Bar Berria Is a Casual Tasting Menu Pop-up From a Chicago Vet | Eater Chicago

"An underground, weekly tasting-menu pop-up in Logan Square that offers a single seating each night for about 24 to 30 people, modeled on intimate dinner-series concepts. With Bayer as the primary contact and the main face of the project, word has spread primarily via Instagram; as he puts it, “The personality you see on Instagram, in confirmation emails, in the food, and the dining room is all the same. I’m a human, you’re a human, and let’s communicate like that. I mean it’s not too long before the robots take over.” The goal is to keep things fun, casual, and highly hospitable: Bayer enjoys delivering that level of hospitality through the weekly pop-ups rather than opening a traditional restaurant. Menus are flexible and often described in only three words so he can adapt to what he gets from suppliers such as Nichols Farm, Mick Klüg, Seedling, and Down at the Farms, as well as produce from 32 raised-bed gardens where wine events are hosted. “I planted a lot of things that are looking towards the future, so I got a fig tree, a peach tree, pawpaws,” Bayer says. “We’ve got four chickens just for eggs, so when everyone was stressing out earlier this year, we were golden.” He hasn’t repeated a dish yet and treats farmers’ weekly availability lists as “maps for the upcoming menus,” combining known growers’ produce with house-ferments aged “12, 18, 24 months” because, in his words, “Knowing who grew the produce and combining it with something we fermented 12, 18, 24 months ago is what gets us jazzed,” and “Being able to do that and also share that story with guests is what makes us a little different.” The small team includes Emily Abram (who cooked with Bayer at the Heritage and later served as executive sous chef at Etta and Dusek’s), and front-of-house help from Avondale Bowl managing partner Jeff Wilson. Offerings include a six- to 10-course tasting menu, collaborations with guest chefs (including Andrew Lim of Perilla and Thomas Carlin of Dove’s Luncheonette and Galit), and family-style dinners featuring Slagel Farms chicken, Publican Quality Bread, salad, and seasonal vegetables. All meals are BYOB (Beaujolais is a go-to suggestion for the chicken dinners and tasting menu), and Bayer uses colorful confirmation-email suggestions such as “Bring a dope sherry to drink out of a cute ass glass,” or “Bring a Chenin that’s got cool acidity and a nice minerality.” A highlight outside the regular menu is a five-day roast-chicken process based on the Peking duck method—“we blanch, dry, glaze, season, dry again, and then roast them”—a technique Bayer learned from Boka Hospitality Group chef Chris Pandel while working at the Bristol; as Bayer says, “That’s how I rope everyone in,” and he adds wryly that guests won’t be getting the “as-seen-on-TV chicken” he prepared on Beat Bobby Flay. The project is framed as a creative, hospitality-first response to an industry he feels has shifted away from generosity: “Not to piss anyone [off], but the industry isn’t the same. This isn’t the industry that I fell in love with,” he explains. “It’s not the industry that I think people deserve. Profits and bottom lines replaced hospitality and generosity. Bar Berria started as a concept that puts hospitality, generosity, and creativity as the leading charge. Maybe we’re dumb for thinking that’s what people want. Stay tuned.”" - Sam Nelson