Review - The New Cheese-Centered Menu of Bin 36
By Anthony Todd in Food on Mar 3, 2010 5:00PM
Last week, Chuck posted the news of Bin 36's renovation and all-new menu. After a year of specials to celebrate their 10th anniversary, Bin 36 is trying to freshen things up, which is understandable for a restaurant that has flourished for so long in our competitive restaurant market.
The first thing we ever wrote about food was a review of Bin 36 - it's been one of our favorite restaurants for years. Their flexible menu, huge selection of cheese and wines by the glass and discount membership program are all wonderful innovations that few other restaurants have successfully taken up. None of these have changed (thank goodness!), and some additions are welcome, but other little tweaks left us longing for the past. On the good side, Bin 36 has eliminated the strange and artificial distinction between their "cellar" and "tavern" menus. Based on the idea that you can have multiple restaurants in a single open space, it was always a bit frustrating to be seated 20 feet away from someone else who had a different set of selections than you did. In addition to their enormous cheese menu, Bin 36 has added a small selection of charcuterie. This seems a natural choice and the portions were very generous and reasonably priced.
On the other hand, BIN 36 seems to have given up its ambitious experiment with an all-American cheese list. While we were occasionally confused by the arrangement by state, rather than by type, it was a wonderful opportunity to move away from the Manchegos and Parmesans that we always ordered. Luckily, some of the cheeses made it to the new menu. Bin 36 has also eliminated their ambrosial Caesar salad - ten times better than ours, and quite simply the best in the city. We've sent people to the restaurant just to taste it. Side dishes are newly highlighted, but are hit-or-miss; a gorganzola polenta was amazingly tasty (if served a bit cool) but a duck fat pommes Anna which had us cooing over the menu had almost no taste and was served in a tiny portion. The new menu also looks like it was designed by a high school design student, with an ugly yellow stripe across the top - such a change from their former look of quiet sophistication.
Hopefully, Bin 36 will manage to negotiate these troubles, natural to any restaurant making major changes, without serious difficulty. We'll probably be waiting a couple months before our next visit.
Bin 36 is located at 339 North Dearborn Street. Their website still has the old menu.