Bucktown's French Bistro Reference
Le Bouchon on Damen Avenue has been serving Bucktown's French bistro classics since 1993 — long enough to qualify as a piece of the neighbourhood's institutional memory. The format is the proper French bistro: short menu, careful sauces, considered wine list, the kind of small room that handles a Tuesday evening as well as an anniversary.
The cooking is uncompromising French bistro: onion soup gratinée, steak frites, moules marinière, the slow-cooked dishes the format demands. Sauces reduce for the proper time; the wine list is short and well-chosen.
What to Order
Onion soup gratinée — Le Bouchon's version is one of the city's reference preparations. Steak frites with proper sauce; moules with frites; the daily blackboard specials. The wine list rewards a French bottle ordered with care.
The Format
The dining room is small, warm, and unmistakably bistro. Tables are close, the staff are direct, the regulars dominate the room. There is no scene to navigate.
Best Occasion: First Date
Le Bouchon is a quiet Chicago first-date win. The intimacy, the seriousness of the cooking, the modest pricing combine into the kind of evening conventional first-date rooms struggle to produce. The Bucktown setting handles a longer evening.