Anthem is the newest brainchild of the folks behind our favorite bar of the moment, Bangers & Lace. It sits almost directly across the street from its sister bar in Bucktown on Divison, and in spite of their lineage of ownership, the two places couldn't be any more different in concept. Bangers is more of a hipster beer and whisky bar with a limited menu of delicious bar bites. The room at Bangers evokes feelings of being somewhere between London in the 60's (could be 1860's even) and Brooklyn at the turn of the 20th century. Anthem on the other hand, has a full menu, and is themed after a 1970's era basement gone 21st century sports bar. On the one hand you get the 70's feel in the giant American flag hanging from the ceiling and the old school hockey arcade game, and then on the other, you get the 21st century awesomeness of HD movie screens full of whatever sports games are on.
Anthem's menu is pretty straight forward and can be summed up in two words; fucking amazing. As this blog continues and the reviews grow, you'll all come to realize I don't throw terms like that around lightly. There are plenty of items that have universal appeal no matter the gender or taste of the diner. For the ladies and lighter eaters, there are some healthy options like a salad bar (which isn't a bar at all, thank god, just the ability to custom create a salad from a bunch of awesome ingredients), some chicken and hummus type options, and even a veggie wrap in gluten free bread which sounded amazing. Where it gets interesting is in the more manly, overly delicious, super fatass type menu options. To begin, at least two items, the Juicy Lucy burger and the Philly Cheesesteak, both offer some derivation of sickening yet amazing cheese; melted Velveeta on the Juicy Lucy, and Cheez Whiz on the steak. Awesome.
Beer and cocktails are straightforward, if not boring, considering the pedigree of the owners, but they are good enough to stand pat with just about any other sports bar type restaurant. Limited wine options, some half assed attempts at specialty house cocktail concoctions, and a decent beer menu round out the drink list. Unfortunately those who anticipate Bangers type drinks in a sports bar setting will end up being disappointed. Just drink a Brooklyn from the tap and shut the fuck up; this place is plenty good.
It was pretty empty when we arrived and we sat right down. The Sunday night football game was just about to start, yet there couldn't have been more than ten other people in the joint. Considering the game was the Lions v. Saints, a pretty good game featuring a team (Detroit) which has a large contingent of expatriates living here in the 312 (XV included), it was a surprisingly sparse Sunday night turnout. This could have been due to the fact that Anthem is barely two weeks old, or even the fact that it was the first bitingly cold night of the 2011-2012 winter, but we didn't give a fuck, we were happy to enjoy our dinner without having to wait or sit on top of each other on account of the place being packed to the gills.
Service began well, albeit strangely, as we were greeted by our server Julia who was an interesting combination of DP pollack with an inner city hipness. Her heavy accent and semi-retarded rumblings didn't preclude her from delivering competent and accurate service. We ended up ordering two pork belly BLT sliders (me), 12 mixed drumette wings to split, and a custom salad with roasted turkey from the salad bar (XV). The sliders were pretty solid, but they weren't anything to write home about. A big, delicious hunk of pork belly was almost completely overwhelmed by an overly buttery brioche bun and some seriously intense garlic aioli. Had the belly been left to be the star of the show, as it rightfully should have been, these could have been legendary, but alas, they weren't. XV's salad was pretty solid as well, packing some interesting elements which made it a perfect fit for her tastes. Beyond the typical salad accouterments, XV loaded up with some exotic items like pickled bean sprouts and roast turkey (instead of the more pedestrian chicken); top it off with some house made fat-free honey mustard dressing and she was happy as clam.
The real star of the show, however, were the drumettes. I don't consider myself a wing aficionado, but I have eaten a shitload of wings in my lifetime. Some amazing (Buffalo Joe's in Evanston circa 1995), some really good (Local Option in Lincoln Park), some decent (Hooters--spare me the sideways looks), and some awful (every place that serves frozen wings doused in bottled shitty Louisiana hot sauce). These little fuckers of deliciousness were absolutely out-worldly. We ordered two variations which happened to be the only options offered. Six were house made Cholula Buffalo and the other six were Spicy Asian BBQ style. While the Cholula were really good in their own right, the Asian absolutely stole the show. Sweet, spicy, tangy, perfectly fried drumsticks of deliciousness. I've had similar wings at Crisp and Great Seas, and let me tell you something, these were miles better. The quality of the chicken, combined with the house made sauce made these little heavenly bastards absolutely legendary. Couple that with a ginger aioli of mystery amazingness, and the two of us were fighting over every bite. XV wouldn't usually touch anything fried with a ten foot pole, but on this night I saw her summon some fried food love that I never thought I'd see....to the tune of 6 wings eaten all by herself.
Our experience at Anthem was a welcome bit of relief. Finally a place with a low douche quotient, amazingly over the top bar food, plenty of room and sight lines to massive televisions, all coupled with a cool and unassuming vibe. Bottom line, not only will we be back to Anthem, but we plan on making Anthem our go to place for bar food, game watching, casual beers, or any other activity that merits the potential consumption of one of those drumettes.
Until next time 312......
