First Look: Sink | Swim

By Staff in Food on May 27, 2015 3:00PM

(Photo by Carrie Laski)

Sink | Swim, the latest project from the team that brought you Scofflaw, seeks to bring seafood and nautical charm to the growing Logan Square restaurant scene. Located around the corner from Scofflaw, and with similarly thoughtful decor, Sink | Swim is what happens when Moby Dick meets Instagram.

Caviar on brioche with onion caramel, smoked roe and cured egg (Photo by Carrie Laski)

The menu is seafood-focused with around eighteen different small plates, about six slightly larger plates and a creative series of oysters. Much of the seafood is in the form of what appears to be a cross between tea sandwiches, the toast craze from California and Scandinavian open face sandwiches like toast skagen.

Monkfish liver torchon, pickled grapes, onion soubise, broiche (photo by Melissa McEwen)

Two of the sandwiches that we ordered started with fluffy buttery brioche, one was topped with caviar, onion caramel and cured egg and the other featured circles of monkfish liver torchon with pickled grapes and a savory onion sauce known as a soubise. Following that we had a shrimp toast topped with 'Nduja (soft spicy salumi), radish, avocado and "msg aioli." Yes, you read that right. What was once a source of anxiety has now become something to brag about, thanks to impassioned defenses from food figures like David Chang.

Garlic panisse, pecorino, lemon, fines herbes (Photo by Carrie Laski)

But the most memorable of the toast-like dishes we ate was actually not any of these, but rather the panisse, a delicious chickpea flour snack with garlic, lemon, cheese and herbs. It has a crispy perfectly fried outside and a warm garlic-bread like interior.

Seaweed potatoes, pecorino, seaweed butter (photo by Carrie LaskI)

While seafood might be the selling point of Sink | Swim, it's actually some of the vegetable dishes that are the most interesting and impressive. The seaweed potatoes taste a hell of a lot better than you'd expect, with the seaweed just adding a briny funky finish to perfectly-roasted potatoes lolling pleasantly in butter and topped with billows of pecorino. The parsnips were excellently smoked and nestled in fabulously rich and flavorful squid ink puree.

Charred broccoli, furikake, whey soubise, pecorino (photo by Carrie Laski)

A miss for Melissa was the broccoli, as she found the whey soubise tasted a bit like a wet dog, but Carrie enjoyed the funkiness of the whey and thought that, in small amounts, it livened up the otherwise standard charred broccoli.

Gjetost custard, chocolate, pretzel, hazelnut, whoppers, and orange. Orange Julius sorbet. (Photo by Melissa McEwen)

The dessert menu here is short, but intriguing. Have you ever had gjetost? It's a Norwegian "cheese" made by caramelizing whey, and luckily a lot less polarizing than the whey on the broccoli, as its sweet savory character works really well as a custard with chocolate, pretzel, hazelnut, whoppers and orange. The rotating sorbet flavor of the evening, which was orange julius topped with a cookie crumble, proved to be an excellent creamy yet refreshing finish to the meal.

Compared to Scofflaw, Sink | Swim is far more food-centric, but its drink program itself is as formidable as a British Royal Navy fighting sail. The range of spirits is wide and has the token local spirits as well as the trendy global ones. Some highlights are the Novasalus amaro, a pine-dominated digestif new to the Chicago market which joins CH Distillery's aquavit, lemon, Peychaud's bitters, strawberry soda and cucumber in Pellet Gun #1.

Wine drinkers will have no trouble here, as the selection is vast with whites, reds, roses and sparklings sourced from different locations around the globe and presented at varying price points. The beer list is comparably short but well-suited to the seafood-heavy menu.

Points for the name too, a pleasant break from the ubiquitous ampersand. While the place might seem trendy to the point of twee, luckily the food and drink will even please those without an Instragram account.

By Carrie Laski and Melissa McEwen