Analogue | Logan Square, Chicago
No sign on the door: Check. Pitch-black interior with flickering candles, DJ booth and scraggly bearded servers: Check, check, check, check.
Awesome Cajun food: Wait, what?
Yup, we must be at Analogue, the hip new cocktail bar in Logan Square.
With industry vets Henry Prendergast and Robert Haynes (formerly of the Violet Hour) behind the bar, it would be news if the cocktails weren't perfect. Drinks like the Good Morning, Captain ($10)–a whole egg, Jamaican rum and the funk of blackstrap molasses–make you sit up and pay attention.
Purl #1 (blackberry, anise and gentian) at Analogue.
If there's anything surprising at the bar, it's a series of drinks called "purls" ($7). The English libation combines beer with serious, lingering bitters–like, you can still taste them five minutes later. Fans of the blackest coffee and darkest chocolate, this is the drink for you.
Analogue's real shocker comes when you open chef Alfredo Nogueira's Cajun-inspired menu. Squint at it in the darkened room, and you'll discover the mirliton, a vegetable common to Cajun cooking. Nogueira stuffs it with smoked mushrooms and bakes it into something that tastes like a cucumber and a plantain had a baby ($5).
A Scotch egg guaranteed to set your tongue aflame comes wrapped in Boudin and topped with spicy mustard and pickled peppers ($7).
If you use both hands (and you should), you can probably just fit the perfect buttermilk fried chicken sandwich ($11), topped with Louisiana hot sauce and homemade pickles, into your mouth. Even in the dark.