The restaurant is a testament to simple elegance and minimalist decor. Roses adorn the tabletops and the bar. A fireplace emits a warm glow, and the stacks of wood beside it are just there for show.
While prices are a bit steep, especially considering Vie is located in the Chicago suburbs, every bite is worth every penny. The meal starts with an amuse-bouche, a delightful one-bit appetizer, that consisted of a bite of whitefish and pickled cucumbers, offering a delicate start to the meal.
As for the menu, it may only be one page, but you'll have a hard time deciding between all that Vie has to offer. Luckily, our waitress, Abra, pointed out some usual favorites, including the food she likes to eat herself. She knew what she was talking about; prior to serving as a waitress, she worked as a line cook in Vie's kitchen.
With Abra's advice, my boyfriend, two friends, and I started our extravagant meal with pierogies filled with smoked beef and a crème fraiche. The succulent pierogies sat atop a bed of sauerkraut that lacked the sourness typically associated with the German sidedish, but balanced the heartiness of the beef and the bits of bacon beef. A pickled celery vinaigrette rounded off the dish.
My boyfriend went for the pan-roasted icelandic halibut, a fresh and sizable piece of seafood topped with fried sage gremolata, and grounded by a pile of camargue red rice. The deep color of the rice possibly came from a reduction of red wine and cranberries, or at least that's how it tasted. Sides included sunchokes (Jerusalem artichokes) and pea shoots. A preserved meyer lemon aioli added a touch of sweetness.
Even when ordering the burger at Vie, you get a specially-crafted dish. Made with Dietzler farm beef, the wood-grilled burger is hearty treat for a reasonable $12. Toppings on this extravagant burger include housemade bacon, clothbound aged wisconsin cheddar, and a pickled jalapeno vinaigrette. On the side, you'll also get a handsome helping of yukon gold potato homefries, along with pickle.
For an even heartier meal, Vie offers the pan-fried bourbon red turkey breast and smothered leg and thigh. This comfort-food dish is sure to fill anyone up. If the turkey isn't enough, it comes with a crispy bread dumpling and a generous portion of butternut squash, winter radishes, and fresh, preserved pears.
As for me, I went for the rack of lamb, medium rare. The outside was crispy, while the inside meat remained tender. An orange sauce added a touch more depth to the perfectly cooked meat. The lamb was complemented by even more meat, a house-made Moroccan spiced mereguez - aka lamb - sausage. The sausage wasn't as spicy and juicy as I expected, but it snapped and was full of savory flavors. This dish, like the burger, also came with housemade fries that were both crispy and soft, a perfect combo in my book. Finally, a handful of cooked leeks graced the side of the dish, offering a slightly crunchy complement to the dish.
Despite the large dishes, we couldn't bypass the dessert menu, which is full of ice creams, sorbets, and other decadent treats. Everything was shared: the crispy, gooey St. Louis-style butter cake topped with egg nog ice cream, as well as the scoop of pumpkin ice cream. The one dessert everyone feared, but dared to try? The chocolate ghost chili ice cream. And we had every right to be afraid.
Ghost chili was declared the hottest pepper in the world in 2007. But call my friends and me crazy, we wanted to give it a whirl. Abra assured us that while it's hot, the cream offsets it. Here's what it looked like:
Oh, wait. That's the daredevil that suggested we try the chocolate ghost chili in the first place. Here's the close-up of the actual dessert:
So unassuming! It looks like just a normal single scoop of chocolate that it's okay to just dig into...right?
Nope! Tread lightly, my friends. The original daredevil took a big scoop, and wowza. It took a couple bites of the pumpkin ice cream, and some gulps of water, along with a few minutes, for the crazy hot flavors to calm down and leave his mouth alone.
So, no one else tried it after him, because we saw the after-effects, right?
Wrong again. We each had some, multiple bites actually. Not bites though, really. More like nibbles, but even then you taste plenty of heat. First, it tastes creamy and chocolaty, and then KA-BLAM, an explosion of heat blows up in your mouth. But then, just as quickly, the spiciness evaporates, and you want more. What some might call torture, I call incredibly innovative and delicious, to an extent. Between the four of us, we weren't able to finish the whole scoop.
Clearly, a trip to Vie promises to be an adventure. From fresh ingredients and heaping portions of food to experimental desserts, I know I intend to go back, even if Vie is on the pricier side. It's just that good.
