At a typical brewpub, the pitch would be something like this: “All-you-can-drink beer!”
But Moody Tongue isn’t a typical brewpub.
In fact, don’t even call it a brewpub.
“It’s a restaurant,” Moody Tongue co-founder Jared Rouben said.
The endless 8-ounce pours of pilsner at The Dining Room at Moody Tongue, which opens Tuesday, therefore aren’t an all-you-can-drink type of thing. The weighty footed pilsner glass remains full to refresh the palate and keep the diner satiated throughout a fine dining experience that would be anathema to virtually any other brewery: a $155 12-course beer pairing dinner with two seatings per night.
A brewery does indeed sit on the other side of the kitchen, but fair enough: Don’t call The Dining Room at Moody Tongue a brewpub. Call it a restaurant aiming not only to refine the interplay of beer and food, but also the entire dining experience beneath a brewery’s roof.
The Bar at Moody Tongue, which also opens Tuesday, is a more affordable but still plenty ambitious companion down the hall, with high-concept pub fare and 18 beer taps.
Moody Tongue’s bar and dining room (2515 S. Wabash Ave.) consummate a longtime dream for Rouben, who is the rare sports jacket kind of guy in a flannel shirt industry. He’s a trained chef who was early to integrate food into beer and to collaborate with restaurant industry stars (including Wentworth, Rick Bayless, Stephanie Izard). In Moody Tongue’s original Pilsen brewery, he and his partner (who is also his first cousin), Jeremy Cohn, opened a taproom of uncommon splendor, which included a legendary 12-layer chocolate cake (that will migrate to The Bar at Moody Tongue).
They’ve brought that sensibility to the bar and the dining room, housed in a Near South Side building previously occupied by Baderbrau Brewing. But it’s also a clear next step: ambitious menus, sleek, comfortable dining rooms and an upscale, urban experience that includes Instagrammable views of the Green Line and Stevenson Expressway.
“As a culinary student, I didn’t know how I would get here, but this was always the dream,” Rouben said. “I wanted to pair delicious food with delicious beer, and to do it in the kind of beautiful setting I’ve enjoyed at the best restaurants in America.”
The ace up the sleeve is chef Jared Wentworth, who earned Michelin stars as executive chef and partner at Longman & Eagle and Dusek’s Board & Beer.
After stops with Heisler Hospitality (Trench, Regards to Edith) and Folkart Restaurant Management (Mordecai), Wentworth joins Moody Tongue as a partner on its restaurant ventures. (He is not an owner in Moody Tongue’s brewing business, however.)
Rouben and Wentworth have known each other since 2010, when they teamed up to brew a Belgian IPA as part of Rouben’s chef collaboration series while brewmaster at Goose Island’s Clybourn Avenue brewpub. (Rouben left in 2013 to launch Moody Tongue.)
Wentworth was a rising star at Longman & Eagle at the time, crafting a novel upscale pub concept in the then-upcoming Logan Square neighborhood. Longman & Eagle was awarded a Michelin star that year, the first of seven consecutive years. Wentworth repeated the effort with an even greater beer focus at Dusek’s, in Pilsen, which was awarded Michelin stars from 2015 through 2018.
“I got Michelin stars doing a beer concept at Dusek’s, but here I get to make even better food without limitations,” Wentworth said. “(Rouben) was like, ‘Do your thing — make killer, awesome food that obviously pairs well with beer.’
“Beer has been relegated to sidelines for a long time as it pertains to fine dining, so I feel zero limitations.”
The Bar at Moody Tongue is the larger space. It’s drenched in black and sports a few rustic touches, including a broad skylight and a large sloping piece of bow truss ceiling running the length of a wall.
A black brick bar with a black marble top anchors the room. A long gas fireplace built into a black brick column is flanked by bookcases built into a wall of black wood. (As stated: lots of black.) When the room was Baderbrau’s taproom, windows offered a view into the brewery — a classic taproom convention to remind customers they’re drinking beer at a brewery. Moody Tongue covered the windows.
“I want people to focus on who they’re with and to stay present in the space,” Rouben said. “We know who we are, and people know why they’re here.”
Why they’re there, he’s betting, is for an experience that can’t be had at any other brewery.
Dishes at The Bar at Moody Tongue run from pear salad ($13) and what Wentworth calls “a big sloppy hamburger” ($16; topped with seven-year-aged white cheddar pimento cheese spread, heirloom tomato, butter lettuce and togarashi aioli, served on a miso-glazed bun) to roasted sea bass ($34) and strip steak ($42).
The taps pour Moody Tongue’s beer mainstays, which tend to make plain Rouben’s culinary leanings — Apertif Pilsner, Peeled Grapefruit Pilsner, Steeped Emperor’s Lemon Saison, Sliced Nectarine IPA, Caramelized Chocolate Churro Baltic Porter and Toasted Rice Lager, a wonderful, easy-drinking beer that’s new to Chicago after being introduced in 2018 to the Chinese market.
The opening menu at the bar also includes a handful of new and limited beers, all meant to pair with food or stand on their own, including Burnt Caramel Vienna Lager, Sour Watermelon Saison and Freeze Dried Black Lime Wit. The bar program and cocktail menu are curated by Michael Simon, formerly of Graham Elliot.
But the great adventure is The Dining Room at Moody Tongue, where seatings are at 6 and 8:30 p.m. nightly Tuesday through Saturday. Seats are bought in advance via the Resy website.
With taxes and gratuity — also paid in advance — the cost of dinner is pushed just past $200. A wine pairing can be added for an additional $115. (“Wine is not what we showcase here because we’re a brewery, but we’re happy to take care of you,” Rouben said.)
The Dining Room at Moody Tongue affords those same broad views of the passing Green Line and, upon entering, a view of Willis Tower; Moody Tongue blasted an 8-foot-by-8-foot hole in the wall to create the view.
Upscale brewery dining isn’t wholly new. Breweries have generally increased the attention paid to food during the last decade — and some, such as Surly Brewing in Minneapolis, have aimed very high — as the craft beer industry has matured while gastropubs and the concept of “farm-to-table” have become mainstream.
Chicago is even home to the world’s first Michelin-starred brewpub, Band of Bohemia, which, despite its decidedly high-end fare, wears its brewpub distinction with far more eagerness than Moody Tongue. (The brewery is visible from the dining room, and its bottles proclaim “First Michelin starred brewpub.”)
The opening menu at The Dining Room segues from “snacks” (including crispy sweetbread with blue cheese and house-made hot sauce fermented in Wild Turkey barrels that previously held Moody Tongue barleywine) to five seafood courses (including Maine lobster, keluga caviar and scallop with foie gras) and then three rounds of meat (Berkshire pork belly, squab and American wagyu steak). It concludes with three desserts: lime-pineapple sherbet, brown butter Genoise cake and, finally, bittersweet chocolate cake. (The menu will be tweaked regularly, though overhauled quarterly, Wentworth said.)
Each course, of course, comes with beer, served in as many as 11 pieces of glassware across the two-plus hour meal. The menu includes several beers not on tap at the bar, though they can be ordered off menu. Among them is the beer that launches the experience, the fruity and effervescent Pressed Asian Pear Saison, which is presented in a Champagne glass when guests are seated.
Also on the menu are Bruleed Banana Dunkel Weizenbock (paired with Berkshire pork belly) and Moody Tongue’s polarizing Shaved Black Truffle Pilsner — introduced in 2014 at $120 for a 22-ounce bottle — which is paired with squab. (A 5-ounce Champagne glass pour of Shaved Black Truffle Pilsner is also available at The Bar for $20.)
The pairings go on through dessert, winding up with the booziest pours: Bourbon Barrel-Aged Chocolate Barleywine alongside Brown Butter Genoise and two beers beside Bittersweet Chocolate Cake: Scotch Barrel Aged Peated Scotch Ale and Bourbon Barrel Aged 12 Layer Cake Imperial Stout. The tally comes to 13 beers, a total of about 64 ounces served in 3- to 8-ounce increments, across the 12-course meal.
It’s 14 beers when counting that bottomless pour of Apertif Pilsner at your side.
“You’ll always have the pilsner,” Rouben said.
“Yeah,” Wentworth said. “Why have water?”
