Review: Every food lover in Chicago should visit Entente
Chef career paths can be wildly uneven, but Brian Fisher's 12-month ride has been especially fascinating.
Fisher went from chef de cuisine at the highly progressive Schwa, to opening chef at the TV-themed Saved by the Max (or, as I call it, The Pop Up That Wouldn't Leave), to heading the kitchen at Entente, a casual and creative newcomer that opened in late 2016.
Entente sits on a stretch of Lincoln Avenue not generally sought out by the fine-dining crowd, but every lover of food should lock this address into his or her GPS. Entente is the complete package, presenting downright delicious food, a robust wine-beer-cocktail program (tip of the hat to bar director Meghan Konecny) and whip-smart, engaging service.
Fisher and pastry chef Mari Katsumura (who worked under Dana Cree at Blackbird, and was pastry chef at Acadia and Grace) make a formidable creative team. The fruits of their collaboration can be appreciated in the "pumpernickel pretzel," essentially a thinking-chef's take on a charcuterie plate. Instead of multiple proteins, there are unctuous folds of silky Benton's ham surrounding a saucer of beer-cheese fondue. Acidity arrives via pieces of fermented sauerkraut and pickled pineapple, and Katsumura's toothsome, salt-flecked pretzel rolls are the stars of the plate.
Elsewhere, her toasted sourdough slices make a fine conveyance for Fisher's chicken-liver mousse, topped by a clarified aspic bearing Old Fashioned flavors (orange, rye, angostura), pearls of orange puree and freeze-fried satsumas. The flaky, fluffy buttermilk biscuit, matched to seasonal butter, is a $6 option worth every nickel.
More Benton's pork, this time in bacon form, contributes to a beautifully composed wedge salad (typically the least-attractive plate on any menu) with tomatoes, tomato powder and cambozola cheese (a very mild blue). Fisher's kale Caesar is a seafood-forward version, fortified with fried smelt and dusted with bottarga.
Among the larger plates, I love the pan-crisped exterior and soft, yielding interior of the octopus; the eye-catching presentation includes tiny mounds of pureed potato, dots of eggplant blackened with squid ink and a chunky powder made from olive oil and espelette pepper. Another gorgeous composition weaves such country staples as cornbread, crowder peas, collards and ham hock into elegant companions for fat-rich medallions of Berkshire pork loin.
Slices of duck breast are packed together in a tidy package with dirty Himalayan rice burnished with duck heart and liver; the arrangement intentionally forces the diner to savor all the dish's elements in every bite. Even the straightforward chicken breast demonstrates extraordinary commitment. The golden-skinned, Maldon-flecked breast is served alongside escarole, flageolet beans and chicken-thigh sausage, gathered together and topped with tiny flowers — a literally edible floral arrangement.
Katsumura's desserts deliver more than they promise. Hidden inside the simple-sounding profiterole is white-chocolate cremeaux with cherry extract and sour-cherry jam, flanked by sassafras and root-beer ice cream and a shoelace-thin, undulating root-beer tuile. Her cheesecake is more colorful than an artist's palette, the fluffy cake disks ("like angel food and cheesecake had a baby," the chef described it) arranged with shattered meringue, vanilla-kissed citrus segments, frozen coconut marshmallow, candied orange and blood-orange sherbet. And the tres leches cake (banana now; the flavoring was pumpkin on my visit) offers flavors so reminiscent of cereal milk that Katsumura crowns it with a tuile made from cornflakes.
The narrow restaurant is broken up into two seating areas. The rear space, done with natural-tone, rough-edged tables and adjoining the kitchen pass-through, looks a lot like the back room of Arami. The front room, slightly smaller, includes dark-wood tables and Entente's eight-seat bar. The spaces are comfortable, and if the appointments lean toward the austere, that just makes Fisher and Katsumura's visuals even more dramatic.
