Fixture

Fixture is gone. It has been changed to The Purple Otter. I believe it is more of a sports bar, now. Supposedly, the food is the same, but I refuse to go back. Sorry Purple Otter, but no thank you. I will always hold on to the fond memories of when you were Fixture.

Fixture attempts a very ambitious menu divided into «hot» and «cold» dishes. The wine list is not extensive, but carefully picked. Plus, they offer flights, which I love. Overall, we weren’t overwhelmed with the food, but it has a nice vibe. We’ll probably go back at some point to see if they’ve settled into the menu a bit more.

Upon a friend’s suggestion, we met up here one evening. My first impression was that it was cozy — smaller than I expected inside, prettily (prettily?) lit, & that there was no one but me, my friend, & the bartender.
Obviously, with only two customers, the bartender was extremely attentive. However, it felt more like we were in his home & he would casually ask us if we wanted more beer. He was wonderful.
We ordered the truffled grilled cheese with smoked tomato purée and basil oil, It was very tasty. But before we ate, as we were waiting, our bartender (bless his heart) brought out a plate of fried bread with three distinct «dips.» Very good.
Another friend joined us a little later, but he just drank a couple beers.
It was a good start to our night, the bartender was like an old friend behind the counter, & the food was yummy. I’d go back!
PS: FYI: Cabs are hard to find here, so bring a vehicle & a designated driver!
PPS: FYI: Owned by one of the guys behind Meritage & The Ashland.

«Small plate restaurant» = too small to share and you’re a sucker for paying $ 12. The two bites they bring for the $ 12 are good but c’mon! The bar is the highlight of the place. How about scrapping the pretentious «small plate» restaurant and making this into the nice wine bar with simple dishes we all crave in this neighborhood?

I’ve been to Fixture a few times and was never blown away. And I want to like this place, because its right around from my house.
Unfortunately, the plates are incredibly small. So small, that at times it’s impossible to share because one plate = 2 bites! Also, the last two times I was there it was incredibly hot inside. Turn on the a/​c, people!
I probably won’t go back.

EDIT 4.11.08:
Final final word: I won’t be back. Fixture is gone, replaced by something called The Purple Otter.
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I went here with a party of four, we ate everything on the menu, had a bottle of wine, and it was 45 bucks a head. Not bad.
Okay, we didn’t eat everything on the menu. But we came close. This is not so difficult, as the menu offers a half dozen «small plates,» a half dozen «large plates,» and a handful of sides and desserts. The theme seems to be upscale comfort food. So instead of grilled cheese and tomato soup, you get truffled smoked grilled cheese with tomato purée and basil oil. Meat and potatoes is steak Oscar with fingerling potatoes, and a burger and fries becomes buffalo sliders and frites with bearnaise sauce. You get the drift.
This would be a gimmick if everything wasn’t so good. The sliders weren’t sliders at all, but mini buffalo meat burgers served with aged cheddar and caramelized onions. Yeah they’re good. We shared the grilled cheese, but I seemed to bogart most of the tomato purée, ’cause I could not stop eating it. I like a good steak Oscar (steak + crab + asparagus), and this was sliced into bite sized pieces (since everything is served for sharing) and nicely prepared. What was called «grilled sausage» turned out to be one duck and pork sausage and one boar and pork sausage, grilled, sliced on the bias, and served with a (too) creamy potato salad.
Are you sensing there’s a lot of meat here? Roast suckling pig is considered a «side.» There’s one salad (baby spinach), and one risotto and one couscous, both served with vegetables, but other than that, there’s not much in the way of greens. Except baby beets, which are ubiquitous.
The restaurant is very cozy and a little upscale, which makes it a nice date plate. The room is long and narrow. There’s a front bar, with a few tables, and additional dining in the back. The back room is dark and sleek, and is separated from the front bar — though you can certainly hear the front bar from back there, so it’s not «private.» The tables are close together, but the night we were there, the place was deserted, so this wasn’t an issue. Service is very friendly, and the server did a nice job of explaining everything she brought out. Dining is casual, though you might feel a little underdressed in a t-​shirt and shorts.
Final word: I’ll definitely be back.

I raided a fellow Unilocaler’s extensive «Bookmarks» list to find a place she and I could both agree on to meet for dinner. Fixture was my first choice as I LOVE the «little dish» concept of dining. I was perplexed upon discovering that their selection of what they call «little dishes» was quite small, and that what they call «big dishes» were more numerous (and seemed more appealing to me). Luckily we were a table of 4 ravenous people so we were able to get pretty much everything that looked even a little appealing to any of us and share.
The over-​arcing theme of flavors was truffle and smoked tomato. Almost every dish we ordered (aside from dessert) had either one or both of these going on somewhere in the mix… which is fine if you like those flavors, and I do. And they do them well. I guess I’d rather a chef repeat what he does well than try and mix it up and miss the mark. Fixture’s menu isn’t very big, overall. We ordered:
1) the baby-​spinach salad which was a little dressing-​heavy, but at least it was tasty dressing.
2) Calamari with caper and tomato chutney. The breading on the calamari was very crunchy, the chutney SO tasty.
3) the Truffle grilled-​cheese with smoked tomato soup, What made the sandwich special is that it was grilled IN truffle oil… otherwise it was a pretty standard, white-​bread grilled cheese sandwich. The smoked tomato soup was just divine and a perfect dress-​up to the sandwich. This dish is rich in those two flavors that spread throughout the menu.
4) Buffalo sliders. Kuma’s «sliders» are better but, as my husband commented, these were worth eating (BTW, Buffalo refers to the meat, not a sauce)
5) Grilled sausages: one was wild Boar, one Duck with cranberry. Strange that I recall this being my favorite dish of the evening but I can’t remember the details of it. Must’ve gotten caught up in the great conversation! Anyway, very worth ordering.
6) Steak Oscar with fingerling potatoes. This was also tasty, the steak medallions were very tender. Again with the truffle oil.
7) Couscous with asparagus and Marsala. Maybe it’s just me, but the couscous seemed a little HUGE. I like teeny-​tiny couscous… the consistency of this was weird. Again with the smoked tomato flavor.
Unilocaler «Candy» shared my disappointment in the lack of green things offered on the menu… the spinach salad and a few spears of asparagus on the couscous were about it (there were some mixed-​green garnishes, though). Since the menu is heavy on things containing the rich smoked tomato and/​or the truffle flavors, I think this place would do well to offer some more complex vegetarian options featuring those flavors to help «beef» them up. In searching for a copy of their menu on line I stumbled across one that was VERY different than what we saw last night, so I’m presuming chef changes the dishes up often… a very good idea ’cause I would definitely go back to see what was new.
We ordered all of the desserts (they only offer 4) and my favorite was the simplest: the cinnamon doughnuts w/​an apple-​cider shooter. It reminded me of the donuts we used to get when we went apple-​picking as a kid. Then again, I’m not much of a dessert person.
The wine we picked, Firestick Shiraz, was superb. I will be ordering this stuff by the case as soon as I can find it.
The space is small and narrow, but warm and modern. It has the feeling of a dive-​bar that’s gotten a major makeover to become a nice restaurant. The place was strangely devoid of clientele. A small group hung at the bar and a few other tables cycled in and out in the 4 hours we were camped there. It seems like such an intimate little date-​place that I was SO surprised to see no one taking advantage of this fact. Plus, it appears to be a smoke-​free place, something MANY Unilocalers have been clamoring for more of in this city.
HEY! Smoke-​free Unilocalers! You don’t have to wait until January… go to Fixture!

Had a lovely dinner last night with Xtie and our guys — great time overall.
Weirdly, I called a couple days before to ask if a reservation was recommended for Saturday night, he said «oh definitely.» We arrived at 7:30 and the place was totally empty. By the time we left, around 11:30, three other parties had graced the establishment. The place doesn’t have a bad face, body or personality, but the bar down the street was where all the action was.
The four of us shared a bottle of Firestick Shiraz — fantastic, complex, enhanced just about everything. We also swallowed a bunch of cool small and large plates:
The first round was baby spinach salad, calamari, truffled grilled cheese w/​smoked tomato purée and basil oil (WOW) and the buffalo sliders. Later we got the grilled sausages (duck and boar), steak Oscar w/​fingerling potatoes, and masala couscous.

We got ALL the desserts:
–Blood orange crème brûlée
–Truffle brownie w/​pecan ice cream and caramel tuile
–Banana ice cream w/​fresh berries and ganache
–Cinnamon donuts w/​an apple cider shooter (YUM)
The couscous was the only thing I’d flatly not recommend, and overall I regretted the shortage of vegetables and I’m not a fan of beets. Get the truffled grilled cheese soon as it’s pretty freakin’ amazing.
3.5 stars is too low, 4 is too high, 3.75 is too anal. Don’t worry… it’s a good place.

Fixture wins points with me for its combination of upscale cuisine with a VERY relaxed (think corner bar) setting.
Their saffrom risotto tastes like the best parts of risotto and paella put together.
The truffled grilled cheese and smoked (!) tomato soup will make you rethink the combination of kraft-​and-​campbells.
The Maytag bleu cheese topped sliders are good, but no where near as good as the foie topped option I had there before the Ban.
Do yourself a favor — try the macaroni and cheese with bacon and scallops. It’s one of the best flavors on the menu!

This place is fantastic!!!
After work one evening a co-​worker and I decided to check out Fixture. Between the two of us we split 4 «small» plates; warm frisee salad with boar bacon, aged Cheddar, and quail egg… seared scallops with duck ragout and fava beans… buffalo sliders with truffled aioli, blue cheese and caramelized onions… and truffled grilled cheese with a smoked tomato purée for dipping. Seriously, this food is incredible.
Not only is the food good (and affordable) the portions are much larger than I had anticipated. With four dishes, we were literally STUFFED. Better yet, the wine list was really well priced with glasses between $ 7-​$ 12.
The atmosphere is nice too. Low-​lit, great music, and good service. This is a great place for a date, dinner with friends, or a late bite to eat after the bars.
Much, MUCH better than Volo.

I had a great experience at Fixture. First of all they have grilled cheese and mac and cheese on the menu; really not much else matters after those options! Everything we tried was great and I think we tried most of the menu and wine. Delicious all around! The place is comfortable and very small.
I recommend!

First off, if you choose to go to this place make sure that you do 2 things.
1.) Order at least one truffled grilled cheese sandwich. At least one.
2.) Use the restroom before you go.
We stopped at Fixture on a random Friday night with little idea of what it was. I had heard a few whispers about the grilled cheese, but little else.
When we were seated, we were told that that it was «a little plates» restaurant (p.s. One of my pet peeves is the little plate restaurant”). We ordered a few little plates. First came the Kobe tartar and the hazelnut crusted goat cheese. 2 of them were forgettable, so much so that I have forgotten what they were and 2 of them were fantastic.
The truffled grilled cheese was out of this world and came with smoked tomato purée which was pretty fantastic. The kobe tartar would have been the highlight of the whole weekend if is wasn’t for the grilled cheese.
My two biggest digs are why did this need to be a small plate deal and why not actually make some space for a clean bathroom.
–Give me roasted asparagus with my grilled cheese and pomme frites with the tartar and we have a real dinner. Instead, we ordered 2 other items that were forgettable.
–If you are going to wedge 2 bathrooms in an area that barely fits one, please keep them clean. If it were a bar in the neighborhood, I would have understood, but in a restaurant, not so much.

I really, really enjoyed my recent meal at Fixture. I split 4 small plates with one other person and left full and feeling like we got our money’s worth. I definitely recommend the risotto and the mac and cheese, although probably not together as they are both very rich dishes. The restaurant was almost totally empty when we arrived at about 8:00 on a Friday night, but the bar started to get more crowded as we left. I think it would be a nice place to have drinks during the week or before a weekend night out, especially because they have a DJ spinning. The location is sort of unfortunate because there really isn’t much else within walking distance, but I would still recommend trying this place, particularly for a romantic date.

The food was really good (especially the Buffalo sliders), the service was decent, but I am sick of paying $ 12 for a tiny dish of whatever.
Today I declare that last night was the last time I will ever go to a Tapas place, no matter how sly they are about concealing how much they are ripping you off.

I went here a couple weeks ago to celebrate my friend’s birthday! We tried alot of the items on the menu and my two absolute favorite dishes were the mac ‘n’ cheese with scallops and the buffalo sliders! Definitely try these two things if you go to Fixture!
The décor was very cute, very mod. I thought the dj that was spinnin’ at the front added some character to the place.
Oh, and the service was excellent! ;)

I just went to Fixture with some friends last Saturday and had high hopes because I had heard good things. I entered and was immediately greeted by the friendly host and the DJ spinning to the right of the front door, but them my disappointment started to set in. The small plates menu looked great from the descriptions, but was virtually tasteless. I had the scallop mac & cheese, which I’d heard was great, but found it virtually cheese-​less and very watery. The mushroom risotto had no mushrooms and was really just white rice. However, Fixture did have a great wine selection, with many, many bottles available by the glass.
There are too many good restaurants in this city to waste a meal on bad food!

I found this place because of Chicago Tribune advertising the 5 course foie gras special for $ 35 (unfortunately this ended in June) and found this cute restaurant/​bar quite attractive. (The neighborhood looks highly questionable, after we parked, we sent one person to do recon to make sure this place wasn’t actually a well-​designed crackhouse). The rabbit with strawberry glaze was awesome, as were the buffalo sliders, and smoooooooth lobster bisque.
I highly recommend.

This is a new (opened less than 1 month ago) small cozy restaurant serving «contemporary» American food in «small» plate style. The décor is very contemporary with back lit red/​blue/​white/​yellow panels. There is a live DJ spinning, but the decibel level is at a level where everyone can still have a conversation.
Ever person in the party should 2 – 3 dishes. Various beers (bottled) and wines to choose from (by glass/​bottle). The presentation of every dish is beautiful. I had the wild mushroom with risotto rice and the crab cake in artichoke. My friends had the spinach salad, fois gras and some other very eclectic dishes that I can’t even describe very well. The food was delicious. Service was good.
I would try this place again.