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Bin 36 Rolls Out New Spring Menu

By Melissa Wiley in Food on Apr 23, 2012 6:00PM

Bin 36 has long been known as a destination where the downtown business crowd can sample and savor choice wines and cheeses with casual impunity when the day is done, where the staff’s culinary erudition is beyond doubt but stands modestly aside while their conviviality takes precedence, effectively coaxing patrons to loosen their ties and undo a top collar button. Now the River North restaurant-cum-wine marketplace is offering a new menu to better reflect that easy approachability. As we’re seeing more and more of these days, Bin 36’s avant-garde cuisine is swinging in a decidedly democratic direction, with smaller shareable plates replacing the single-person entrees of yore.

In the words of chef John Caputo, “We’ve always changed the menu with the seasons, but this one marks the adoption of a new philosophy. Applying the philosophy behind our wine to our food, we’ve made the change to a more flexible menu, one that personally affords me more creative freedom.”

Summarizing the restaurant’s wine ethos from which the new menu takes inspiration, wine director Brian Duncan muses, ”There’s nothing more satisfying than watching a group of people pass a glass of wine around the table and letting everyone taste and smell it. Now customers can do that with our food as well.”

Headlining the fresh spring comestibles are hors d'oeuvres such as duck liver mousse and truffled deviled eggs, small plates the likes of spring asparagus salad, ahi tuna carpaccio, and roasted cauliflower steak, and heartier fare that includes spiced yogurt lamb ribs, chicken fried quail, and cote de bouef. For dessert, you can feast your taste buds on a tropical fruit parfait, chocolate bouchon, or peanut butter mousse. This is the only point of the communal meal, mind you, where the boys behind Bin 36 are refusing to share. “I feel that dessert is one area where everyone should have their own,” says a smiling Caputo.

And then there’s always the wine. Whether you’re perched at the oval zinc-top bar for a quick glass of something bubbly or sitting down to a multi-course gustatory fête, Bin 36 offers a plethora of wine pairings to set off the new menu items. We gaily imbibed everything from a 10th-anniversary sparkling cuvée to a honeyed Riesling to a California Pinot Noir that played sportively with the caramel in the garlic custard to a digestif in the form of a Spanish sherry.

In case you’re in an existential humor and are wondering what the point of all this flavorful business is, it’s fun, pure and simple—for your palate and the brains behind the Bin 36 operation alike. As Duncan enthuses, “We want food and drink to be as accessible as possible here. We take what we do very seriously; we just don’t take ourselves seriously.”