My accomplice and I huddled at our table outside the restaurant, shivering as waitstaff struggled to light the outdoor heaters. It was the first night of sidewalk season at Ella Elli, but we were the only guests fool enough to take advantage of it. Suddenly the doors swung open and a well-fed, ruddy-cheeked, blue-blazer-over-white-golf-shirt alpha-bro strutted onto the sidewalk bellowing over and along with the tastefully leveled sound system: “Doot dooo-ooo dooo dooo. Doot! Dooo dooo dooo. Oh-oh. Oh-oh. Oh-uh-ohhhhh. This is gonna be the best day of my li-i-i-i-i-i-i-ife!”
Turns out the fading natural light illuminated some striking details about the food that might otherwise be hidden in the dim of the dining room. The chef here, Matt Eversman, is a guy who blew me away when he opened Saigon Sisters, and who I continued to root for at the doomed, unloved Oon. After a time taking command at Crosby’s, he’s put together some very pretty and very different food at Ella Elli, under the broadest and vaguest sort of pan-Mediterranean umbrella that somehow encompasses a basket full of prevalent but disparate menu trends, such as toast, charcuterie, vegetables, and the somehow inseparable pizza-pasta. You better bet the bottom line there’s a burger, dawg.
While it wouldn’t be a Four Star restaurant (or just about any Chicago restaurant) without a burger on the menu, Eversman has taken pains to distinguish his: a juicy puck topped with a disk of soft ripened cheese, with a lily-gilding little shot of powerfully rich cognac-and-cream-powered poivre sauce on the side.
1349 W. Cornelia 773-935-3552ellaellichicago.com
