Evanston’s proximity to Chicago provides Northwestern students countless gastronomic opportunities. When it comes to drinking, though, students resort to dorm room margaritas or what’s on tap at The Keg. For those wary of ice tray Jell-O shots, Nightclub & Bar magazine’s 2010 Cocktail Lounge of the Year is right in Northwestern’s backyard. Only a few blocks north of the Red Line’s Chicago stop, The Drawing Room at Le Passage (937 North Rush Street) makes their own tonic and imports liqueurs.
It’s easy to miss The Drawing Room, a chic, subterranean lounge in the heart of Chicago’s Gold Coast. Only the winterized attendant loitering at the ready distinguishes the Drawing Room’s entrance, a taupe door dwarfed by Urban Outfitter’s frosted panes and the street front of another restaurant, Le Colonial. Inside, a library of alcohol awaits credit card check-out.
“We approach cocktails the same way a chef would approach food in the kitchen — fresh ingredients, seasonal ingredients,” says Chief Mixologist Charles Joly, differentiating himself from the workaday bartender.
At the bar or tableside, The Drawing Room’s trained mixologists educate patrons on the arcane history and ingredients swishing about in their drinks. General Manager Erik Nelson’s favorite cocktail is The Last Word, “a cocktail that highlights a little bit of Green Chartreuse, which is a tremendously old liqueur — dates back to 1605 and is made outside of Grenoble, France by Carthusian monks.”
The 55-person lounge serves contemporary American cuisine such as Bacon2, braised pork belly wrapped in bacon, served in a smoked eggplant puree with verjus and spiced pecans.
“I start off the morning with a little Motown action and finish up with some hip-hop,” says sous-chef Boo Kim of his long shifts ministering over the kitchen. Kim arrived at 2 p.m. Saturday to prepare ingredients for The Drawing Room’s 6 p.m. opening.
With jazz-lite-electro playing constantly in the background, music keeps conversations private and paves over pothole silences. Patrons of the lounge are primarily young, like the management — Nelson is 29, Joly is 33 and sous-chef Boo Kim recently attained his culinary degree from Kendall College.
The Le Passage Nightclub abuts the lounge through a set of glass doors in the back. The club draws clientele from the entire Chicagoland area, and celebrities such as former Miami Dolphins quarterback Dan Marino and Vanilla Ice have stopped by in the past year.
“He wasn’t really a guest here at the Drawing Room,” says Nelson of Vanilla Ice. “He was over at the nightclub and meandered through and tugged on the bottle of Jägermeister he was walking around with. That was classy.”
The Drawing Room’s main focus, however, is on its drinks and the cocktail lounge’s patrons, including Chicago lawyer Richard Beckmann, appreciate that: “It’s nice to come somewhere where they take it seriously.”
Judith Chetrit contributed reporting.