Estereo is a neighborhood bar in its truest form.
Review: Estereo
2450 N. Milwaukee Ave. 773-360-8363
Rating: !!! (out of four) Off to a good start
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I’m very particular about my Sundays. It’s a sacred day that’s my own to hang loose, let my hair down and take in the breeze. Sundays are musical. They’re cultural. They’re spiritual—and I’m not talking religion. To sum it up with a single place, a perfect Sunday is Estereo, Logan Square’s new coffee and cocktail bar that celebrates the soul of Latin American music and spirits of the liquid persuasion—pisco, cachaca, tequila, rum. This no-frills lounge from Heisler Hospitality group (Sportsman’s Club, Pub Royale) both introduces and reintroduces Latin spirits in their purest, most divine form to a neighborhood rooted in Latin heritage. And with a vast vinyl collection of Latin soul records, Estereo might be able to link old school- and neo-Logan Square in a way that the quickly gentrifying neighborhood has yet to see.
The vibe: Situated on the corner of Milwaukee and Sacramento avenues, seven wooden roll-up garage doors make up two sides of the triangular space (and are the only indication that you’re in the right place because there isn’t a sign up just yet). On a warm day, smooth sounds of rare Mexican psych-funk flowing through the open doors are an irresistible invitation to venture inside Estereo. Inspired by the team’s individual travels through Cuba, Mexico and Central America, Estereo (Spanish for “stereo”) brings the all-day bar concept, prevalent in Latin American countries, to Logan Square. Part coffee bar, part cocktail haven, Estereo’s easy breezy atmosphere is just as ideal for a daytime coffee break as it is an evening hangout. Leather and brass bar stools surround the large island bar lined with light wood and a cement bar top. Handsome red and white tiled floors reminiscent of traditional Havana designs warm the airy space, along with an exposed brick wall with brightly colored hand-painted menu boards.
While heavily influenced by Latin music and spirits, Estereo is more dialed back than other Heisler bars, such as Pub Royale with a British-Indian concept and maritime cocktail bar Queen Mary Tavern. “We didn’t want to adhere to a country or a style of drink or a spirit—we wanted to be a little more all-encompassing,” bar manager Ben Fasman said. “The countries we’re pulling our [spirits] from have very different musical backgrounds … so we became this cool melting pot.”
The sounds: The music selection lends a certain energy to the bar that captures Logan Square’s roots before boutiques for the urban mom and hip dance bars disguised as dives peppered Milwaukee Avenue. The neighborhood’s Latin American heritage developed in the ’60s when a significant Cuban population moved in followed by Puerto Rican and Mexican immigrants. Logan Square has seen a surge of students, affluent young professionals and trendy bars and restaurants in the past decade. While a few Latin American businesses remain, they’re nearly ghosts between the artist cafes and taquerias-turned-ramen joints.
“The neighborhood is clearly in a transition now,” general manager Michael Rubel said. “We thought we could be a place where all the different groups of Logan Square could meet. Just a neighborhood joint, have a coffee, have a beer, have a cocktail. We’ve got records on vinyl.”
Rubel and Fasman share a love of Latin soul music and have curated a vinyl collection of sounds from Cuba, Haiti, Colombia, Peru, Venezuela and other Latin American and Caribbean countries the bar pulls its spirits from. Drawn to Cuban music, Rubel has been traveling to the country for 12 years. He calls Fasman, a local DJ, a “serious student of the history of music, whether that’s Chicago soul or Disco Fuentes from Colombia.” And they know their stuff, pulling records that were important to Chicago’s Latin American population, such as the Lebron Brothers’ “The Brooklyn Bums.” The Puerto Rican group from Brooklyn gained recognition in the late ’60s for their particular style that fused Latin rhythms with Motown soul. (Dial up “Let’s Get Stoned” on YouTube, and I dare you to not dance.)
“Latin soul is not that hip right now,” Rubel said. “It’s a genre people don’t get, but it encapsulates a lot of what we’re doing.” He’s talking about the spirits. Introducing neo-Logan Square to obscure, underrated Latin music is just half of the job.
The drinks: The other half is paying homage to spirits from Latin America that are underappreciated in the U.S. Some, like mezcal, have only recently garnered attention from neighboring Mezcaleria Las Flores and other mezcal-focused bars that opened this year. Others are harder to come by, such as cachaca and rhum agricole, two styles of rum distilled from sugarcane juice (rather than molasses, like the rum most are familiar with).
The 11-drink cocktail menu isn’t anything fancy at first glance. There are no whimsical names, and each drink contains only a short list of ingredients to complement the spirit. Most cocktails are named for the base spirit—pisco, rum, tequila, cachaca, mezcal, rhum agricole. And you won’t see bourbon, vodka or gin categories on the menu.
“We get a lot of people who are super unfamiliar with these spirits, and we expect people to be unfamiliar with them,” Fasman said.
The best introduction is the Breezy cocktail ($8), which allows you to pick your base liquor, which is mixed with yerba mate tea, housemade falernum, soda and lime juice. It’s an excellent excuse to consult your bartender. Fasman said he usually suggests going with pisco, a floral clear brandy from Peru and Chile, or cachaca, Brazilian rum most often seen in caipirinhas. Yerba mate, an exclusive blend from Rare Tea Cellar that’s also offered on its own ($4) on the coffee menu, is an herbaceous South American tea similar to green tea but with a caffeinated kick on par with coffee. Estereo’s version of falernum, a syrup often used in tropical drinks, is a rum-based infusion with almond, lime and warm spice flavors.
Fasman and Rubel are both alumni of The Violet Hour and built the bar program at Big Star. While The Violet Hour is known for incredibly well-balanced classics and an impressive array of housemade bitters, Estereo’s approach to cocktailing is a bit more “primitivo,” as Rubel puts it. The pisco drink ($11) is a mix of rhubarb syrup, lime juice and pina bitters. The mezcal ($11) combines watermelon and lime juices and chili salt. “We want to do as little to the spirit as we can, and we want to make these cocktails that will amplify these spirits as much as possible,” Fasman said.
My all-day marathon at Estereo began with a coffee ($11), but not just any coffee—though they do have that ($4). The boozy concoction of Dark Matter’s Chocolate City cold brew, arrack, Averna and a delightfully nutty housemade coconut-date horchata paired well with a guava-cream cheese croissant ($3). My work day ended with a beer ($10), and not just any beer, but of course, they have those too ($4–$8). Using seasonal fruit from Seedling Farms, this gorgeous swig glows pink from soft fresh raspberries mixed with Logan Square brewery Off Color’s Fierce Berliner weisse and house-infused jalapeno tequila, which, to my surprise, brought out as much of the fruitiness from the pepper as the heat. This drink definitely wins most photogenic, while the Frozen ($11), a fuchsia-hued Cuban-style daiquiri, is a close second.
The few pastry offerings are made by Emily Spurlin, pastry chef at Heisler’s forthcoming Bad Hunter, a veggie-forward restaurant projected to open this fall. While there’s one savory option that’s like a Cuban sandwich with ham, cheese, mustard and pickle ($4), I’d love to see a veggie option hit the menu soon.
Equipped with lots of electrical outlets, I had no trouble setting up a daytime work station. I’d definitely go back to plug away at work for an hour or so, but I prefer chairs with backs for an all-day out-of-office affair. It is still a bar after all, and the music is excellent for busting out emails.
Even with spirits that are less familiar to Chicago cocktail menus, there’s something to be said for an abbreviated ingredient list. The most successful menus allow patrons to visualize what their drink may taste like before it arrives. Estereo is halfway there, and the other half, familiarizing guests with Latin spirits, is just part of the fun.
“There are a lot of really beautiful, really complicated amazing cocktails in Chicago,” Rubel said. “We don’t need to add to that. We’re much more interested in trying to do something as simple and flavorful and direct and honest as possible.”
Bottom line: Estereo is a neighborhood bar in its truest form. More specifically, it’s a Logan Square neighborhood bar that embraces the community’s diversity and invites it all in. It’s musical. It’s cultural. It’s spiritual. It’s easy like Sunday morning.
Reporters visit bars unannounced, and drinks are paid for by RedEye.
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