This past Saturday, my wife and I were invited to a dinner party at the local fine dining restaurant in downtown Champaign, Bacaro.  It’s the only restaurant in town where I’ve seen a tasting menu.  The chef there, Thad Morrow, initially opened a wine bar, but it quickly blossomed into a full service restaurant, opening for dinner 6 nights a week.  At one point he had a boutique grocery store next to the restaurant, named Persimmon.  It was nice, but probably just a little ahead of its time.  At another time, they tried opening for lunch, serving sandwiches and lighter portions, but that ended before I got a chance to try it.

Bacaro is the kind of place where you can get the best seafood, local meats and produce, all prepared with great care and skill.  The seasonal menu changes regularly, and I’ve never had a bad meal there.  It’s expensive for the area, but it really is worth it.  I always look over the menu, but more often than not, if I have the time I’m going to get the tasting menu.  This time, we got the wine pairings for each course.  I can’t claim to be an expert in the realm of oenology, but I appreciate the thought that goes toward choosing wines to pair with dishes.  I don’t remember most of the wines, so I won’t go into detail on what was served with each course, but it suffices to say that they all worked very well.

I didn’t bring pen and paper, so we’re going off my recollection of everything.  I’ll try to share as much detail as possible, but if I get something wrong I’d be happy to correct it.  I tried emailing Thad with some questions about some dishes, but I got no response.  I don’t understand why a business like Bacaro would have an email address on their site if they don’t respond to messages. Edit: I got a response from him AS I was writing this post.  Go figure.  He’s been extremely busy with a Prairie Fruits Farm dinner and, well, everything else that goes with running a restaurant.

Anyway… on to the meal.

First up is the amuse bouche, a bite to entertain your mouth and get you ready for the gustatory pleasure that awaits.  Tonight’s amuse was house cured salmon with pea tendrils and radish.  Salty, fishy, with a little crunch, it made me thirsty for more.

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The first real course of the tasting menu was an appetizer course of burrata cheese with porcini mushrooms and garlic scapes.  If you’ve never had burrata, you must seek it out.  It’s cheese curds and cream encased in stretched mozzarella.  This dish sets that sweet, creamy cheese against light aromatic porcini mushrooms and the slightly pungent flavor of the scapes.  It was served with a dry prosecco, whose effervescence really brought the dish home.

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For the fish course, we have the scallop.  Bacaro, in my mind, gets some of the best seafood in central Illinois.  It’s not wasted on them either, because they cook it very well.  This succulent scallop was seared and placed atop a bed of little beets (ETA) from Spence Farm and chunks of almonds.  The combination of beets and scallops was new to me, but they did work well together.  Sweet, earthy, salty all combined fabulously.  I wish I could get scallops this good.

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For the pasta course, we have gnocchi with morel mushrooms and arugula.  The gnocchi were a bit dense and overworked, but they were crisped a bit to add more flavor and texture to the otherwise very soft dish.  The morels were very nice… I wonder how Thad gets them so late.  The height of the season is in the early Spring.

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Then we have the light entrée course, another excellent piece of seafood.  This time, it’s halibut, served over fresh fava beans and topped with a salsa verde.  He didn’t serve it with a nice Chianti, but it was served with a red wine if I remember right.  The fish, again, was browned beautifully and seasoned well.  The favas fell short, a little undercooked and bland.  The herby salsa verde on top added a punch of flavor to the dish–I remember parsley, garlic, and citrus.

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After that, we are on to meat.  This tender medallion of filet is served over chanterelle mushrooms, cubed potatoes, and spinach.  Drizzled around the plate is a fruity balsamic reduction that makes me want to throw away any bottle of A-1 that might be lying around.  The meat was cooked through so evenly I wondered if it was cooked sous vide, (ETA) but it’s just a combination of a C-Vap oven and grilling the exterior.  The even sear around the outside, which was seasoned liberally, was remarkable.  Aside from the meat and the reduction (which were expertly cooked and seasoned), the rest of the dish was not executed as well as I’d hoped.  It lacked seasoning, and the potatoes seemed an afterthought.

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As a bit of a break in the action, transitioning to post-meal conversation, we were served a cheese course.  The cheese was great, the strawberry jam was amazing, but the bread was, to my taste, a bit stale.  My wife will tell you that I am overly sensitive to staleness, but maybe it was the humidity tarnishing the otherwise-tasty bread.  It was of no real concern though, as the pungent cheese (cow’s milk, but I don’t remember what a French Petit Livarot) elated my palate.  There was one tiny downside with the house-made strawberry jam… there wasn’t enough!  Yes, it was probably the appropriate amount, but I just wanted more because it was so good and complemented the cheese nicely.

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Finally, we have dessert.  A creamy chocolate terrine crowned with cherry ice cream and drizzled with chocolate syrup.  Most of you probably already appreciate the combination of cherries and chocolate, but this was my wake-up call.  The chocolate terrine was soft and yielding, like a moldable ganache, (ETA) thanks to a slight addition of gelatin, that coats your mouth with dark chocolate.  The ice cream, studded with whole cherries, was flavorful enough to match the chocolate in intensity.

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Some of the other dinner guests in our party did not get the tasting menu and tried some of the on-menu desserts.  One seemed to have a piece of the same magical chocolate terrine as my own dessert, but topped with a chocolate(?) ice cream and macadamia nuts(?).

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Another dinner companion got a slice of cheesecake.  I have no idea what flavor it was, but here’s a picture.

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If any of the guests from the party visit this post, it would be great if you posted your impression of the meal, especially if you didn’t have the tasting menu.

The meal wasn’t perfect, but it was really good.  I have to hand it to the kitchen, who handled our large group amazingly well.  In a group of 13(!), we had 6 doing the tasting menu, two of whom requested no meat (they got a soft-shelled crab instead of the filet).  Our server, Evan, deserves a shout-out for doing a really good job of serving all of us.  I expected our group’s service to be shared across two servers, but only in delivering plates was Evan given any assistance.

The tasting menu is expensive… and that’s why it’s not something we do all the time, but even the regular menu items are well-prepared.  The food at Bacaro comes out of having the highest quality ingredients.  Some dinner companions ordered some of the fresh oysters they had on hand (served with a yuzu mignonette), and they were both smiling with delight.  If you go during the right time of year, you can get dishes with white or black truffles, ramps, or morels–all highly seasonal, prized ingredients.  We are lucky to have Bacaro in this town as a resource for those who can and want to indulge in fantastic food.