The perfect food and wine pairing is like the fateful meeting of destined lovers, best celebrated with a tiny mock wedding presided over by a curmudgeonly pepper mill with a heart of gold. Combine cuisine and wine the way nature intended with today's Groupon to Volo Restaurant Wine Bar. For $20, you get $40 worth of succulent small plates and heady pours at the charming Roscoe Village vino emporium that Citysearchers picked for the Best Wine List award in 2006 and 2007. Specializing in approachable wine flights designed to help you find a new favorite, Volo offers the casual sophisticate a chance to relax without pretension among fine foods and liquid bouquets.
Chef and partner Stephen Dunne sautés and slices succulent small plates for sharing and pairing, including such decadent nibbles as roast veal marrow bones with thyme-scented toasts ($11), roasted beets with goat cheese and herb vinaigrette ($9), and steamed black mussels in garlic, white wine, and butter ($9). As the city thaws out, Volo's cozy, bricked, backyard garden makes the perfect breezy escape from haunting childhood memories as you pass an artisanal cheese plate ($10 for three, $16 for five, or $4–$5 individually) and share glass clinks of sweetness. For now, an interior of warm wood and yellows cocoons diners who cozy up to larger plates, such as the decadent duck confit, dry-brined for 12 hours and slow-cooked for another 12 ($19). Desserts ($8) from pastry chef Suzi Beu finish any casual tippling treat off with such sweet and earthy flavors as pear and ginger crostada with riesling ice cream or warm chocolate bread pudding with vanilla bean ice cream and butterscotch sauce.
Volo's wine flights ($11–$14) offer affordable tastes of bubblies, French whites, and Spanish or Italian reds to help you make a decision. Once you've tasted your druthers, you can order most choices by the glass ($7–$12), carafe ($10–$17.50), or bottle ($26–$45), depending on your relative level of commitment-phobia.
Reviews
Volo earned respectable marks with its small plates from the Chicago Reader and Centerstage:
- There's an artisanal cheese plate offered every night -- it changes frequently but might include French favorites like Epoisses, Valencay, and Sainte-Maure or domestic selections like Humboldt Fog and Point Reyes blue. Wine from an impressive global list comes by the glass, carafe, flight, or bottle, and the large outdoor dining area is pretty as a picture. – Laura Levy Shatkin, Chicago Reader
- The delightful bread presentation is first up. A lightly toasted half-loaf of country bread (straight from Fulton Market) is wrapped in a linen cloth and brought to the table along with a roasted garlic infused olive oil and a dab of butter. On the small plate menu, expect dishes like stewed escarole and chubby white beans, heirloom tomato salads and an amazing sweet pea and parmesean pizza. – Misty Tosh, Centerstage
Citysearchers give Volo 4.5 stars, and it earned three Best of Citysearch awards for Best Wine List and Wine Bar in 2006 and 2007. Yelpers give four stars, and 71% of Urbanspooners like it:
- We went to Volo mainly because it is the only place in Chicago that has roasted marrow bones, but everything else turned out to be fantastic too. The wine list is broad and there are a number of very reasonably priced bottles. – sugarywitch, Citysearch
Groupon Says
Strive for Wine
Due to lowered crop yields caused by glutinous boll-weevil flocks and a rigorous epidemic of melancholy among farmers, the Food and Drug Administration has recently added wine to its list of acceptable vegetables on the Food Pyramid. Wine has also been placed on the complementary Eating Sphinx, with a suggested daily intake of 80 grams.
As a vegetable, wine has numerous advantages over standard veggies, starting with the staunch convenience of its carrying bottles and ending with its romance-like ability to sweetly intoxicate. Like most vegetables, wine cannot be enjoyed by children, nor should they be allowed to ingest its healthful benefits, lest they become amorous and interested in reading books about divorce. Thanks to the FDA's recent ruling, the number of fortified vegetables has risen to three, including brandy apples and ketchup schnapps.
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