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Dining Out : Illinois : Chicago - City and Neighborhoods

Café Iberico

Posted March 24, 2008 by Realty.com Editor

Café Iberico comes surprisingly close to a real Spanish dining experience as you’ll find in a Midwestern city otherwise that is otherwise saturated with pizza and burrito restaurants.

It’s a large enough restaurant to seat a lot of people, but broken up into several smaller rooms so it still has a small café appeal. The first thing that you see when you walk in is a long bar, which, if you’ve traveled in Spain, you’ll know is what any good restaurant revolves around. Dark wood and low lights, as well as simple pottery on the walls, keep the atmosphere casual. The restaurant seats both large families with children as well as couples, and is pretty noisy but not obnoxiously so.

The menu included classic tapas, such as patatas bravas, Spanish tortilla, garlic shrimp, and Serrano ham, and the waitress brought out freshly baked bread immediately. The olive oil provided at the table was rich and fruity, imported from Spain, and happily, could be bought at a very reasonable price in a larger bottle on the way out the door.

Café Iberico offers many of its tapas ready for purchase by the pound, which would be a great idea for entertaining a crowd at home. Overall, this restaurant reads less like a “Spanish-themed restaurant” buying into the tapas trend and a lot more like an authentic Spanish café, especially considering the reasonable prices and friendly service.

Realty.com Editor
Realty.com