Restaurant News: Charlatan's Late Night Menu, Heisler's New Taverns On Division, Taco In A Bag

By Melissa McEwen in Food on Jan 29, 2015 7:00PM

"Tonight, after 10pm, come take a peek at our late night menu. Tonight's daily feature is the charlatan burger. It's a Slagel farms beef double burger with mindoro blue cheese, pan fried mortadella, arugula, and rosemary aioli on a house made brioche bun" - from Instagram

Charlatan is launching a tantalizing-sounding late night menu on Feb. 8, but they are previewing it this week. It will feature items like pig ear chicharron with Calabrian chile pistou, parsley and pecorino, as well as a different special every night of the week like an Italian-style ramen on Tuesday nights and lemon ricotta pancakes on Sunday nights. The menu will run Friday and Saturday 11 p.m. - 12:45 a.m. and 10 p.m. - 12:45 a.m. Sunday through Thursday. They also just released their late winter menu.

Smallbar Division fled the area due to enroaching douchedom. But Matt Eisler and Kevin Heisner of Heisler Hospitality (Trenchermen, Nightwood, Revel Room and Sportsman's Club) told Crain’s they want to help prevent that stretch of Division from becoming a bro zone and plan to open two taverns in that area. The Smallbar space will become Pub Royale, which will serve Anglo-Indian style food starting mid March. They’ll also open Queen Mary, a “maritime-themed” cocktail bar. But are these taverns hipster enough to cause an allergic reaction among douches? That remains to be seen.

"Food Court Wars" winner Taco In A Bag used to be limited to a mall in the burbs, but DNAinfo reports it will come to Lincoln Square. The “Tacos” consist of El Milagro tortilla chips in a bag topped with things like braised pork and chorizo gravy, which sounds like nachos. They’ll also have doughnut hole parfaits.