Bronzeville Winery recently opened on the south side of Chicago, not far from where we live, to a lot of hype, so when they were offering a special restaurant week menu, we decided to book a reservation and check the place out.

Bronzeville Winery, more accurately a wine bar or wine-focused restaurant, is a very hip place in a brand new building on South Cottage Grove. Their drink menu not only specializes in wine, but also props up and supports black-owned and female-owned wineries. They also have nifty little symbols on their wine list to show you which wines are black and/or female owned, and there are also a lot of local, Chicago produced libations featured as well. I love it whenever a place decides to support minority and female makers of any kind!

The style of this restaurant oozes modern hip (NOT hipster), and features walls adorned with wine bottles above the bar, and also along the back of the restaurant. The front of the restaurant is all windows, giving the place an airy feeling. Juicy and understated jazzy house music was playing, and there is a large DJ stand for local DJ’s to spin their tunes.

Service here was enthusiastic, but a bit spotty. After we said that we needed a minute to look at the wine menu to decide on drinks were were provided WAY too many minutes. Also, considering that the restaurant has a wine focus, it took a VERY long time to get our glasses of wine that we ordered – both times – whereas my after-dinner cocktail came out at lightning speed. I think they may still have some service kinks to work out here, but it wasn’t too annoying. Our server was pleasant and always came back to make sure she got our order right.

The food here was mostly good and abundant. The restaurant week menu included one appetizer, one main, and a special dessert for $59.00. This is a good deal based on the individual prices of the items that we ordered. I was glad for the limited restaurant week menu, because there are about a hundred other items I want to try here. That said, even with restaurant week, we also ordered a few extras. First, we just had to order the “Chef’s Daily Bread & Butter” which were the most amazingly soft and flavorful biscuits I have had, maybe ever. They were dense, yet fluffy, and the praline butter gave it a nice salty boost.

For the included appetizer, we both ordered the cod fritters. They gave us four each, which is a LOT. Normally I feel like you only get one or two of these delectable morsels, so having four each was a treat. They were good, but a bit dry. The accompanying sauce was super flavorful and a bit spicy, and I would recommend way more of that for this dish.

For the mains, we both ordered steak frites, which was easily the highlight of the meal. The skirt steak is marinated in a salsa verde which gave it a really nice, flavorful and slightly spicy crust. It was nice and crispy on the outside and perfectly medium-rare on the inside. The frites were super crunchy and sprinkled with garlic and parmesan cheese, though I think I would’ve liked some kind of an aioli to dip the fries rather than ketchup. Maybe that’s too bougey for this place though! We also added an order of the mac and cheese to our main dishes, because I always have to try the mac and cheese. Unfortunately, this was kind of the big disappointment of the evening. While the flavor was good, the pasta was way overcooked and complete mush. They need to really lessen the cooking time on the pasta, or not cook it at all before they smother it with hot cheese and put it under the broiler!

For dessert, there was only one option for the restaurant week menu which was the “Bronzeville Winery Affogato.” This is no normal affogato though – it was champagne with a dollop of sorbet in a glass. While tasty, it was more of a palate cleanser than a dessert, and it kind of left us wanting something more substantial for dessert – like maybe an actual affogato!

We ordered several wines and drinks throughout the night, which included a black and female owned 2012 Rioja wine (Alberto Orte) which was dirty, fruity, and all the amazing things that you expect from a Rioja wine. I also ordered a cocktail called “Things To Do” which was cognac and tequila based, which I absolutely loved. Bronzeville Winery offers several different flights of wines too, which are served on a cool, tall wire rack which saves space, and is easier to keep track of the wines this way too.

While Bronzeville Winery has a few things that need work, especially the wine service and mac and cheese, they have a good thing going here in a bustling, diverse community. I hope to be back in the next year or so at the very least to have another helping of those biscuits, and to try some other menu items!