Rick Tramonto and Gale Gand, the dynamic husband-wife team that created a sensation as the original chefs of Trio in Evanston, are back (in partnership with Rich Melman) with Tru, which is every bit the fine-dining shrine that one would expect from these culinary heavyweights.
Not since Everest and Charlie Trotter’s has there been a Chicago restaurant that so thoroughly articulates its philosophy — and so unerringly executes it. From the moment you call to reserve a table until the time when, with some regret, you end your visit, Tru labors mightily to convince you, at each step of the experience, that it is a place where every detail has been seen to, every desire anticipated.
The valet who parks your car doesn’t hand you an impersonal claim ticket; he merely asks for your name (your car will be waiting, engine purring, at meal’s end). In the darkened foyer, two hosts greet you as they would a rich uncle (indeed, at these prices, it’s likely you are someone’s rich uncle). You proceed to a bar area that has a soaring ceiling and a few arresting art pieces; your eye is irresistibly drawn to a limbless torso, painted in a bright color that is destined to be known as Tru blue.
By the time you’re led from the bar (I strongly recommend arriving 20 minutes ahead of your reserved time, so you can luxuriate in this lovely room, sipping one of the dozen champagnes served by the glass) to the dining room (another soaring space with carefully chosen art), you’re so completely immersed in the Tru environment that sitting alongside an original Warhol seems perfectly natural.
Awe-inspiring stuff, to be sure. And potentially intimidating, except that the staff takes pains to put patrons at their ease. The reservationist carefully explains the restaurant’s format (dining takes at least two hours, jackets are required) to avoid unpleasant surprises. Waiters define menu terms as they describe dishes. The snob factor hovers close to zero.
You don’t hear “fun” used much with four-star restaurants (and Tru, for those of you scoring at home, becomes my ninth four-star restaurant). Dining at Tru is fun. I get a kick out of the purse rests — padded stools that keep milady’s purse off the floor — especially when table-hoppers use them as makeshift chairs (as Melman himself did one night). I love the frosted-glass, automatic sliding doors that separate dining room from kitchen; who else invests the money and effort to make the kitchen door a design element? And an art student could get a three-page paper out of the restrooms alone — titling it “When Is a Sink Not a Sink?” in reference to the long, translucent piece of angled glass that serves that function.
The menu is structured as a three-course prix-fixe, but if you prefer just two courses, or wish to fashion a four- or five-course menu, that’s fine, too. However you structure it — and you can also opt for degustation dinners, called Collections here, in the manner of haute couture — your meal promises to be spectacular.
It begins simply — an amuse bouche of ratatouille tart with goat cheese, perhaps, or rabbit mousse with port reduction — but rapidly develops into a progression of tastes, textures and aromas that may challenge your capacity to absorb them all. (Indeed, “sensory overload” is exactly how Tramonto describes his signature Collection, a $125, no-holds-barred exercise in culinary largesse.) The Grand Collection, for example, begins with a quartet of amuses, among them a lighter-than-air smoked-salmon mousse, a sliver of vegetable terrine and a tiny vase containing chilled tomato soup and miniature croutons.
Even the straightforward-sounding trio of fish tartars arrives as a dazzling kaleidoscope of flavors: the tuna matched to radish-carrot salad and tobikko (flying-fish roe), the salmon accented with caperberries and julienned apple, and the yellowtail seasoned with cucumber and pickled ginger.
What the menu calls a mosaic of seafood is like a bouillabaisse captured in a snapshot — a square of aspic in which pieces of poached lobster, steamed halibut, seared tuna, grilled octopus and more compose a delicious picture. Saffron sauce, whipped into a frothy foam, surrounds the mosaic.
The most visually impressive starter is actually the simplest. It’s an assortment of four caviars with traditional accompaniments, but each component sits on its own glass slab, which together form an elaborate, curved staircase. (Tramonto’s autograph is etched into the glass base, making this a signature dish in every sense of the word.)
Tramonto’s humor shows through in a couple of hide-and-seek dishes. The Seafood and Grand Collections often will include a solitary, pristine oyster, perched in its shell atop an inverted frosted bowl. Finish the oyster and the server will remove the bowl, revealing another oyster — in our case a kummamoto oyster dabbed with a truffled sabayon. Similarly, pan-fried baby turbots arrive on a ceramic dish with a hidden lower compartment; a sweet lobster chowder lurks beneath (keeping the fish warm in the meantime). One of the dishes featured in the Vegetable Collection is a bento box with roasted organic beets in the top compartment, lentil salad with fingerlings and fava beans in the bottom.
Cappuccino-style soup, a Tramonto signature that dates back to his Trio days, is just as remarkable here. The soups are presented in tall, ornate Versace soup cups (they must cost a fortune) with golden handles. Buttery notes make the porcini-mushroom soup memorable, but my favorite is the three-way lobster composition of lobster bisque, lobster mushrooms and, nestled in a soup spoon, chopped lobster salad.
The list of highlights goes on and on. A knockout slice of rare foie gras with huckleberries, white peaches and vanilla sauce. Delicate yet earthy sweetbreads, studded with black truffle and matched to a morel-rabbit ragout. A free-form napoleon of artichoke and incredibly tender slices of veal tongue. Black-truffle risotto, with succulent pieces of lobster and fava beans, framed on its plate with an L-shaped smear of truffle emulsion. Pearly-white roasted sturgeon, placed over oxtail ragout and surrounded by carrot-ginger puree. Rouget (red mullet) with edible gold leaf in a bouillabaisse broth. Thick loin slices of venison with a chocolate-cherry sauce and mashed rutabaga. Outstanding, every one.
Gand is arguably the finest pastry chef working in Chicago, and that’s no casual statement. Not content to impress diners with an outstanding dessert souffle, she presents a duo of blood-orange and chocolate souffles. Her roasted-pineapple carpaccio is extraordinarily complex, brushed with coconut milk and cilantro, topped with a quenelle of buttermilk-Key lime sherbet and sprinkled with macadamia nuts, toffee bits, sugar-crystallized cilantro leaves and black pepper.
There’s also a wedding cake (served at the chefs’ wedding) of flourless hazelnut, cocoa and toasted-almond layers between citrusy chocolate mousse; and a fudge tart with caramelized banana served with peanut-butter ice cream and a cabernet-infused caramel that gives the dessert a peanut-butter-and-jelly sidelight.
And just when you think the meal is over, waiters arrive with three trays of petit fours.
The wine list is a very impressive document for a restaurant that’s barely 2 months old. There are some outstanding wines at outstanding prices, but there is heartening variety in the $40 range, and the list includes more than two dozen half-bottles. Sommelier R. Scott Tyree is as knowledgeable and approachable as they come.
Service is silky smooth, beginning with the earnest young fellow who brings you bread (he offers several varieties, and the bread tray holds exactly as many pieces of each as there are people at your table) and including the army of servers who will visit your table in the course of the evening. It’s tough to keep track of who’s who, but everything gets done.
But not always perfectly. On one visit, we were served a delightful amuse bouche (baked goat-cheese custard in a delicate pastry shell), which we polished off in moments. Several minutes later, another server appeared and presented yet another round of the same delicious nibble. Clearly a mistake, though somehow I kept my ire in check.
When the bill arrived, there was another misstep: We had been charged for a considerably more expensive bottle of wine than we had ordered and drunk. On the other hand, they forgot to charge us for our glasses of champagne, so we called it a draw.
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Tru
(four stars)
676 N. St. Clair St.
312-202-0001
Open: Dinner Mon.-Sat.
Prix-fix dinner: $65-$115
Credit cards: A, DC, DS, M, V
Reservations: Required
Noise: Conversation-friendly
Other: Jacket required; smoke-free dining room; valet parking available
Rating system
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(star) Good
Satisfactory
Unsatisfactory
Reviews are based on no fewer than two visits. The reviewer makes every effort to remain anonymous. Meals are paid for by the Tribune.