C-House Restaurant

The ‘C’ in C-house could stand for a great many things: cool, calm, collected, culinar-ily progressive, captivating, carefree execution and, hmmmm….well, Cheeky.

Gone are the days of crappy hotel restaurants – contemporary, sleek, hip, delicious joints are popping up in hotels all over the city and taking the place of their crap-laden predecessors. In Chicago alone, you’ve got David Burke’s Primehouse in the James Hotel, you’ve got Ajasteak in the Dana, you’ve got Nomi in the Park Hyatt, you’ve got Eno in the Intercontinental….well, the list goes on and on. Now you can add C-House in the Affinia Hotel to that prestigious list. Not just for transients and businessmen looking to expense a meal without going too far from their hotel room (and remote control), hotel restaurants are so. totally. in.

Our meal ran the gamut from raw bar to ceviche to hot and cold small plates to large entrées to little tastes of dessert. It was the perfect food progression. After a long, stressful week (as many are), it’s one of those little blessings in life to be able to sit down with a friend, catch up and try to talk about anything that isn’t work-related. Sometimes trying to decide what to order is just as stressful as missing a deadline or forgetting to email an important client. Lucky for us, our server swiped our menus and stress-freely delivered to us the best of what Chef Marcus Samuelsson had to offer.

And what he offered, I was buyin’. We started out with the highly recommended house cocktail special (it sure beats the water-dwelling shrimp cocktail alternative): The Honey B. Now, that is one impressive cocktail. And, believe me, we did not stop at one. We needed to pair the cocktail love with our raw bar samples. First were the Kusshi oysters, served with a triumvirate of sauces: cocktail, mignonette and honeydew granite. As good as oysters are, they’re buck naked without some sauce, and the three aforementioned shmaltzes (look it up, non-Yiddish speaking friends) knocked these raw little nuggets out of the park. At the same time, we were served cod tempura tacos (OMG, WTF, SO GOOD) and myriad ceviche-style fish.

As much as I adore me some small plate, tasting portions, I’m an equal opportunist and I love me some large plates. C’mon, big has always been beautiful….especially when it comes to consumption of DGF (damn good food). The skate (with cabbage, oxtail and broccoli) and, especially, the salmon (with bone marrow, parsnip and parsley) were the stars of our cool, calm and collected culinary evening. With a small sampling of Brussel sprouts with pumpkin seeds to round out the evening, I was living large in a predominantly small (plate) world.

Although food-comatose after our small, medium and large plates of the night (not to mention dessert – which I’d delve into further if it held a candle to its savory counterparts), we had to hit up C-View…29 floors up and boasting one of the best views (and cocktail lists) in the city.

After too much food and altogether too many cocktails, I wished I could make like a transient businessman, hit floor 16 in the elevator and fall asleep to dreams of oysters, mignonettes and elderflower liqueur. Unfortunately, I had to take the dreaded eight block cab ride home (how histrionic of me) before I could hit the sack to my own dreams of cool, calm, collected, captivating and culinar-ily progressive cooking.