Home > Chicago Restaurants > Editorial Review > Reviews: San Gabriel Mexican Cafe and Adobo Grill

Wherever the much-traveled Dudley Nieto has gone, impressive Mexican food has followed. Nieto's back in town, bringing regional-Mexican food to the North Shore masses at San Gabriel in Bannockburn, and we also check in on Nieto's last Chicago gig, Adobo Grill in Old Town.

San Gabriel Mexican Cafe 2 stars (out of four)

Rating key:
4: Outstanding
3: Excellent
2: Very good
1: Good
Satisfactory
Unsatisfactory

Nieto rarely stays in one place very long; a year or two seems to be his limit, but the places Nieto works are generally better for the experience.

So owners of San Gabriel, in the Bannockburn Green shopping center, probably shouldn't rush to chisel "Dudley Nieto, executive chef" into their restaurant's stone facade, they have to be happy with the food the kitchen is producing these days. Nieto was hired originally as general manager, but found himself unable or unwilling to abandon his pots and pans.

"It's hard to get good help," Nieto says. "I found myself more and more involved in the kitchen."

Which is where I, and no doubt his fans, prefer to see him.

San Gabriel may be a strip-mall Mexican restaurant, but it's one in which the tortillas are made in-house, the margaritas are made with fresh lime juice and the guacamole is prepared before your eyes. That last gimmick is a real crowd-pleaser; a server rolls a wooden cart to the table and mashes up some fresh guacamole in a jiffy, pausing only to inquire about spice-level preferences.

Elsewhere on the appetizer list, a fruity guajillo salsa dresses up pieces of grilled octopus; the tips of the octopus can get a bit rubbery, but the overall texture is fine. Tuna ceviche, brightened by bits of mango and passionfruit, tricolor chilies and mint, is smooth and delicious, with a bit of spice to the finish. Milder, but still satisfying are roasted duck taquitos, rolled in soft tortillas with grilled pineapple and queso fresco. Pasilla peppers and toasted tomatoes lend depth and body to a smooth, bisque-like tortilla soup, topped with a mound of cheese, avocado and a dollop of cream. Only the bland, filler-heavy crabcake was a real disappointment.

Entrees include a well done red snapper en Veracruzana; red snapper stands up well to the tomato, onion and pepper sauce that engulfs it. Tropical Bites, a melange of grilled shrimp, scallops and calamari surrounding a papaya-mango salad, is essentially an entree salad, good for light appetites.

Huitlacoche, the earthy and sweet fungus that grows on corn, is the star ingredient in a rolled chicken breast that's dressed with a tangy poblano-chile sauce. And a slightly overcooked pork chop is bathed in manchamanteles, a sweet-sour mole that combines ancho chile with pineapples, pears and apples.

The star entree, however, is dubbed molcajete, the dish named for the vessel that contains it. A molcajete is a large bowl carved from volcanic rock; Nieto uses it as a stewpot, cooking steak, chicken or shrimp in a bubbly mix of tomatoes, onions, sweet peppers and three-chile salsa. It's really a very simple dish with a lot of visual flair; the mad-hot molcajete is virtually a volcano by itself, actually spitting out droplets of broth. The sole drawback is that the meat continues to cook in the molcajete, and so chicken breast or shrimp is probably a better bet than steak--unless you like medium-well strips of sirloin, in which case, have at it.

Desserts include a fine tres leches (three milks) cake and a chocolate tamal, the latter a dish Nieto brought over from his tenure at Adobo Grill. A flamed bananas dish--a sort of Mexican bananas Foster--tasted OK, but it arrived at the table already aflame. When I pay for en fuego, I want en fuego.

By-the-numbers service has not caught up to the menu's level of sophistication. When I perused the wine list (a short but moderately priced document, augmented by more than 60 sipping tequilas), our waiter gave us a curious heads-up. "Tell me what you want," he said, "and I'll see if they have it." Well, yes, that's generally the way it works, but if the list is that out of date, why not just tell me what's available? Better still, rewrite the list.

The interior is pretty, in a standard-Mexican sort of way--bright oranges and yellows, colorful posters, tile floors throughout--nothing, in other words, to indicate that there's anything special about the place. But there is.

Adobo Grill 3 stars (out of four)

Four years ago, I had one of the worst experiences of my dining career at Adobo Grill, a nightmare for all concerned, when the kitchen was backed up, parties with reservations were being seated an hour or more late and a hostess was blithely giving out 15-minute wait estimates to anyone who asked. I think the food was OK, but it's tough to evaluate dishes when you can't stop grinding your teeth.

You'd think I'd write off a joint like that, and I probably would have had it not been owned by Paul LoDuca, a restaurateur whose work I admire (I very much like his Italian restaurant, Vinci, and I thought his now-shuttered Trattoria Parma was a great addition to River North). So I dropped by from time to time. The restaurant improved significantly, I thought, with Nieto at the helm a couple of years ago, and today, it's better still.

Adobo Grill has now achieved its considerable promise. Chef Freddy Sanchez is producing some of the best Mexican cooking in town, and a greatly improved front-room staff is smoothly professional and disarmingly friendly.

The must-have appetizer is the cevichazo, a four-variety ceviche assortment. Included are tuna with a sweet-hot tamarind salsa, calamari with poblano-tomato salsa, shrimp with pico de gallo and scallops in citrus juice and serrano pepper. It's a nice range of textures and flavors, and I could have a satisfying light dinner with this and one of Adobo's stellar fresh-lime margaritas.

I'd also make room for the appetizer of pork ribs, which are marinated in achiote before grilling; the meat puts up just enough fight before releasing from the bone, the meat has just a hint of spice to it and I love the soupy beans-and-onions mix served on the side.

The menu includes such fine entrees as the tasty but sloppy enchiladas in red mole, and a delicious tilapia, which took well to a lively marinade of guajillo and ancho peppers. But pay careful attention to the day's features, printed at the base of the menu. Here you'll find treats such as Tampiqueno-style venison medallions, basted with a black Oaxacan mole and served with a coarse tomato salsa, and a pan-seared halibut (a bit oversalted), paired with a cheese enchilada and cilantro rice.

A top layer of sour cream gives extra tang to the chocolate cheesecake, which heads a list of desserts that include eggy flan, pineapple upside-down cake and thin crepas rolled with plantains and crowned with cajeta, a goat-milk caramel.

Bartender Juan Guzman also has the title of tequila sommelier; tequila tastings are always available, and once a month Guzman oversees a tequila dinner (the next one's June 24). There's a modestly priced, food-friendly wine list as well, though it's hard to look past the tequilas and first-rate margaritas.

Though the front room is running better than ever, getting a table at Adobo has not gotten much easier. The place fills up by 6:30 p.m. even midweek, so plan your visits accordingly.

Phil Vettel is the Chicago Tribune restaurant critic. Originally published May 28, 2004.

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