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Tallgrass Fine Dining in Lockport IL
Friday date night out, we dined at Tallgrass Restaurant in nearby Lockport (IL).
A fixture in town since 1981, it is situated downtown in the
picturesque river town on the banks of the Des Plaines river valley.
The town straddles the valley that contains the working navigable Illinois Michigan Sanitary Canal and the historic Illinois Michigan (I&M) Ship
Canal, and the Des Plaines River. The section of the canal that runs through Lockport, includes the remains of the
canal’s Lock No. 1 from which the town received its name.
The waterways flow from the City of Chicago, meeting with the Des Plaines and continue south past Joliet to meet the Kankakee River to form the Illinois River.
Following the waterways are the Illinois and Michigan Canal Gaylord and Donnelly Trail along the canal right-of-way that is now the Illinois and Michigan National Heritage Corridor.
Tallgrass is in a restored turn of the (last) century 1895 red stone and brick Victorian building, in a small narrow single storefront on
busy State Street opposite the Roxy Theatre.
The small dining room has rustic dark wainscot paneled walls, authentic ceramic mosaic tile floors, tin ceilings, original gas chandeliers and artglass windows, with a mere eight dining tables adjacent a small bar in the corner, allowing for
intimate dining and attentive service.
Tallgrass is the work of acclaimed Chef Robert Burcenski and local native Tom Alves. Tom studied oenology in France in the Rhone, Burgundy, Champagne and Bordeaux wine regions, and worked with winemakers in Oregon, Washington and California, and curates the Tallgrass wine program.
The dining offerings are solely price fixe
with diners selecting three, four, five or seven courses from the menu
selections that range from seafood, poultry, beef, pork, lamb, vegetable
dishes, salads and desserts, plus a couple of specials for the evening.
Diners choose combinations with each offered as an entree or an
starter.
Dinners include a broad selection of fresh baked breads.
There is a carefully selected winelist of a dozen WBTG
– Wine-by-the-glass selections, and range of two hundred labels by the
bottle to accompany each entree selection, primarily American. The wines
are good values with a 1.5 to 2x multiple of retail prices. Note that
while the actual winelist selection was greater than shown on the
website, the prices as listed and shown on the website are woefully
understated.
Linda selected the onion soup, the mixed green salad and a seafood medley entree selection.
For
my main course I selected one of the day’s specials – Beef Tenderloin
with foie gras mousse in a dark brown sauce with scalloped potatoes. For
my starter I selected a Lump Crab, Lobster and Shrimp cake with
Prawn in a lobster creme fraiche sauce. My vegetable course was an
imaginative spinach ravioli with truffle and regianno cheese.
Due to
their fair and reasonable wine prices, we did not bring BYOB, which is
our usual practice given our extensive personal cellar. We selected from
the wine list Miner Napa Valley Chardonnay.
Miner Family Napa Valley Chardonnay 2018
Miner
is a family-owned winery sited up against the eastern hills of the
Oakville appellation in the heart of Napa Valley. Founded in 1998 by
former Oracle software executive Dave and Emily Miner, Miner Family
Winery crafts wines sourced from fruit from estate and select grower’s
vineyards. This release was sourced from the Napa Valley Holman, Hyde
and Genny’s Vineyards.
Winemaker Notes: “Sourced
from low-yielding vineyards in Napa Valley, this Chardonnay is
characterized by crisp apple, ripe melon and citrus flavors gently
balanced with toasty French oak.”
This was rated James Suckling, 90 points by Wine & Spirits and 87 points by Wine Enthusiast.
Straw colored, medium bodied, rich forward green apple, pear and tangy citrus fruits with notes of mango and mineral on a creamy finish.
RM 88 points.
https://www.cellartracker.com/wine.asp?iWine=3448852
With my entree beef tenderloin I ordered
from the WBTG selection this Raymond “R” California Cabernet Sauvignon.
Raymond “R” Collection California Cabernet Lot No. 1 2018
This is the budget value collection of Raymond Family wines. The Lot No. 1 refers to the first grape varietal produced by the winery, Cabernet Sauvignon.
to the Beringer family via marriage in 1936. Roy Raymond worked as winemaker for
Beringer from 1933-1970.
In 1970, Ray and his two sons set out on
their own with the 90-acre estate property in Rutherford just south of St. Helena off St Helena highway at Zinfandel Lane where the
winery is located. The first Raymond Vineyards label was released in 1974.
Today Raymond is affiliated with the French Burgundy Boisset Collection of global properties.
This was basic easy casual sipping as a nice accompaniment to the beef tenderloin and dark brown sauce.
RM 87 points.
For
the dessert course Linda selected Raspberry Creme Brulee and I the
Chocolate souffle. This turned into a bit of a kurfuffle as they
served us the wrong entree’s from another table and never really were
able to recover in correcting the situation.
