Chicago Restaurants Have Boozy Dinners to Put on Your Radar
Wine used to hog all the glory when it came to booze-adjoined degustations, but nowadays the doors are wide open for an array of liquors, and Chicagoans are hungrily and thirstily obliging. There's always something going on in terms of boozy tasting menus, but here are a few to put on your radar.
This Thursday,restaurant Cantina Laredo gets tipsy with tequila. Well, the restaurant won't be getting tipsy, but you will after three courses of modern Mexican food paired with Corzo tequila cocktails. The evening starts off innocently enough with a tequila cocktail reception at 7:00 p.m., because there is no better way to start a cocktail dinner than with a cocktail reception. A three-course meal follows at 7:30 p.m., wherein guests will learn the lore of Corzo tequila, taste a variety of pours and tequila cocktails, and eat various dishes prepared by chef de cuisine Kennon Reed. The menu features such dishes as empanadas de pollo, filet with four-chile sauce, margaritas, and berries with cream. Dinner is $49.99 per person.
Barrelhouse Flat may be known for its elaborate cocktails, but they're not above throwing a good beer dinner now and again, and specifically on September 5. The Lincoln Park cocktail haven is teaming up with New Belgium Brewing Company for a Lips of Faith small-batch beer dinner, featuring four courses of food prepared by executive chef Erik Chizeck and paired up with the help of head bartender Greg Buttera. Examples include a cucumber gazpacho paired with Coconut Curry Hefeweizen, duck pastrami paired with La Folie, and sweet corn griddle cakes accompanied by Imperial Coffee Chocolate Stout. Tickets cost $60 per person, and reservations can be made..
Unless you'd rather just tear a bunch of money to shreds, Chicago Cut Steakhouse is planning the wine dinner to end all wine dinners (and potentially all hope at financial stability) on September 11. The restaurant will host Araujo Estate Winery for a five-course $700 affair, which allows guests to taste a selection of the winery's finest wines, in tune with chef Travis Strickland's lineup of dishes. Araujo is best known for their four estate wines: Cabernet Sauvignon Eisele Vineyard, Altagracia, Syrah Eisele Vineyard, and Sauvignon Blanc Eisele Vineyard. However, guests at the dinner will have the rare opportunity to taste such wines as the Sauvignon Blanc, Syrah, Eisele Cabernet Sauvignon, Alta Garcia, and even an older secret vintage under wraps until the event. That bodes well. Food-wise, guests can expect items such as sunchoke soup with poached lobster and summer truffles, Japanese Wagyu strip loin, and housemade pappardelle with wild boar ragu. Reservations are required for this regal extravaganza, and can be made by
Chicago Cut Steakhouse.
(Go to Cantina Laredo and get smashed on tequila. Photo: Cantina Laredo)