Along with gun racks and truck nuts, in certain parts of the country there’s a bumper sticker prevalent on rusty pickups that states “ ’Vegetarian’ is an old Indian word for ‘bad hunter.’ ” It’s from this feeble scrap of woodsman’s humor that Heisler Hospitality, the burgeoning bar and restaurant empire behind Trenchermen and Pub Royale, has adopted the name for its latest.
These are fine dishes, but it’s the rest of the menu that makes Bad Hunter an oasis for anyone who prefers to keep blood out of the mouth. Narrowly sectioned tempura-battered fried lemons and delicata squash are the sweet-and-sour snack every movie-theater concession should aspire to. Charred chunks of fractal Romanesco broccoli are dressed in a Spanish double shot of the Catalan-style pepper-nut-and-bread sauce salvitxada and served atop a shallow pool of almond-garlic soup. A blimp of white-anchovy-spiked beet tartare, launched to the mouth on brittle flaxseed crackers, tastes as meaty as the dish it models.
There’s a much smaller pool to choose from at dessert, but the red curry squash tart presents like a rich, mildly spiced coconut milk cheesecake, and a chocolate cremeux with a crunchy cookie crust topped by a mildly fungal porcini ice cream surrounded by frozen grapes is ranking near the top of my list for the year’s best desserts.
802 W. Randolph 312-265-1745badhunter.com
