't sure I wanted to go for Chicago Restaurant Week. One, there's no duck on the prix-fixe menu, meaning I'd miss trying one of the best things Phil Vettel ate last year. Two, there are few options; of four courses, you're locked into chef Kevin Hickey's choice for soup, salad and dessert.
Three, I'm an idiot.
Duck Inn has proven to me that on a good Restaurant Week menu, you don't need choices. The chef knows what to feed you, and you trust him or her that it will be good (like any tasting menu, really). Hickey's menu was, exceptionally so.
To start: a generous portion of celeriac soup, with blue-cheese celery chips and pickled apples bobbing in the celeriac broth. I would have liked a more potent blue cheese flavor from the chips, but the apple added a welcome punch, and the base was just right -- not too thick, not too thin and, most important, not dependent on cream to make it good. I like indulgent soups, but a boatload of cream is not the right set-up for a multi-course meal. (No, Homer! Don't fill up on bread!)
The simpler, the better is my philosophy on salads. Duck Inn nails that by using just five components: winter greens, rye berries (think a fat grain, lightly toasted), blood orange, grapefruit and sweet potatoes, in the form of a puree that serves as a pillow for the greens. The citrus is doing the heavy lifting, adding brightness and bitter notes for balance, but it's the sweet potato that takes the dish over the top, like a good pair of earrings on an already sharp outfit. The smooth starch in every bite is exactly what you want in February.
For the main, choose between braised pork belly and crispy chicken thigh. If you cook a lot at home, you're probably tired of chicken -- no matter how much you know the restaurant chicken is going to blow yours out of the water. Chicken fatigue. It's real. I prescribe the pork belly. It's just fatty enough, and served with the most amazing presentation of parnsips, which chefs smash and fry to make them a cross between a veggie and a chip. And there's some kale, so it's good for you.
One note: The $2 upcharge to add a duck egg to this dish is well worth it. The yolk!
Duck egg shows up again in dessert, this time to make a creme brulee. It doesn't taste much different than chicken-egg creme brulee (otherwise known as: creme brulee), but it's great. Tangerine makes it tart as well as sweet, the perfect combination.
That's $44 spent right there, but if you're at all someone who likes cocktails, you have to budget for at least one from Brandon Phillips' list ($7-$16 each), because it's insane. You could be paralyzed forever trying to choose, and I can't help much because guess what -- they're all so good. The up side is you can't go wrong; I don't think Phillips could make a bad drink if you paid him to.
By a narrow margin, my favorite of the night was the Autumn Kaleidoscope. It's a visceral name that works. Just as the fragments in a kaleidoscope seem disjointed until they come together into something beautiful, the mix of two whiskeys, Becherovka (an herbal Czech liqueur), creme de noyaux (a liqueur that tastes of almonds, though its made with the kernels of stone fruits), apple bitters, gomme syrup (a fuller, silkier simple syrup) and so-called "autumn leaves" (stockpiled from the restaurant's backyard) raises an eyebrow until you taste it. Wow. The leaves come to play in the presentation; Phillips lights them on fire to fill your glass with smoke before he pours in the drink.
And the duck, or rather lack of? I'll consider it a good reason to go back -- soon.
mconrad@tribpub.com
Twitter @marissa_conrad
