If you ever went to the old Ramova Grill, you remember the chili. It was perhaps the signature dish of Bridgeport, the working-class neighborhood on the South Side of Chicago in a bowl. Or better yet, sauced over eggs with hash browns, rendering the taste memory of your breakfast plate in a sepia tone.
The original restaurant opened in 1929, then after 83 years, it closed in 2012.
Last November, the new Ramova Theatre announced three music industry celebrities as owners: legendary record producer Quincy Jones, singer Jennifer Hudson and Chancelor Johnathan Bennett, better known as Chance the Rapper. Founder Tyler Nevius truly led the revival with wife Emily Nevius, and there were numerous neighborhood investors.
The live performance venue, under the rekindled neon sign overlooking Halsted Street, held its first show on New Year’s Eve. A few days later on Jan. 3, the restaurant and brewery taproom next door opened.
The new Ramova Grill and Taproom is not the old Ramova Grill. It’s a reimagined space now making a modern, minimalist, Midwestern chili that packs heat on a perplexing menu with potential.
Chef Kevin Hickey, best known for his restaurant The Duck Inn, is the food and beverage partner. Becky Carson, last at Apolonia, is the executive chef.
Carson spent several months at The Duck Inn, Hickey said, just working on the Ramova menu. It was a collaborative effort, he added, and while Hickey had a strong hand in the initial creation, Carson was able to bring in ideas and a couple of different dishes.
But the new chili is his.
The classic beef chili, a saucy style with ground chuck and a tomato base, isn’t subtly spiced like its predecessor, but seriously spicy from cayenne, Aleppo and other chile peppers.
But you can’t experience the new Ramova chili, which also comes in a vegan mushroom version, to its fullest without the optional add-ons. So on my second visit, I ordered them all.
That is the new Ramova tasting menu.
“The chili omakase,” said Hickey laughing, quickly adding a disclaimer. “We don’t have an omakase menu, that wasn’t my intention, but that sounds fun.”
Whatever we’re going to call it, you should get a bowl, with the Load It option of sour cream, cheddar cheese and green onions. It’s not over-the-top Cincinnati-style loaded, but that’s forgiven when your other add-ons arrive all at once: a golden mini duck fat corn dog (originally from The Duck Inn); a not-so-mini grilled cheese sandwich on beautifully crusty Publican Quality Bread; a puffy, pickle-speared Salisbury steak slider; a crisp, creamy house-made tempura-esque macaroni and cheese ball; and a decidedly not house-made Tom Tom Tamale. It’s $34 for six delightful courses that will take you on an insightful chef’s tour of diner food.
“The Ramova Grill chili has got three parents through the original Ramova Grill, Lindy’s and my dad,” Hickey said. According to family legend, his father, the late Jack Hickey, left Lindy’s with their chili recipe after they refused him a raise. Kevin Hickey is hesitant to share much about his new Ramova chili.
“The old recipe was secret,” he said. “I think it’s better that people wonder what it is.”
The chicken thigh pot pie, meanwhile, is all Carson, Hickey said. It’s available on Thursdays only as a greenplate special, a nod to the original grill menu.
Carson drapes impossibly thin pastry over a big bowl filled with poultry, peas and carrots, before baking to a breathtaking buttery crust. We are a chicken pot pie town, and she has won Ramova a place as possibly the best.
Hickey again credits the rotating pie slice to Carson. The key lime wedge, with a gorgeous graham cracker crust, holding an aromatic cloud of citrus, finished with softly whipped cream, is the romantic ideal of diner pie.
The kale Caesar seems to offer a virtuous salad on the rich diner food menu, but delicate baby kale leaves tossed generously with caper Caesar dressing, Parmesan cheese and crunchy croutons disabuse that outdated notion with gloriously abundant abandon.
The Big Chef’s salad, while bountiful with chicken, egg and chopped romaine among other vegetables, is topped with what’s supposed to be fried goat cheese, but all that remained with mine was the empty breaded crust.
The BLD burger, indeed breakfast, lunch and dinner with maple bacon, a runny yolk egg and hash brown on a pillowy potato bun, has a white cheddar fondue and spicy ketchup aioli on limp shredded lettuce that all falls apart to a tasty mess.
The Morty sandwich layered lavishly with griddled mortadella, Swiss cheese and giardiniera mayo on marble rye is so salty despite some pickled onions and whole green olives on a darling long pick garnish.
All sandwiches come with a heaping helping of fantastic fresh-cut fries.
The pork chop suey, the Wednesday greenplate special, is nothing like what the OG offered. Now it’s a huge bone-in pork chop on a bed of vegetable chop suey and rice.
“That was my idea,” Hickey said.
The old menu was really limited, he said, other than the chili and a few grill items, they had liver and onions and pork chops and chop suey as nightly specials.
The chef said he grew up eating chop suey that his mother made, “bland flavorless chunks of pork in a sticky gravy.”
The pork chop alone is unlike anything that his mother or the old Ramova imagined. I took leftovers to my parents, Mom and Pop Chu, who are 90 and 91 years old this year. They loved the chop and gave it their Chinese parental approval.
No wonder, since it’s prepared with a fairly straightforward char siu marinade, Hickey said. That explained the slightly sweeter profile, and I love the attention to detail, down to the dramatic grill marks.
But I had questions about the chop suey and rice. While the water chestnuts and pea pods remained crisp, the broccoli and rice were far overcooked, and the sauce was so thin.
That was not the style intended, the chef said, and is a consistency issue.
I appreciate the attempt to draw on historical origins. Hopefully, the dish stays on the menu and becomes what we want it to be, because, as a former child veteran of the restaurants, I am a huge defender of chop suey culture.
The pizza in a cup was delicious, but also confusing, and I happen to be a big childhood fan of its unlikely origin, “The Jerk,” the 1979 comedy film starring Steve Martin.
There’s sausage, pepperoni, giardiniera and soppressata chopped up with the pizza sauce and the cheeses in a cup. And the crackery crust is dusted with pizza spice and grated Parmesan.
Hickey recommended eating the dish like a dip, using the fried pizza dough as a scoop. But it’s so thin that it shattered when I tried to dip it, so I resorted to eating the chaotic concept with a spoon.
For dessert, David’s Candy Store Sundae with house-made vanilla, chocolate and strawberry ice cream, plus fudge and salted caramel, gets lost under flavorless chocolate pretzels and gummy bears. The bag of chocolate doughnuts was sadly so hard (and tasted of fries!), especially disappointing because they’re supposed to be inspired by beignets.
For drinks, the Pepto Boozemol is so temptingly pink, and complex with Slivovitz plum spirit, maraschino liqueur, piney mastiha liqueur, Peychaud’s Bitters, orgeat syrup, minty teaberry and calcium carbonate. I don’t remember what Pepto Bismol tastes like, but this tasted like toothpaste, and may challenge Malört for the title of the most medicinal Chicago-style shot.
The Ramova Old Fashioned cocktail can come to your rescue fast, since it’s batched and strong with overproof bourbon, sarsaparilla root and cherry bark.
Duck Inn partner Brandon Phillips created the beverage program, Hickey said, everything that isn’t beer.
Beer is not yet made in the brewery visible through interior taproom windows. It’s shipped from partner Other Half Brewing in Brooklyn. The Green City flagship India pale ale imparts a light typically tropical nose, while their nonalcoholic All NA Everything hazy IPA offers surprisingly bold brightness.
I’m looking forward to going back to the new Ramova Grill, especially for brunch, which just launched. Hopefully, the earnest hybrid service, where you order at the counter but they bring it to your table, can keep up.
I had to ask Hickey if the chili tasting menu might change. Most importantly, would the Tom Tom tamale ever be replaced?
“God forbid,” he said. “I’m trying to be a much smarter businessman and not make emotional decisions, but that’d be a tough one.”
I say some things should stay no matter what the numbers say.
But maybe that pork chop could be sliced over chow mein. Or the chili might transform into a Ramova dandan noodles greenplate special some night.
Tom Tom tamale, of course, optional.
Ramova Grill and Taproom
3520 S. Halsted St.
ramovachicago.com/grill
Open: Wednesday and Thursday 4 to 10 p.m., Friday 4 p.m. to midnight, Saturday 11 a.m. to midnight, Sunday 11 a.m. to 10 p.m., closed Monday and Tuesday
Prices: $5 (classic beef chili cup; +$3 bowl; +$3 sour cream, cheddar cheese, green onions; +$4 Tom Tom tamale; +$4 grilled cheese; +$5 duck fat corn dog; +$5 mac and cheese ball; +$5 Salisbury steak slider); $17 (chicken thigh pot pie); $6 (rotating pie slice); $14 (Ramova Old Fashioned cocktail)
Noise: Conversation-friendly
Accessibility: Wheelchair accessible with restrooms on single level
Tribune rating: Good to very good, one and a half stars
Ratings key: Four stars, outstanding; three stars, excellent; two stars, very good; one star, good; no stars, unsatisfactory. Meals are paid for by the Tribune.
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