GILDA
★.5
1421 W. Chicago Ave., West Town
Dinner for two: $200
Tip: On Mondays, a popular night with neighbors and industry folks, the staff roams the dining room with a porrón of wine, offering free tastes.
★ Recommended
★★ Very Good
★★★ Excellent
★★★★ Exceptional
Our Airbnb in Bilbao was next door to an old-school pintxos bar. All night long patrons filled the patio tables and stood at the counter inside, where the prices were a bit lower and display cases brimmed with pintxos — rounds of bread piled with anchovies, fried squid, rare beef, gratinéed spider crab. There were other prepared bites, too, like wedges of hard-cooked tortilla española and rolls holding oily txistorra sausages. The food was stodgy, but we kind of loved it. Most nights we would swing by for a quick plate of ham and a glass of fresh txakoli wine gulped at the bar to tide us over until a late Spanish dinner.
By the time we got to San Sebastián, we had done our research into that city’s pintxos scene and leveled up to the sought-after bars serving modern creations like an improbably delicious combo of anchovy, foie gras, and apple all toothpicked in place atop a piece of bread. There, we just gave up on dinner and spent the evening wandering from bar to bar. One was famous for its txuletons (bone-in rib eyes) served along with pintxos, and yes, people stood at the counter eating them.
For a chef in Chicago, translating this world of Basque dining, with all its delights and idiosyncrasies, proves tricky. If you only serve the canon — anchovies, tortilla española, ham croquettes — you risk fetishizing the experience, making it into a Spanish version of one of those cookie-cutter French bistros with their steak frites. If you lean into the kind of contemporary menu young Spaniards flock to, guests may not have enough of a reference to understand the vibe you’re going for. Add to that the fact that Chicagoans don’t dine like Spaniards, who wander through pedestrian zones to grab a bite here and a glass there. We drive, we park, we expect dinner.
Chicago chefs Jeremy Leven (Mama Delia, mfk.) and Rafael Esparza (FAFO, Evette’s) have thought through this thicket and nailed it. Gilda, which opened in West Town in July, works as a love letter to not only the dishes but also the culture of Basque dining, while proving its mettle as an independent chef-driven restaurant. It transports you. The small space — all dark wood and little in the way of decor beyond an oversize portrait of Rita Hayworth as Gilda in the movie of the same name — feels like a spot you’d wander into on a side street in Bilbao. The food and drink, off a brief and kicky menu that changes often, toes a deft line between “feels like Spain” and “only in Chicago” — that is, the sweet spot. I’ve been three times and have loved the experience and enjoyed enough of the food that I’m always game for another go.
Lady Gilda martini (Jeff Marini/for Chicago Magazine)
Tables book out well in advance, but I’ve had luck finding seats at the bar. There, my first order of business is the Lady Gilda, a martini that’s zippy with pickle brine and topped with this restaurant’s namesake pintxo: a skewer holding an anchovy, an olive, and a slender piparra pepper. Invented in 1946 in a San Sebastián bar and named for the fiery Rita Hayworth character, the pintxo is an icon. The cocktail, meanwhile, offers a punch of booze, heat, and salt. It gets you hungry.
There will always be a few items on toasts, and you want them. (Traditionally, pintxos were speared to bread with a toothpick, rendering plates unnecessary.) You might try beef tartare glistening in its tangy emulsion and set over brioche browned to a crisp in butter. Or a classic matrimonio, the “marriage” of salt-cured (anchoas) and brined (boquerónes) anchovies, mellowed out with a swoop of tomato conserva.
Not all items are so traditional, though. As Leven explained to me on the phone, “We’re a Chicago restaurant, and we want to cook food that Chicagoans want to eat.” So that may translate into a mussel atop a smear of Malört cheese. This Chicagoan doesn’t love the bitterness but does love the what-if creativity that allows Gilda’s kitchen to dream up smoked eel croquettes. These bite-size marvels combine unagi, cream cheese, and potato inside their crisp shells, which are glazed with sweet-tangy tare sauce. Takoyaki in a beret.
(Jeff Marini/for Chicago Magazine)
When chefs swing hard, there are hits and misses. A whole artichoke, heart and tender leaves, is delightful with creamy ajo blanco and crisp breadcrumbs. A plate of Ibérico ham with cheese, membrillo, and burnt-tasting mixed nuts is girl dinner gone awry. Our serving of pork secreto (Spanish butcher’s cut from the shoulder) was overcooked and rubbery, though I saw a rosy, more generous portion on a neighboring table another night.
Inés Luisa de Haro’s bar program matches the food beat for beat, with a smile-inducing selection of low-alcohol cocktails that lean into vermut, such as the Working Class Muscle, which combines the Spanish fortified wine with Zissou (Chicago-made red bitters) and a (here welcome) “whisper of Malört.” She has also put together a thoughtful bottle list for wine drinkers, though the by-the-glass selection is tiny and did not include a classic white txakoli when I visited. That’s like not having any anchovies. Thankfully, there will always be Basque cheesecake, glazed on the top and barely set in the center.
After three visits, I have to make the comment I’m sick of repeating and I’m sure chefs are sick of hearing, which is that the kitchen needs time — time to hone its execution, time to find its voice, and time to make sure the higher-ticket items are worth it. But Gilda is off to a fine start, already intrinsic to its neighborhood. If only it offered a proper Basque standing bar for those of us who’d like to stop in for a drink and a pintxo. Then we could keep the party going like in Spain, ambling down the street to hit Provaré, then Bar Bambi, then …
John Kessler is a freelance columnist and dining critic for Chicago magazine.
Dining and Cooking