DeLaCosta
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If you can get past the aggressive hipness of the new hot spot DeLaCosta, with its icky-sweet signature “poptails” (fruity cocktails garnished with boozy popsicles), loungey see-and-be-seen “solarium,” and curtained cabanas for private dining, you’ll find a very good restaurant. For his first Chicago venture, celebrated chef and James Beard award winner Douglas Rodriguez combines Spanish, South American, Caribbean, and occasionally Asian flavors that inject new life into the nuevo Latino trend. For me, the most intriguing dish was an appetizer of rum-cured marlin tacos, which somehow tricked my taste buds into sensing cocoa flavors, an unusual but not unwelcome sensation. A half-dozen different types of seviche, a house specialty, feature sashimilike pieces of superfresh fish lolling among such exotic ingredients as Thai chile, Kaffir, and galangal leche. While you could happily make a meal from various tapas and appetizers, we couldn’t resist the bone-in rib eye, which proved that under chef de cuisine Adam Schop the kitchen handles meat as deftly as seafood. –Heather Kenny
Adesso
5900 N.
Fiddlehead Cafe, 4600 N. Lincoln, 773-751-1500
