My neighbor, Bar Parisette

What does a neighborhood restaurant mean, exactly?

The day Sean and I moved into our apartment at the end of June happened to be the second day of service at Bar Parisette, a pretty French bistro at the end of my new street. We shuffled in just before 9 p.m., freshly showered, which did little to mask the defeated stink of two people with no living room couch and eight hundred boxes to unpack. We split a bottle of Alsatian Pinot Noir/Pinot Gris, which owner and sommelier Matt Sussman decided might reasonably complement the smorgasbord we’d ordered from chef and partner Madalyn Durrant’s whimsical opening menu: whitefish rillettes with housemade brioche, sunflower (aka sunchokes, sunflower shoots and powdered, toasted sunflower seeds) and wax bean salad, tomatoes stuffed with merguez and couscous, and a pan-roasted half chicken with carrot caramel and crunchy snap peas and radishes. (Matt was right.)

Over an hour into our reviving meal and nearing closing time, Matt brought out two tiny cups of Madalyn’s luscious salted vanilla soft serve. He sank into a chair at the next marble-topped table over, has face aglow in flickering candlelight. In the time we’d spent moving our life across town, Bar Parisette had been pummeled with an unexpected crush of customers and endured a four-hour power outage. Matt still had undecided art to hang, furniture to swap out in the dining room; he’d built a makeshift wine cellar and had yet to establish a watering schedule for the plants. Aside from a woeful potted palm near the entrance that predated Bar Parisette, I never would have guessed a single thing had gone awry in this beautiful room, with its assuredly unique bistro cooking and relaxed service.

“Your cilantro is starting to bolt on the patio,” I added unhelpfully.

“Take some of it!” he replied.

When we finally left a half hour later, feeling thoroughly nourished, Matt called out, “Bye, neighbors!” I dutifully pinched off and pocketed a few handfuls of cilantro, which I stirred into my chickpea curry for lunch the next day.

A week later (was it only a week?), Sean and I sat at the bar and shared Pernod-soused mussels draped in soft fennel and a superb rare burger with soft, smoked onions and twice-cooked fries that shattered pleasingly between our teeth. I sipped a Biarritz Cola, a refreshing, lemon-spiked cola facsimile assembled from whiskey, sweet vermouth and spicy Luxardo Amaro Amano, which GM and partner Diana Benanti recommended for easing on into the evening (she was right). A famous local food personality came in with his wife, and I told him to order Madalyn’s sunflowers.

“I think she’s a wizard,” I said.

As the weeks went on, Bar Parisette the organism and those who coax it to life and wind it down each night became fixtures of my daily life, too. I passed by Diana heading into work one hot, soupy afternoon on my way back from mailing a letter. When the heat wave abated a few days later, I spotted Matt pushing the windows wide to let in the fresh breeze as I walked to the grocery store. The restaurant had just started filling up. From their tabletop perch, the plants looked well-nourished.

One weekday afternoon, I stopped by a darkened Bar Parisette to taste through chilled red wines at different temperatures with Matt for a story I was writing. Eventually, we got to talking about how he prices wine here—essentially charging retail plus a corkage fee. It’s rare compared to the typical finer restaurant markup on wine, which can reach several multiples. But it reflects the overall ethos of this real-deal neighborhood bistro, which is priced such that people can reasonably eat and drink here once a week or more (hence a $7 house salad, $16 burger and entrees topping out around $30).

“I sure hope we keep filling this place up,” Matt said.

I’ve lived within walking distance of plenty of restaurants throughout my years in Chicago: A reliably decent Thai place; a charming, quiet pizza-by-the slice spot that was unfortunately replaced by a less-charming, trendy burger joint; an Italian-American standby; a bar with decent enough pub food. None has magnetized me quite so insistently as Bar Parisette these past two months. Has this place at the end of my street cracked the neighborhood restaurant code? Or is this just the sort of sustenance I’m after at this particular moment in my 40-something life? A couple fresh oysters, some vegetable wizardry and easygoing kindness; impeccable roast chicken and a few glasses of good wine.

One evening Sean and I snuck into Bar Parisette with an hour to spare before an obligatory dinner to slurp a dozen oysters and respectively sip a French 75 and a vodka martini—perfectly calibrated by bartender Charlie. I discussed the joys of linen summer suits with Christi, who had now served us twice and who has a gift for carrying out an evocative conversation across 2-minute intervals. It was the decadent, 30-minute respite we needed just then, calling to mind the etymology of “restaurant,” from the Latin “restaurare,” meaning “to restore” or “to renovate.”

To restore to a former (nourished) state, to devour fleeting joys, to talk, laugh and feel a little fancy. What a gift to have such a restaurant living the end of my street. I can’t wait for the block party.