Telegraph Restaurant By Chef John Anderes

John Anderes spent five years cooking at Avec, and his inaugural menu at Telegraph is similarly littered with Mediterranean influences.

But Telegraph is not going to be Avec Northwest, he insists. His next menu, launching in about a month, will lean heavily toward Sicily and Greece, and then Austria and Northern Italy as the weather cools.

His ambitious, dexterous summer dishes bode well for the spaetzle to come. In a departure from wan greenmarket salads, baby cucumbers ($9) are treated like squash, sliced and grilled then tossed with red currants, Pleasant Ridge Reserve cheese and grilled onions pickled in a Riesling reduction. Frog legs ($11) lightly dressed with butter, lemon, cinnamon and smoked paprika rest on a dilled crème fraîche.

Orecchiette with kippered whitefish and cumin-marinated carrots ($16) is another unexpected success. Made with walleye and fava beans when the restaurant opened earlier this month, the bowl now holds whole and puréed green chickpeas, brown-butter-toasted breadcrumbs, carrot greens and house-smoked whitefish–a combination that's at once earthy, fresh and exciting.

And the daring by-the-glass wine offerings from sommelier Jeremy Quinn? Those merit a story of their own, another day.

Telegraph, 2601 N. Milwaukee Ave.; 773-292-9463 or telegraphwinebar.com