Wellfleet At The Fish Guy Market | Chicago, IL
Go to The Fish Guy for seafood, stay for lunch at Wellfleet
Most seafood travels great distances on the path from water to table.
To cut one leg of the journey, head north on Elston Avenue and grab a seat at Wellfleet, the new café inside The Fish Guy Market.
Owner Bill Dugan has decades of seafood experience. (For a story to accompany your lunch, ask him about his friendship, as a teenage fishmonger in San Francisco, with James Beard.) He first began Wellfleet as a weekly supper club inside his 15-year-old Mayfair shop, which has long served a handful of on-the-go eats.
After a thorough renovation of the space, Wellfleet is now a fixture, open daily for lunch with four wooden tables and counter seating. New England-style clam chowder ($5) is a menu constant, as is the lobster roll ($20). For those in the mayo-laden camp, it's a standout.
A pizza oven produces pies topped with surf clams ($16), tomatoes and house-smoked mozzarella ($13), or house-cured salmon ($16) draped over a layer of crème fraîche and scattered with dill. Other menu items change with the catch; live Nantucket bay scallops, steamed in their shells, are a current offering ($14).
After lunch, mine the case packed with razor clams, tilefish, Chincoteague oysters and more for dinner inspiration.
Wellfleet at The Fish Guy Market, 4423 N. Elston Ave.; 773-283-7400 or fishguy.com