Sixteen Argentine Kitchens in Chicago, and We Are Going to All of Them

Sixteen places, one at a time, starting with the ones nearest the Metra line.

There is more Argentine food in Chicago than most Chicagoans know about. Not one restaurant that everyone names, but a scattered set of them — a parrilla in Lakeview, a corner place in Avondale, a steakhouse in the West Loop, an empanada counter in Riverside, a grill in a hotel out by O’Hare. Most of them are family-run. Almost none of them get written about outside a listicle.

So we are going to eat at all of them and write it down. Two are already up: Tango Sur on Southport and Bendita Cocina in Palatine. The rest are below.

What these will be

Not puff. We have no relationship with any of these restaurants, nobody is paying for a mention, and we are not going to pretend a place is better than it is. The two published so far both say plainly where the kitchen slips — service, consistency, a burnt milanesa — alongside what it does well, because a review that only praises is worth nothing to somebody deciding where to spend eighty dollars on a Friday.

What we can add that a general review cannot is the Argentine part. Whether the chimichurri has chili in it, and whether it should. Whether the empanada is hand-chopped or ground. Whether the milanesa was seasoned in the egg or only in the crumb. Whether the provoleta came out of the pan at the right moment. Those are the details that tell you whether a kitchen knows what it is doing, and they are the ones we actually know something about.

The list

Lakeview and the North Side. Tango Sur, 3763 N Southport — published. Bodega Sur, two doors up at 3755. 5411 Empanadas at 3715, the same block again. La Nonna at 3400 N Lawndale in Avondale. Artango Bar & Steakhouse at 4767 N Lincoln. El Ñandú at 2731 W Fullerton.

West Town and the West Loop. Folklore Argentine Grill at 2100 W Division. Brasero at 1709 W Chicago. El Che Steakhouse & Bar at 845 W Washington. Barra Ñ.

Out from the centre. Bendita Cocina in Palatine — published. EMPANADUS at 7 E Burlington in Riverside. Asado Urban Grill at the Renaissance out by O’Hare. El Mercado Market. Trino Steakhouse.

And Fogo de Chão, which is Brazilian rather than Argentine and is on the list precisely for that reason. Churrasco and asado are not the same argument about fire, and it is worth writing down where they part company.

A note on the drawings

Every storefront here was drawn for us rather than photographed. We would rather publish a drawing of a building than lift somebody else’s photograph of it, and an engraving of a restaurant makes no claim to be a picture of their food.

Not every place on the list is drawn yet. Some had no usable reference of the frontage, and we would rather show nothing than show a building that turns out not to be theirs. Those will appear as we go and actually stand outside them.

When

Roughly one a month, alongside the recipes. If you want them as they land, the feed is here.

If you run one of these restaurants and would rather we did not, say so and we will leave you out. If you run one and think we have the building wrong in a drawing, tell us and we will fix it.