In Search of Quiet ...

March 17 ... St. Patrick's Night  in Chicago's River North District ... not a good time for an older, single person looking for a quiet place to nurse a few glasses of wine and enjoy a leisurely dinner.  Ditto New Years' Eve ... Valentine' s Day ... Super Bowl Sunday. And, in fact, just about any night in this area where most of the iDine-member establishments are either more bar/lounge than restaurant or hugely-popular watering spots for the early-dining crowd.

Fortunately,  if you're  just looking to relax instead of partying, there are at least a few options for a quiet early-evening meal.  On this St. Pat's  night, I found refuge in ... 

Elate

111 W. Huron
312-202-9900
elatechicago.com

All too many places try to be both a cool cocktail lounge and a quality restaurant. This  is one of the few that can actually pull it off. Its spacious corner room at Clark and Huron Streets is large enough to keep noise from one function from interfering with the other.

With an 18-foot-plus high ceiling and waist-to-ceiling windows on two sides, combined with recessed and subdued lighting in the dining area, Elate provides  a quiet respite from the hectic atmosphere found in most of this neighborhood's eateries.

You'll pay for the privilege. Elate is affiliated with an upscale boutique hotel, the Felix, and its prices --- especially wine prices ... are well above the neighborhood average. But the food is imaginative and generally very carefully prepared and presented. The menu's very limited and the  emphasis is on smaller "tasting" dishes rather than heavy entrees, but there are a few full-dinner-size options in the $22-28 range   --- I had a superbly prepared, 6-7-ounce fillet of cod one evening and will gladly order it again.  The scallops, at $27 on the dinner menu, are also delicious, although perhaps not filling enough to call a full dinner. 

Before 5pm. you can order from a lower-priced bar menu but I'd recommend avoiding the burger. Go for one of the more imaginative plates. Consider adding a $5 herbed side salad from this bar menu to your dinner entree.

Elate is about a quarter-mile west of the main Rush St. night club district but, if you're in search of quiet, it's a worthwhile detour. 

Update: Elate dropped out of the Rewards Network programs in the 2nd week of June, 2011.

Phil Stefani's 437 Rush

437 N.Rush
philstefanis437rush.com

Merlo on Maple

16 W. Maple
merlochicago.com

Of the two very upscale Italian restaurants in iDine's Chicago River North universe, Stefani's is by far my preference. Both it and Merlo on Maple offer high-quality food, carefully prepared and served with flair and professionalism. But ...

Merlo looks quite inviting when viewed through the front windows, but the interior consists of a  collection of  several smallish rooms, with tables often too close together for real privacy. The greeter and headwaiter seemed overly pretentious, the menu seriously overpriced, and there seemed to be a bias against single diners. My pasta with meat sauce was cooked to perfection, and delicious, but lay naked on the plate --- bereft of greens, vegetable or even a hint of garnish. I left still feeling hungry.

 Walking  into Stefani's, you'll find yourself in a big, bright, busy, and likely boistrous, bar and cocktail lounge, jumping with young professionals celebrating the end of the work day. But don't be alarmed ...

Tell the hostess you want a quiet table for dinner and she'll escort you to a much more private dining room two doors beyond. Here, you find immaculately-set, white-linened tables and, unless the  place is unusually busy, the quiet, unperturbed atmosphere you crave.

Stefani's positions itself as "An Italian Steakhouse," and steaks and chops ARE a major feature here. (Samples: Filet Mignon $35, Petit Filet 31; 8-oz. Prime Kansas City Strip 41; 10-oz. New York Strip 34.There are, however, the classic Italian traditions: multiple pasta options, chicken and veal selections and, from the broiler, a half-dozen inviting-looking seafood entrees. I've stayed with the pasta menu so far and, each time, my dinner came to the table piping hot, perfectly cooked and, except for one surprisingly bland gnocci entree, imaginatively seasoned and flavorful.

Servers were, without exception, professional and attentive without a trace of obsequiousness. They tended to anticipate when I was ready for service and leave me alone until then.

The back dining room at Stefani's should be a safe bet for quiet dining until 7:00 or 7:30; after that it may start getting busy.

 Mario's

31  W. Goethe
mariosgoldcoast.com

This classic, moderately-priced Italian restaurant is tucked into the 1st-floor corner of a large high-rise condo on N. Dearborn Parkway, a block north of Division. It's not an iDine member and I'd walked by it many times, reading the appealing-looking menu but never stopping in. But in researching this article, I wondered --- might THIS be the "quiet community restaurant" for a noise-free evening meal? It may be, indeed. 

The space is large enough to keep conversations at the 12-seat bar  from impinging on customers dining further inside and some booths with shoulder-height dividers also help. It's not always completely quiet  --- it's a neighborhood place and customers tend to greet new arrivals a bit exuberantly --- but on balance, my first evening here was reasonably noise-free and quite pleasant. The window tables filled up rapidly after 7pm, but my booth further inside remained neighbor free.

Mario's menu is traditional Italian: Pastas, Pizzas, cacciatories, scaloppine's, marineras. Veal and chicken dishes prevail but several seafood options are available.  Menu prices are reasonable for this neighborhood; wines by the glass are a bit high but within line given the high-tax district we're in.

 If you don't mind giving up the mileage, and walking a block north of the main night-club district, Mario's is worth a try.

Two of my favorite ethnic restaurants, Sayat Nova (Armenian) and India House (Indian), which I've recommended in earlier columns,  have booths in the back of the house that are reasonably isolated from up-front traffic and bar conversations. On weeknights, at least, these are generally good for quiet dining up to at least 7 p.m. or so.

Followup: I recently returned to Mario's, this time on a Friday evening, and, by 6:30 or so most of the tables had filled  up and it could no longer be called a "tranquil trattoria." But by that time I'd finished a quiet, relaxing glass of wine, was ready to start a really well-stacked pizza prosciutto, and didn't really care. 

Comments

[Lynn Seldon]

Some great Chi-town recommendations...thanks!