We had reasons for feeling giddy after dinner at Beacon Tavern, Billy Lawless’s new restaurant in a former McDonald’s behind the Wrigley Building. It was a beautiful summer night. We were on the brink of a three-day weekend. And we had just eaten a splendid meal.
So there’s magical, and there’s special, and there’s also very good, which is how I’d rate most of the other dishes I tried at Beacon Tavern. Broskey specializes in raw seafood, and the menu, which changes slightly every day depending on what’s available, is full of oysters, crudo, shrimp, and crab. The oysters arrived at the table cold and still full of liquor. They came with mignonette and house-made green “Tabasco sauce,” but after a cursory taste, I felt no need to use either. The snapper crudo was almost too exquisite to eat: delicate morsels of fish dusted with charred onions served with dollops of strawberry sauce and clusters of trout roe, “poor man’s caviar,” our server told us. My companion on the first visit greedily spooned up the roe but visibly restrained herself when she saw a busser approach. “I’m not done with it,” she explained. As soon as the plate was out of danger of being cleared, she continued her mission of hunting down every tiny globule.
405 N. Wabash 312-955-4226beacontavern.com
