Bucktown

Bucktown continued...

Its commercial heart, Damen Avenue, maintains the same values. Its shops and restaurants rarely exceed one storefront in width; an exception -- Coast Sushi Bar -- combines three storefronts, but its minimalist signage and exterior decor do nothing to overwhelm its neighbors. No oppressive neon anywhere.

In fact, the whole neighborhood kind of sneaks up on you, especially when approached on Damen from its northern entry point, the award-winning Damen Avenue Arch Bridge (2000).

First greeting comes from the Vienna Beef factory -- home of what the company calls Chicago’s Hot Dog®. Yes, if you really want to know what goes into a hot dog, there are tours on Wednesday mornings; if you don't, there's still an onsite cafe selling sandwiches (hot dogs, corned beef, salami and other beefy things) and a factory store.

But it's a factory -- and that's not what Bucktown is about.

Continuing south on Damen, visitors drive beneath the expressway overpass and emerge unexpectedly into a world of chic boutiques, galleries, interior designers, flower shops and (mostly) small but (mostly) sophisticated eating places.

That's Bucktown.

In fact, Le Bouchon may be the quintessential Bucktown restaurant. Launched in 1993, it's very small, it's not terribly expensive for what it is (French) and there's a good chance its rognons de veau à la moutarde would not have done well in this formerly working-class neighborhood 30 years ago.

Just south, much praised Chef Takashi Yagihashi fuses Mediterranean and Asian elements at Takashi. A little farther south, Duchamp merges the familiar and flavorful skirt steak with less-familiar "parmesan-smoked bacon quiche & roasted shallot sauce."

Back up north on Damen just this side of that expressway overpass is The Bristol. (Roasted bone marrow anyone? Goat sausage?)

It's not all tight seating here. There's the aforementioned, relatively sprawling Coast. Even more emphatically bucking the smaller-is-sweeter trend, the Perez family -- which has been cooking Peruvian goodies elsewhere in the neighborhood for 30 years -- went big a couple of years ago, pouring $2.4 million into the dazzling, bi-level Rios d'Sudamerica. It's on Armitage just west of Damen and the place to go for cau cau de conchas.

And it's not all fancy or esoteric grub: There's George's Hot Dogs, here more than 60 years, with all the Chicago sandwich essentials and more; and Nick's Pit Stop, the ultimate in simplicity, with char-broiled chickens (whole, half, quarter, all good) and not much else.

Nor is it all about Damen Avenue. Cafe Matou does nice French on Milwaukee Avenue. Cafe Laguardia (a popular spot for Cuban goodies) is a minor stretch of the legs west of Damen on Armitage.

And it's not all restaurants and shops. Do take the time to appreciate the neighborhood's residential streets. Walk or drive along Charleston Street or Dickens Avenue or any of the others and appreciate the work that's been done converting workers cottages and larger brick homes from marginally acceptable to near-showplace status. Appreciate, too, how well buildings of different ages and styles work together aesthetically.

In fact -- at least in terms of aesthetic integrity -- it can be difficult to tell where the boutiques and cool restaurants end and the rest of the neighborhood, where people actually live, begins.

It's a neighborhood that works. Hot dog.

For more information about Bucktown, please contact the Wicker Park- Bucktown Chamber of Commerce at 773.235.6385.