Restaurant Wed Nov 20 2013

Southport Grocery Now Serving Dinner

By Jeremy Owens

If you live in Chicago, then surely you know that you're supposed to do Brunch at Southport Grocery and Café. With items like brisket & gravy (house-smoked brisket gravy on a homemade buttermilk biscuit topped with two fried eggs) and bread pudding pancakes, (pancakes made of gooey bread pudding topped with cinnamon-sugar butter & vanilla anglaise) how could you not? I'd like to let everyone in on a little secret. Southport Grocery also serves dinner twice a week and you should definitely figure out how to get there to enjoy it.

The restaurant, located in the popular Southport Corridor neighborhood at 3552 North Southport, is celebrating their 10th anniversary by offering their trademark comfort food for dinner on Thursday and Friday evenings from 5 to 10 pm.

I visited Southport Grocery recently to sample a few of their new dinner offerings and was not disappointed. The meal began with an apple salad, lobster bisque and a green bean poutine. If I had to pick a favorite of these three I would go with the apple salad. It was a wonderful mix of flavors. The thinly sliced apples combined with pickled pears, kale, peppered pecans, vintage Gouda and smoked onion marmalade (which you can buy in the grocery) was a dream.

For the main course I dove right into comfort food land and chose the short ribs. The dish comes with a sweet potato puree, braised mustard greens, squash ribbons and Kimichi onion rings. This was definitely the star of the evening. Imagine the best pot roast your mother ever made and then send her to culinary school and that's what you have with the short ribs. The beef was perfect and the extras allowed for endless flavor combinations.

I finished the evening by trying both new specialty desserts that were created for the dinner menu. First I had the cranberry orange float with Purple Door vanilla ice cream, frozen grapes and grape granite. It felt a little odd to have a float while cold and windy Chicago was waiting for me just outside, but it was so delicious I didn't care. Then came the nut toast with almond frangipane, apple chutney, candied almonds, cinnamon ice cream and hazelnut butter. If you know what's good for you, you'll save room for the nut toast.

It's important to note that Southport Grocery's menu is seasonal and subject to change on a week-by-week or even a day-by-day basis. This is in keeping with their strict farm to table philosophy of using only the freshest ingredients. Most items on the menu are hand made in the kitchen and many items and ingredients are available for purchase in the restaurant's grocery.

In addition to hand-picked wine and beer the drink menu also offers a choice of six handcrafted cocktails for dinner. There's something for everyone at Southport Grocery. For more information and to view their complete dinner menu please visit www.southportgrocery.com. While walk-ins are welcome, you should probably call 773.665.0100 for dinner reservations right away. Once the news about their new dinner menu is out, all of Chicago will be in line.