A great discovery for dessert
 

While I was in Chicago this past weekend, I found a dessert bar downtown on W. Kinzie called "Sugar". The atmosphere alone was worth the visit, but the dessert was even better. The dessert menu was several pages long with a wide ranging selection. The prices were around $15 for the desserts but worth it. The only downsides were the music volume and the dimness from the lighting made it difficult to read the menu. Be prepared to go late - reservations are from 5p-2a - and the earliest we could get in was 12:30 am.

Two reviews of Sugar:

http://centerstage.net/restaurants/sugar.html

http://metromix.com/top/1,1419,M-Met...-18635,00.html

Reviews make it sound like a fun place to go.

Willie... have you been yet?

This is still on my wanna try list... assuming they are still open. I might try to drag Matt there Thanksgiving weekend.

No, my wife is dairy free so that would (I'm assuming) limit her participation.

I'm hoping to have a FT get together here sometime.

If you are coming in the weekend before Thanksgiving, let me know I'd love to join you guys. We'll be in Ireland over the actual Thanksgiving time frame.

Looks like I will miss you then... I arrive in the crush of the holiday throng on Wednesday evening early and depart Sunday evening with same said mad crowd.

Sugar – a dessert bar – Chicago

Sugar is a dessert bar, a supposed cool, hipster hangout place.

We had finished our sushi at Sushi Samba and felt like dessert. Sugar is only a few blocks away so we walked.

We arrived at 7pm on a Saturday night, so it was not crowded. We were greeted by the eye candy hostess and seated at a booth. She left us with the comment, “you have the booth for 1 ½ hours, after which it is reserved”

Wife made the comment that it is a good thing the lights are low as if you were to turn them up the place would look like someone’s badly designed basement. A true comment.
But hey, we were there for the dessert, which I believe is created by a pastry chef who used to be with Charlie Trotter’s.

The menu is a fun play on words with desserts such as the desserts we had of Banana Karenina and Et Tu Frute? Or such as Pearadise Lost, The Interpretation of Creams, MacDeath By Chocolate.

Nice booze selection.

Under each dessert listed are suggested drinks. Wife choose champagne, I choose a (don’t have the whole name) Don PX which tasted like a raisin liquor. This was delicious, I could have just drank this as my dessert.

Wife is dairy free and hence she choose a fruit based dessert, she did have it w/o the caramel/dairy topping that was supposed to come with it, so I don’t think her dish would be a fair review.

That’s fine, onto my stellar dessert.

Chocolate chewy meringue (sp?) with carmelized banana slices, with carmelized banana pudding, surrounded by a hot fudge that was more dark chocolate taste than milk chocolate. All slightly warm. WOW WOW WOW. Incredible.

Sugar is sure a nice place to end the dining portion of one’s evening. I usually don’t have a sweet tooth, but after my great dessert, I’ll be back.

Sugar – A dessert bar
108 W. Kinzie (just west of Clark)
Chicago,
312.822.9999

Okay...

I just hung on every one of your words thinking "please don't pan the place or I'll never be able to try it". What a relief... I got the Sweet Willie Seal of Approval. http://www.flyertalk.com/dining/ftdi...um/biggrin.gif

Seriously... I've been wondering when you were gonna hit this place. Now I can gladly follow.

I finally made it into Sugar last weekend. It was fun... very "hyper" atmosphere, delicious desserts, a huge selection of cocktails and after-dinner drinks.

Our party of four each tried a different dessert. I tried the Marquis de Sucre. It was a sampling of several different Sugar desserts on a candy (lollipop-like) plate. Another friend had something that looked to be several different mini ice cream sandwiches. A third had the creme brulee dish. I don't remember what the fourth had, but it was good too.

The prices are a bit steeper than normal desserts, but the portions are large. I think that two folks could go in there and share a dessert (unless the dessert was that evening's main course). None of us finished what we had in front of us.

Service was a bit slow... drinks were empty at points for 5 to 10 minutes before replacements were produced. Nonetheless, the food was good.

I think that I will do the dessert tasting at Tru before I go back to Sugar again, but it is definitely worth at least one visit!

make your dining experience cheaper, just saw that discount certs for Sugar were available at http://www.restaurant.com