La Tache

PHOTO: ERICA GANNETT

It started in 2001, when Lynn Malec had the foresight to open an upscale French restaurant in the then-still-up-and-coming Andersonville neighborhood. “I think I was a pioneer,” Malec modestly says, and in those first few years everybody seemed to relish the trail she had blazed. Dale Levitski, her opening chef, became a name (though not as much of a name as he would become later via Top Chef), and awards poured in. In 2003, Food & Wine magazine deemed La Tache one of the Ten Best New Bistros in North America.

But what Malec couldn’t—or perhaps wouldn’t—foresee is how Andersonville would evolve (an evolution that, ironically, was partly due to La Tache’s success). Chef Anthony Saltasia, who was hired by Levitski and later replaced him, has watched since 2004 as newer restaurants in the area, such as Il Fiasco and Ante Prima, have eaten into his crowds. “In Andersonville, a lot of things have popped up,” he says. “It’s a lot more competition than there was in the old days.”

Maybe it was the newly competitive environment that prompted veteran chef Michael Foley to take notice of the place. Whatever it was, Foley, who made a name for himself at the long-shuttered Printer’s Row Restaurant, approached his longtime friend Malec and offered to do a bit of consulting, which he also has done for Le Petit Paris and La Cucina di Donatella. The problem, as Foley saw it: “It’s like a lot of restaurants. The next guy comes on, the next ten restaurants come on, and you kind of get lost in the shuffle.”“It really wasn’t to reconcept or anything like that,” Malec says of the changes Foley made. “It was a ‘Where are we now? What else can we do?’ kind of thing.”

What the restaurant ended up doing was backing down from fine dining and focusing on being more of a bistro. With Foley’s help, Saltasia implemented weekday specials: a three-course prix fixe for $28.50 on Monday nights, a $6 martini night (with apps to go with them) on Wednesdays. Recently Saltasia and his sous chef, Kate Zambito, took control of the wine list, integrating the food and wine programs, and created a Tuesday-night promotion whereby beef bourguignonne comes with a bottle of Côtes du Ventoux for $20 (or, even sweeter, two orders of bourguignonne and the bottle of wine for $30). La Tache hopes these promotions will lure people in on the weekdays, when the restaurant needs them the most. If they come, the restaurant will thrive the way it once did. And that’s all Malec wants.

“I’m hoping it stays its course,” she says. “And it continues.”

1475 W Balmoral Ave between Clark St and Glenwood Ave (773-334-7168). El: Red to Berwyn. Bus: 22 (24hrs), 36, 92. Brunch (Sun), dinner. Average main course: $18.