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5414 W. Devon | 773-631-0100
Bbop
Between Boutique Cafe & Lounge
The Bluebird
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Want some bacon with your porchetta? On the menu at the Bluebird, a new late-night lounge/wine bar/gastropub from the owners of Webster’s Wine Bar, it’s hard to find anything not spiked with smoked pig. An otherwise relatively sane addition to the nightlife corridor stretching up Damen from the Wicker Park crotch, Bluebird’s a pleasantly understated space, outfitted in a sort of rustic-minimalist vein, with tables made from old wine casks and stools reminiscent of high school chem lab. On a Sunday night at least, it’s a nice mellow scene. For the most part the starters are great–lots of cured meats and funky cheeses, salads, flatbreads, and so on. The classic frites, simultaneously crispy and floppy and served with little cups of addictive curried ketchup and garlic aioli, are no-brainer perfection. But a crab salad with arugula and watercress was bland (except for the bacon bits), and heartier main plates were a mixed bag. There’s a satisfying bowl of beer-braised rabbit with shallots, mushrooms, and (surprise) bacon over fettuccine. But a flap steak with marrow butter and parsley toasts was pretty undistinguished, and the brined and smoked “baconed pork chop” tasted of nothing but smoke and salt–though maybe my taste buds were just numb by then. The wine list is organized by “climate”–IMHO a fairly useless conceit–but the by-the-glass options we tried were excellent. The extensive beer list is sophisticated and heavy on the Belgians. Martha Bayne
Cafe 103
