Restaurant reviewers get flooded with PR packets — glossy containers with menus, bios, and cutesy story ideas — designed to guide the reviewer to lose all rational thought and be seduced by past performances of the chef or restaurateur. So when we got wind of Lakeview Supper Club, 1232 W. Belmont, we fell into fantasies. Oh, yeah, a tony, mod version of the old New York Stork Club, perhaps, with clubby booths and white tablecloths — me in a tight brocade dress with a 1940s short, curly hairdo; Stephen in a tux with a monocle, perhaps.
Instead, we drove up to a discrete storefront on a rainy night that would stain anybody’s silk pumps. Inside we found a comfy den with lushly patinaed walls ashimmer with candles and funky lights. There were no photos of Dave Garroway, Sherman Billingsley, or Oprah Winfrey. The crowd was not dressed in chiffon and tuxes, but rather in svelte neutrals and black. In fact, at one point there were so many easygoing sophisticates glutting the maitre d’ stand, we feared we might get locked out of our impending experience. Fortunately, we were offered our choice of tables in a dining room designed to hold sixty or so. (An enclosed patio doubles that number.)
This is a supper club of a special ilk, leaving it to the dishes, not chanteuses in chiffon. As waiters whisked by, we noted a chorus line of beauties destined for others, including Cast Iron Roasted Organic Lamb T-Bones, with coriander-herbs de provence dry rub, turnip-fava bean stew, and roast garlic tomato lamb jus.
As soon as we picked up the menu we noted dishes promising to engage in unexpected acts of culinary kindness. There is a marked, startling love of fresh, mostly organic produce — hooray — as often as possible from local farmers — double hooray — including Home Grown Wisconsin and others from Chicago’s Green City Market. There is plenty of fish, organic pork, organic eggs, and chicken without hormones. "It sounds really trite, but whatever is on the market excites me," executive chef Michael Tsonton said.
Tsonton, formerly the chef at Brio and Tizi Melloul, in fact, takes a very earthy approach to his craft, pooh-poohing pompous effetes. "Chefs love to call themselves artists. We’re cooks," he said. "I don’t think what we do is all that hard. The art in food is overrated. The art is in the wild mushrooms found in Illinois, by my guy, Sean Bradley. It’s a lot harder getting up at two in the morning foraging in the woods for mushrooms."
Tsonton’s dishes involve complexities that reduce themselves to bell-like clarity, based on three predominant sensations, all uniquely balanced and redolent. When our first appetizer arrived, the Roasted Vegetable Terrine — bound on one side by a flurry of baby greens — we couldn’t help but trill at the sight of this pretty triangle rimmed in eggplant. Inside we found colorful ribbons. There were crispy beans, carrots, yellow squash, zucchini, roasted peppers, and tomato concasse, all pretty as a tabletop trinket box.
By mistake, the intended marmalade condiment was replaced by an onion olive tapenade, so we couldn’t savor the full range of the chef’s intention — the play of "the roasted sweetness of the vegetables, the rich herby flavor of the fennel marmalade, and the almost sweet tanginess of the orange-fennel vinaigrette."
In fact, this inadvertent omission signals the subtlety of Tsonton’s craft, where every addition plays and every subtraction counts. But this minor flub was forgotten by the time we got to the Soup of Yesterday — a velvety eggplant puree served over a hill of lentils and onions and declared "better the next day." This vegan treat was almost too good to be true — the creation of sous chef Victor Newgren.
Let’s be honest. We recall getting sandbagged by a rapture-inducing softness bellying up to an unexpected crunch. In other words, we couldn’t begin to verbalize all the entrancing tastes and sensations we experienced throughout the evening. Let it suffice to say, we dived into a realm of absolutely unstuffy food, that sticks to your ribs and goes to your head at the same time.
The appetizers kept coming as we marched on to a lusciously light Garlic Soup. Then an Asparagus and Goat Cheese Salad flanked by a green herb vinaigrette and an absolutely sumptuous tomato jam. (This dish may well soar to perfection when the local asparagus Tsonton prefers is back in season. Meanwhile, it’s too popular to take off the menu, a situation that forces him to resort to California spears. This little detail alone offers insight into the daily dilemmas faced by devoted chefs trying to balance dedication to local produce against business imperatives.)
Fish lovers will enjoy nibbling the itzy-bitzy, chewy Steamed Baby Clams, served with a tasty, piperade stew of onions, red peppers, tomatoes, and olive oil. Other fish appetizers, to be tried at another time, include Fried Squid plus House Cured Salmon with its long line of buddies — "warm fennel-apple salad, golden raisins, coriander-crème fraiche and grains of paradise" (a small dried berry spice grown in Northern Africa). Vegetarians — or anyone else — could make a great meal of appetizers only.
When we got to the entrées, we opted for Not Wild Salmon, which turned out to be the chef’s favorite dish. Needless to say we succumbed to the ineffable succulence of a slowly roasted salmon — a technique Tsonton picked up from Jean Georges Vongerichten — poised on a bevy of minuscule roasted Yukon Gold potatoes (cut to such tininess by a melon baller, you wanted to tickle them). Still better, the salmon’s flanks are dipped into a mixture of sweet Noilly Prat vermouth, lemon, and olive oil. The salmon is then topped with a red onion-hazelnut confit, determined to knock you off your seat with the sweetness of the onions and the crunch of the nuts.
By the time we got to the next course, we were in complete bliss. In fact, Stephen found Tsonton’s Supper Club Cocido so delicious he almost forgot to save me a forkful. Bypassing the Spanish affection for organ meats in this Spanish version of the French pot au feu, Tsonton fashions a yummy Frenchified concoction of organic pork from Gunthope Farm, adding duck leg, his own house-made chorizo sausage and a dappling of diced orange squash. Of course, sweet and sour kumquats and salsa verde are the extra dips for this one. For our final entrée, we savored a Vegetarian Risotto dappled with fresh chives and diced delicata squash — all super creamy and scrumptiously sweet. Tsonton always has two vegetarian entrées on his seasonal menu and would willingly adjust this risotto (and other appropriate dishes) for vegans if called in advance.
Finally, we managed to add two desserts — a very lush, dense, delicious Valrhona Chocolate Tart and a lightly tangy Orange Sorbet which finished the meal with freshness, clarity, and a startling flutter of fresh mint leaves.
While co-owner Ron "Oz" Schoenstadt — whose credits include Harvest on Huron and Oz, a legendary Lakeview neighborhood bar that closed in 1993 — was not on hand on our evening of dining, his vivacious daughter and partner Rose Schoenstadt was eager to explain everything. Before we sat down, we watched this natural restaurateur wipe off a bottle of champagne and pour it as if she were serving grapes she had pressed herself. "My big passion is champagne," she later laughed, referring to her flutes as "the pretty girl glasses."
As for the chef, Michael Tsonton is, like his dishes, a complex commingling of ingredients, reduced to startling contrasts. You could call him a fun-loving kitchen outlaw who defies being pigeon-holed. After all, he rides a Harley and calls himself one of the kitchen cowboys, at the same time that he coos over pictures of his baby and can’t wait to share the perfumes of an absolutely intoxicating Spanish paprika called pimenton.
All in all, this is a chef who loves to surprise you. "You ingest our work. That’s different than anything else. I love what I do, and I’m passionate about it. Everything is meant to be fun," he said.
Dinner could hover somewhere between thirty and forty dollars, per person, without tip or wine. No entrées are more than $20 except for additions to the exciting Chef’s Page of specials. Wine can be ordered in half-portions, ranging from ten to thirty dollars each, including hard-to-get California Turleys. Valet parking is $7.00.
Lakeview Supper Club, 1232 W. Belmont, 773-975-0095.
Ethel Hammer is a free-lance writer specializing in articles with a culinary bent. Stephen Kleiman, her husband, is a chef, food product developer, and entrepreneur.