Restaurant
Review: Tizi Melloul, Chicago
A knockout dining room is just the beginning
at Chicago's Tizi Melloul. Part Mediterranean,
part Middle Eastern, Tizi Melloul's vibe
and food is warm, inviting and hip - how
many places can say that?
If you need a hookah hit to get into the
sitar music, so be it. But we immediately
took to the deep red dining room and tucked
into a delicious starter of pancetta-wrapped
quail stuffed with medjool dates and drizzled
with pomegranate molasses. Bliss.
After that came more $10-ish small plates
of goodies to share, including tuna tartare
alongside baba ghanoush and Moroccan olives,
plus the house mezze of artichoke fritters,
goat cheese fondue, hummus and much more.
(A semi-reasonably priced bottle of Cava
went down pretty quickly, so our group ordered
a second.)
Loved the wine list here, with select,
concise offerings from menu-friendly regions,
like Italy, Spain and southern France holding
the most appeal. We coasted on those Spanish
bubbles for a while before summoning up
the strength to explore main course options.
But eventually moved on to a deliciously
earthy St.-Joseph.
Completely unable to resist, we immediately
zeroed in on the crispy pork belly,
which turned out to be tender and flavorful,
with all the requisite crispy edges. The
deconstructed chicken bisteeya was fun and
tasty, with its roasted chicken, chickpeas,
currants and almonds, but we couldn't help
wondering if a constructed version would
have been gutsier, the way bisteeya should
be.
Service was fine - efficient and not obtrusive,
and our server gave us all the time we needed
to make our way through the menu. A couple
of tables over, though, we saw some truly
poor service going on, much to the obvious
unhappiness of those exasperated, hungry
diners.
All in all, Tizi Melloul was a sleek, upscale
evening with great food, wine and buzz.
We'll be back!
531 N. Wells Street (Grand), Chicago, IL
60610
312.670.4338
www.tizimelloul.com/index.htm
(April 2007)
|
 |
