ENO in Chicago: A Good Idea Wasted (Chicago Area Restaurant Review 24)

Wine, cheese, and chocolate -- could it get any better? Yes, it could, if the restaurant was good. Unfortunately, Eno was not.

Neither of us was particularly hungry (believe it or not), so we decided to try Eno, a restaurant near downtown Chicago that only serves cheese, wine and chocolate, which sounded wonderful. The idea of the place is to order flights of cheese, wine and chocolate, which supposedly compliment each other. We started with three cheese flights (each cheese comes in a 1/2 ounce portion). We ordered the Roaming Goat cheese flight, a bleu cheese flight, and one of our creation. The goat cheese was pretty good, especially one that was a soft, whipped cheese, though not up to One Sixty Blue standards. The bleu cheese was all extremely strong and not particularly tasty. Our own flight consisted of four year gouda, Delice de Bourgogne and Bellwether Farms Pepato. We liked the Delice (a white whipped cheese). The gouda was hard and too strong. The Bellwether had a texture between the whipped and gouda and tasted fairly good. Overall, though, the cheese was disappointing.

But not nearly as disappointing as Eno's wine choices. We ordered two red flights -- a Spanish flight and a Bordeaux flight. Surprisingly, they appeared to be two of the only red flight choices. We expected more because red wine sets off both cheese and chocolate very well. In any event, our six small servings ranged from disgusting to only passable. The first Spanish red was described as "dirty," and that's exactly how it tasted, as in dirt from the ground. The only passable wines were one Syrah and one Merlot. But neither was anywhere near what could be called inspired or flavorful. This is particularly problematic, given that Eno advertises itself as a wine bar. It does have a large selection of non-flight wines by the bottle, but the server actually discouraged a choice from that list in favor of the flights.

The chocolate flights sounded much better than they tasted, though they were not bad. We would have preferred a choice of various types of chocolate dessert (such as brownies, cake, ice cream etc.), but only chocolate candies are offered. Lisa ordered the Dark Secrets flight and did like the one that had a touch of peppercorn, as odd as that combination sounds. Steve ordered the Chocolate Factory, because it had one vanilla-centered chocolate. However, whatever vanilla was there was either totally miniscule or overpowered by the chocolate. Either way, Steve was not a fan.

Also, one would expect a cheese, wine, and chocolate bar or restaurant to be fairly relaxed, tranquil and quiet, perhaps with comfortable seating, and an inviting decor, or at least a few candles. Instead, Eno struck us as extremely loud, with uncomfortable seats and crowded tables. We actually couldn't wait to leave.

The bathrooms, which are in the lobby of the InterContinental Hotel where Eno is located, were as nice as would be expected from a top level hotel bathroom. They were a bit out of the way, and the Men's Room was not quite spotless. Nonetheless, they were the highlight of the evening.

The total bill at Eno for three cheese flights, two wine flights, and two chocolate flights was $115. This seemed way too much to us, especially since we were still hungry, and ended up eating donuts at the Friday's down the street (which we won't rate, but which were better than anything we had at Eno).

Our ratings for Eno, 505 N. Michigan Ave., Chicago, Illlinois:

4 of 10 Cheese Boards and 2.5 of 3 Bathroom Brushes