CRUST

A WBBM RESTAURANT REVIEW BY SHERMAN KAPLAN

BROADCAST  JUNE 15, 2007

            Chicago restaurateur Michael Altenberg may not have  reinvented the pizza wheel. But, he comes close with the opening of Crust, at 2056 West Division Street.

            Altenberg claims his is the first 100% organic food restaurant in Chicago. You can pick from a collection salads, a few sandwiches, and the heart of the menu, Wood Oven Flatbreads, as Altenberg prefers to dub them instead of mere pizzas.

            He can have it his way, and diners can have their pizzas…uh…flatbreads, their way, within a choice of a dozen or so renditions. You could start with Wild Herb and Cheese, which is  just a cooler way of setting up appetites for a pizza with four cheeses, roasted garlic and the aforementioned herbs.

Shroom flatbread is just that, loads of roasty toasty mushrooms, not the mushroom in a can variety to be sure, with flecks of goat cheese and spinach and béchamel sauce, instead of tomato to keep things from falling off the crust. In what may the best of what I tasted, an array of chopped clams, again with béchamel and mozzarella cheese is baked with caramelized onions in a melt down that raises up the taste buds.        Other flatbreads include one with feta and kalamata olives, appropriately named El Greco, a BLT with slabbed bacon, beefsteak tomato and Amish blue cheese…is another flavor combo.

            The least successful of my tastes was Mexicali Blues with shrimp, chihuahua cheese, peppers, cilantro and pico de gallo. The shrimp were unevenly distributed and the overall flavors just did not work.

            As for salads, the Caesar is a stylized take on the classic, while Sweet Basil is a variation of an Italian caprese with rounds of fresh mozzarella and tomato slices with red onion rings, basil and an aged balsamic and olive oil dressing.

            There’s lots more that’s worth checking out yourself, including the techie interior decor, sidewalk café and rear patio for more  seating. Service is just about perfect by people who actually seem to enjoy what they are doing. There’s also valet parking…pretty cool for pizza…uh, flatbreads. Crust is at 2056 West Division. Expect to spend  under $50 a couple plus add ons. Crust has a K/RATING of   18/20.

 
AMBIANCE 3.5/4    HOSPITALITY 5/5    FOOD  9.5/11   

(773-235-5511)

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North Shore Magazine