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Oct 2011  |  By Julie Chernoff  |  Comments

Central Street Café: Where Everybody Knows Your Name

The video store is no more; in its place is the Central Street Café, already an Evanston favorite.

No fewer than five people called to tell me I had to review it. Asked and answered!

Food & Wine
Proprietor Mitch Dulin has combined a retail wine shop with a sit-down restaurant that is open for lunch and dinner. The wine list is surprisingly reasonable, and if you see something you like on the store racks, you can pay a $10 corkage fee and drink it with your meal.

The marriage of store and restaurant isn’t seamless; the fluorescent lighting over the cheese and salumi offerings is jarring when sitting in the dining room even in the daytime. They are smart to turn off the overhead store lights during dinner service. Still, the ambiance in the restaurant leaves something to be desired.

Soups & Salads
The food, however, is pretty reliable, and extremely approachable. The Grilled Asparagus ($9.95) is wrapped with French rosemary-scented ham, drizzled with good olive oil, and served atop thin sheets of Manchego cheese. Simple and  delicious.

For salads, you can go old school with a Casesar, or have the romaine grilled ($7.95). Either way, it comes with an eggless dressing—the menu aspires to be healthy—and shaved Parmesan cheese. I liked the smoky char of the grill myself. I had the Antipasti Salad ($8.95) for lunch one day, and it would benefit from a quick chopping. The pieces of salami and cheese were large and unwieldy.

Want a cup of soup with your meal? You can get one for an extra dollar, a bargain by any standard. The Tomato Bisque was essentially a tasty tomato sauce, but if the daily special happens to be Red Pepper with Smoked Gouda, grab it. I loved the interplay of flavors, sweet, bitter and smoky all in one bite.

Sandwiches
Sandwich portions are generous and come with your choice of kettle chips or green salad. I wish that the St. Germain Sandwich ($8.95) had been served on a thinner baguette. The ratio of bread to filling was off, and the grilled chicken, brie, tomato and arugula could have used some sort of sauce to moisten the sandwich.

A signature Grilled Cheese Sandwich ($8.95), though laden with smoked Gouda, oven roast tomatoes and Neuske’s bacon, didn’t really come together. I’m a fan of smoke, but a different, less assertive cheese would have worked better.

Dinner Entrees
Dinner entrées include pastas and grilled meats, as well as many of the lunch sandwiches. I highly recommend the Aubergine de Marseille ($12.95), a casserole of grilled eggplant baked with Provolone and Feta cheeses, fresh basil and tomato sauce. It was filling, but much lighter and healthier than eggplant Parm. A side of roasted fennel with red sauce compounded my virtuousness.

My husband polished off the Crispy Chicken Thighs with Pan Juices ($12.95), paired with smashed roasted potatoes and sautéed Swiss chard. The greens were sorely in need of lemon and a little salt, but the chicken was juicy and flavorful.

Desserts
Desserts are outsourced to a neighborhood baker. The Chocolate Ganache Tart ($6) was sinfully rich, but the Almond Cake ($6) was meh, tasting too strongly of almond extract and surrounded by a ridiculous amount of whipped cream. It would have showed better paired with berries or sorbet.

Northwest Evanston has been sorely in need of a neighborhood Italian restaurant ever since the closing of Caffe Lucci years ago.  With its agreeable wine policy and tasty food, Central Street Café is primed to take over that mantle, with a little French thrown in for good measure.

3 stars out of 5

Central Street Cafe
Evanston