Explore the world without leaving your seat at this River North cocktail bar.
Mini-review: Arbella
112 W. Grand Ave. 312-846-6654
Rating: !!!! (out of four) Already hot
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In Marcel Proust’s “Swann’s Way,” he describes his great-aunt’s home in exceptional detail, particularly the aromas: “… the fire, baking like a pie the appetizing smells with which the air of the room…puffed them and glazed them and fluted them and swelled them into an invisible though not impalpable country cake, an immense puff-pastry … .”
Perhaps the greatest value a book can offer is the ability to transport you someplace else for a while, to exercise your senses through perfectly crafted prose so delicious, you can almost taste the words pouring over the pages. Arbella, a River North cocktail lounge from the folks behind nearby Tanta, is not unlike your favorite story in that it can take you on a global voyage.
The scene: By day, a graffitied metal garage door splattered with an “A” distinguishes the cocktail bar, pronounced “ar-BEY-ah,” that opened late last month. My date and I almost walked right by when the door was rolled up for service the evening we visited. Up a dark set of stairs we went and into the warm, airy space with lofty ceilings, long smoky curtains and glowing wall sconces that resemble paper airplanes.
We took a seat in one of the bar’s round booths with tall-backed tufted bronze upholstery. Aesthetically, the bar is both sleek—with a color palette of silky greys, earthy browns and accents of plum and copper—and cozy, with soft yellow lighting illuminating exposed brick. A mural of puffy clouds in sky blues and stormy grays stretches the length of the wall behind us, and a laser-cut wooden map of Rome hangs in the back of the bar. It’s a place where you can let your mind wander, unlike other raucous River North bars. But there’s still an energy about the place, with dancey pop and hip-hop tunes bumping through the designer Void Acoustics audio system complete with insulated ceilings.
Travel and exploration were inspirations for Arbella, general manager Diego Pilares said. The 74-seat bar is named after a ship that sailed from England to Massachusetts in the 1600s, during which the passengers and crew reportedly put away 10,000 gallons of wine.
For Pilares, cocktail bars should transport guests elsewhere so that they can “escape their lives a little bit” and take a “little trip away from home.”
The drinks: The cocktail menu is organized by region, covering the U.S., Mexico, South America, the Caribbean, Europe and Asia, and the classic-meets-new-age cocktails are listed from lighter to boozier.
“I always tell people, if you’ve had a rough day, just read it from the bottom to the top, and if you’re just starting out on your day, read it from the top to bottom,” Pilares said.
With nearly 30 cocktails to choose from, the witty menu descriptions are a guide, whether they’re describing flavors or dishing out a mini history lesson. From the U.S. section, the Chicago Fire Extinguisher ($15), a scotch-based drink with herbaceous Luxardo amaro abano and smoked Angostura bitters, was a nice introduction with sweet molasses notes and hints of warm apple cider spices. Built in a round corked jar with smoke forced inside via a wood-smoking gun, the drink is a historical nod to glass hand-grenade fire extinguishers filled with a flame-retardant solution invented in Chicago in the late 1800s. It’s served with a rocks glass so the guest can uncork the jar and pour the cocktail over an enormous monolithic ice cube.
Presentation is key at Arbella, and it’s part of what makes the bar so approachable. The menu indicates the type of glassware each drink will be served in, some accompanied by other vessels, like corked jars and mini-carafes, which add character.
The Chilcano ($13), a standout cocktail, is Arbella’s version of Peruvian bottle service. Pilares, who’s from Peru, said the drink is traditionally built by the guest and served with a bottle of pisco, ginger ale, bitters, lime, simple syrup, ice and a couple of glasses. The cocktail—cucumber-infused pisco, ginger beer and sugar—is served in a miniature bottle alongside a glass filled with a sphere of kiwi-cucumber ice. Both sweet and sour with fresh garden aromas and a delightful effervescence, the intensely refreshing flavors are best summed up by my date: “a liquified Sour Patch Kid that’s gonna [bleep] you up.”
The cocktails do an impressive job of capturing essences and flavors of worldly places. The Sierra Madre ($14) is like boozy mole in a glass with ancho chili-infused mezcal, sweet vermouth and chocolate bitters. It finishes with a dark, back-of-the-throat burn from the house-steeped agave spirit. From the description: “It took us back to a trip to Oaxaca, home of both mole sauce and mezcal, so we named it after the imposing mountains, that for centuries, kept Oaxaca isolated, allowing it to develop such deep culinary traditions.”
The food: Created by Tanta chefs Jesus Delgado and Cristian Padilla, the small plates menu features wood-fire grilled bites and internationally inspired shareables, such as ahi poke ($16), korean fried chicken ($13) and morcilla Spanish blood sausage ($12). Because the plates are meant to be shared, guests are served with wooden picks rather than utensils, but silverware is available upon request.
Heavy on meat and seafood, the nine-plate menu could use a vegetarian addition. But I was already looking forward to the polpo ($14), perfectly grilled octopus bites served in a tiny skillet with roasted fingerling potatoes in a spicy pesto and green olive chimichurri. The mellow flavors complemented the cocktails well. However, my date’s choice of the short rib bao ($5), with Thai sate sauce, squash puree and pickled vegetables, didn’t pair well with the La Coqueta (mezcal, ginger syrup, yuzu juice and grenadine, $16). While both were individually tasty, the peanut and acidic pickled flavors of the bao conflicted with the intense lemonade characteristics from the yuzu in the cocktail.
Bottom line: When adventurous literature and our imaginations aren’t enough, Arbella affords us the luxury of putting our senses to work through globetrotting flavor journeys. Paired with intriguing modern cocktailing that’s friendly to both novice drinkers and bon vivants, the River North bar is the cheapest way to go exploring without leaving home.
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