“We are huge ‘Top Chef’ fans,” says the man at the bar beside me. He looks around the room and spots chef Joe Flamm, who won season 15 of the Bravo TV cooking competition show in 2018. Then he points to his buddies sipping spritzes and declares, “We try to come as often as we can.”
After biting into the stodgy zucchini fritters ($13), I began to wonder why. The appetizer loses its crispness quickly, leaving you with a squishy exterior concealing a mushy and bland interior. Instead of pairing this with a ringing sauce to enliven each bite, you get an overly creamy pesto aioli. A similar heaviness plagues the plodding pesto risotto ($22).
By the time I dug into the rigatoni ($18), I began to wonder if the “Top Chef” connection was the only reason this place was packed. Though described as a light, seasonal dish bulked out with “all the peas,” so much buffalo butter (butter made from buffalo milk) pooled on the plate, I worried I’d accidentally drifted into the kids’ menu offering of buttered noodles.
So why is Rose Mary a hit? Tables go months in advance, and the only option for most of us is to snatch an open seat at the bar, a feat complicated by the crowds that line up by the front door before it opens at 5 p.m. Sometimes this scrum stretches around the block.
But even without the reality show win, Flamm would be worth following. He spent years honing his skills at Spiaggia, the legendary Gold Coast Italian restaurant that sadly closed a couple of weeks ago after 37 years. The South Side native has pitched Rose Mary as a mix of his family’s Italian heritage with his wife’s Croatian roots. Turns out, it’s his nods to the latter cuisine that are the most compelling.
Take the tortellini djuvec ($20). Flamm actually uses the popular Balkan dish of djuvec twice. He cooks red pepper, eggplant and zucchini down to use as a filling for the pasta, and also blends some of it into a sauce that looks like a regular red marinara, yet features layer upon layer of comforting complexity, which seems to envelop the filled pasta with a generous hug. (Though it, too, could use less oil drizzled on top.)
In fact, a good plan is to spot the dishes with Croatian ingredients listed on the menu and order them. The supremely soft and naturally sweet coal-roasted beets ($13) sit on a bed of kajmak, a tangy unripened cheese traditional to Croatia.
Most of the larger dishes spend at least some time in Rose Mary’s enormous charcoal-fueled hearth, which is open to the dining room. The baby octopus ($24) is cooked “Peka style,” a cooking method where a lidded pot is placed by a fire and then topped with hot embers. Bulked out with creamy potatoes, the octopus comes out delicate, with no sign of rubberiness.
Rose Mary also serves cevapi ($19), the grilled minced-meat sausage popular all over southeastern Europe. A delicate smoke aroma from the hearth infiltrates each one, while they remain remarkably plump. They arrive on the plate paired with ajvar, a thick red pepper sauce, more of the excellent kajmak, and lepinja, a flatbread that’s thicker and more substantial than pita.
You’ll have no trouble finding something great to drink at Rose Mary. The golden negroni ($15) transforms the moody ruby-red classic into a summer-appropriate amber-hued drink. The wine menu features several fascinating Croatian options, along with some from the nearby countries. My favorite was the Matic Wines Skin Contact Kerner ($15), a delicately fruity, yet dry white wine from Slovenia.
For a restaurant from a “Top Chef” winner in the West Loop, portions are generous for the prices. On my first visit, my server suggested I order three plates, which turned out to be enough to easily feed two or three hungry adults. By the end, I had so much food I felt the need to share with people at the bar next to me. (They were happy to oblige.)
The kitchen must know that you’ll be full from dinner, because dessert options are slim, and mostly taken up with gelato and sorbet. The strawberry vanilla gelato ($6) is a fine way to end the meal, if not exactly a triumphant one.
But the focus on abundance also means Rose Mary lacks the Spiaggia-level precision that you might expect from Flamm. The restaurant also doesn’t showcase the mind-bending creativity found in abundance at other restaurants from former local “Top Chef” contestants, like Stephanie Izard’s Girl & the Goat and Sarah Grueneberg’s Monteverde. Personally, I wish he’d spend more time chasing the cuisine found in Croatia and the Balkans.
But talking with Flamm, it’s clear he had a very specific kind of restaurant in mind. “I want it to be approachable and fun,” says Flamm. “It’s a place where you can come again and again. In my mind, that’s what a great neighborhood restaurant is.” Based on the lines and immediately snatched-up reservations, he’s succeeded on that level beyond any reasonable measure.
Rose Mary
932 W. Fulton St.
872-260-3921
Tribune rating: 11/2 stars
Open: Saturday to Thursday, 5-10 p.m.; Friday and Saturday, 5-11 p.m.
Prices: Appetizers $11 to $20; entrees $20 to $44
Noise: Conversation-friendly
Accessibility: Wheelchair accessible, with one bathroom on main level.
Ratings key: Four stars, outstanding; three stars, excellent; two stars, very good; one star, good; no stars, unsatisfactory. Meals are paid for by the Tribune.
