What Are You Doing New Year's Eve?

No plans yet for bringing in the new year?  Come spend a casually elegant New Year's evening with La Sirena Clandestina and our exceptional food, drink and service. While our regular menu will be available all night, John Manion’s special prix fixe menu (below) provides an elevated experience for those who like to take the guesswork out of ordering.

La Sirena Clandestina New Years Eve Menu 2014

    broiled 1871 oyster | lime and cachaça, malagueta hollandaise, tobbikko

    First Course

    bolinho de bacalhau | sauce grabiche, caviar

    Second Course

    seared scallops | piri piri pork shoulder

    Third Course

    spiny lobster tail baiano | tomatoes, chiles, coconut milk, heart of palm, dende, coconut-cachaça la bomba rice, cashews

    Dessert

graham cracker rabanada | fernet-menta chocolate mousse, meringue

Reservations can be made here. 

    *Prix fixe menu is $80, (does not include tax or gratuity).  Our regular menu is available all evening.

Los Inmortales de Chicago: Photo Essay

We’ve tried to communicate the magic that is a La Sirena Clandestina/Los Inmortales de Chicago night through words, but that’s a poor imitation of what it's truly like. Perhaps some photos will help put into perspective what a Los Inmortales night really feels like, when even our captain is moved to song, so browse the gallery and make plans to be here for their next appearance. 

Open Market: Friday, December 6

If you’ve ever wanted to take a little bit of La Sirena Clandestina home with you, we’ll be giving you the opportunity on Friday, December 6 when we vend our wares at a new food-focused pop-up market. From the mastermind that is Tasting Table’s Heather Sperling, Open Market will feature only the finest (hey, they invited us) food purveyors this city has to offer.

Chicago Magazine called Friday’s portion of the market — featuring food stalls from yours truly, Mott Street, The Bristol, Yusho, Travelle, Parson’s Chicken & Fish, Smalls, Pecking Order, Blackbird, Big Jones, Floriole Cafe & Bakery, and Acadia — “what foodies have always wished Taste of Chicago would be like.”

We’ll be hawking hot sauces or alfajores or something equally delicious and ‘take-home-able,’ so you can skip that Black Friday doorbuster, because the last thing we’d want is for you to get trampled when you can scoop unique and awesome holiday gifts in a much more civilized atmosphere.

Open Market

Block 37

108 N. State Street

Friday, December 6, 2013

6*-9pm

*get in a whole hour early when you purchase a VIP ticket!

Get Your Party On

We’re here to tell you that you don’t have to put up with tired buffet lines and tepid chafing dishes at your holiday party this year. Instead, you could be enjoying the cornucopia of Mermaid Shack favorites above. 

This mermaid shack stays cozy all winter, thanks in part to Alice’s arrangements, and you can roll right through that initial awkwardness of co-worker socialization pretty quickly once you’ve got one of Justin Anderson’s daiquiris in hand. Play the big shot and impress your coworkers with the story behind the Mermaid on our Morgan Street facade.

We’ve packaged together some of our most popular dishes into perfect party fare, so you can leave the details to us if you’d like. In our opinion, no menu would be complete without our signature empanadas or Feijoada Black Beans and Rice, but we’re into customization, so we encourage you to pick the dishes that truly float your boat, like our Whole Fried Fish.

It’s the kind of latin/local party that will make your boss look the other way when you sneak in around lunchtime the next day.

Our Three Cheese Panini

Humans weren’t born yesterday. In fact, we’ve been on this planet cooking cheese and bread for a long time. We’re pretty sure the moment fire was invented, a line formed immediately for everyone’s cheese to be toasted. But it wasn’t until the 20th century when the U.S. really got down to business in the cooked bread and cheese game, and the ubiquitous Grilled Cheese as we know it was born.

Like many of our greatest inventions, the Grilled Cheese arose out of necessity. In the 1920s, sliced bread and American cheese were relatively inexpensive and some genius decided to slap some butter on the bottom of the bread, layer the top with cheese, and cook the daylights out of it.

When the Great Depression hit the country in the 1930s, the Grilled Cheese was renamed the Cheese Dream — PR appears to have been a thriving business, even then — probably because giving something a fancy name makes it more than acceptable to serve to guests, without doing too much damage to one’s wallet. And moreover, given the choice between the American Dream and the Cheese Dream, which would you choose? We rest our case.

We’ve got a modern, Latin-local Cheese Dream on our lunch menu. You may know it by a slightly less aspirational moniker: the Three Cheese Panini. It’s comfort food at its finest, with chihuahua, cotija and cheddar melted and perfectly gooey, plus a little avocado (almost everything is better with a little avocado). Pickled fresnos and salsa verde add the La Sirena Clandestina bite that you’ve come to expect from this Mermaid Shack.

Busy As Beavers!

Our pals over at Busy Beaver Button featured our Mermaid Shack heroine, the Bardot Mermaid, on their blog this week. Thanks, guys! We're looking forward to many more years of jean-jacket-decorating with you.

When John Manion of the now year-old La Sirena Clandestina approached us about making buttons last October, we had no idea just how familiar the restaurant’s mermaid image would become around the Busy Beaver office. Though the name translates as “the hidden mermaid,” the restaurant’s iconic siren is unmistakable now that it’s been emblazoned on more than 7000 buttons over the past year. 

As John, La Sirena’s chef and owner, described, “We started our Busy Beaver partnership with an image of mermaid-ed Brigitte Bardot that had become something of a figurehead for La Sirena Clandestina. Bardot visited Buzios, an obscure fishing village near Rio de Janeiro, with her Brazilian boyfriend in the 1960’s and her trip is a time stamp on a very cool scene, one we used as a template for the vibe of La Sirena Clandestina.”  

The mermaid image was wheat-pasted all over the neighborhood in anticipation of the restaurant’s opening and John said, “It was logical that we continued with the trend for our first run of buttons, which we started handing out immediately. We’ve switched up color palettes with the seasons, but we’ve stuck with our original Bardot Mermaid.”  

The mermaid was first printed on our fall paper special colors last fall– a trio of paper colors in bronze, gold and rusty orange. John also experimented with our metallic effect, utilizing a silver background as well as an inverted image with a photo-negative look and one batch with a metallic ocean-blue background. The mermaid has recently been featured on a fluorescent pink background, a fun play on the ultra-feminine imagery.  

As La Sirena Clandestina moves into its second year, their buttons will be updated to match the restaurant’s continuing evolution. Though John assured us that the Bardot mermaid isn’t gone completely (“We’ll do some limited edition runs at some point.”), the new buttons, designed by local firm Nitewerk, will feature an image that “stays true to our original inspiration for the restaurant, but is also reflective of how we’ve changed and grown.” We’ll be sure to share the new buttons that will, no doubt, be another iconic image for La Sirena.

Hot As Hell.

Photo by John Manion / @juanmanjuan

We’re going to keep this cozy beach shack warm through a Chicago winter, which is no small potatoes. We’re generating heat in the form of the mountain of hot sauces John’s been making and stockpiling over the past few weeks. 

You see, we work with a number of local farmers and vendors in order to keep our menu full of the freshest and tastiest products out there. One partnership we’ve come to rely on is with Peter Klein at Seedling Farm in Michigan. Once John learned that Peter planted heirloom pepper seeds in the Spring, he bought the lot. No, really. All of them. Seriously, don’t ever give this guy a blank check when he’s within earshot of a farmer.

The weather that brought this crop to fruition was, in scientific terms, “conducive to all his peppers ending up hot as hell.” (If you’d prefer a layman’s translation: the peppers are really hot!)

We’re about halfway through the space in one of our coolers and there’s no end in sight. John has plans for every variety of seed he bought, and there’s a bunch: serrano, red jalapeno, habanero, scotch bonnet, piri-piri, havasu, limo amarillo and verde, aji amarillo and rojo. If you are able to describe or recognize all of those varieties of pepper: Congratulations, you are officially a pepper savant!

Milanesa, Mermaid Shack Style

If we were to think of one word to describe John Manion, our ship’s captain, it certainly wouldn’t be grandmotherly. Except, that is exactly what John was aiming for when he created La Sirena Clandestina’s Milanesa, now residing quite happily on our lunch menu in sandwich form, though we dress it up a little for the dinner version when it’s accompanied by a wild mushroom ragu and fried egg.

So why does John want to cook like a grandma? Because, as he says, "everyone's grandma made me a Milanesa in Argentina...And of course everyone's grandmas was the best."

Milanesa is a time-honored Argentine tradition, dating back more than a hundred years when the Italian diaspora made their way down to South America. In the vein of ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,’ we stick to the traditional Milanesa preparation. Starting with the freshest pork loin available, we dip that bad boy in an egg wash, dredge in flour and seasoned bread crumbs and fry it to crisp perfection. Just like grandma used to make!

Proper Black Beans

Back in La Sirena Clandestina’s early days, black beans — a Brazilian staple — were on the opening menu in the form of a vegan black bean dish. And it was tasty enough to pass John’s lofty standards, so on the menu it stayed. Then John collaborated on a dinner with Rob Levitt of The Butcher & Larder and made his OG, pre-LSC black beans: he started with pork (in the form of renderings), made a pork stock (by adding onions, garlic, melegueta peppers and such), then emulsified the pork into the beans. He took a little taste and guess what? They were perfect.

Remembering the vegan black beans on La Sirena Clandestina’s menu, John shook his head. He looked in the mirror and didn’t recognize the man he’d become — a man that would serve vegan black beans. Because [insert higher power of your choice] made pork and beans to go together. Forever. It’s pure coincidence that we say ‘like peanut butter and jelly’ instead of ‘like pork and beans’.

The vegan black bean dish was immediately stricken from the menu, and John began drafting an apology letter to his staff. La Sirena Clandestina is not a restaurant with a bacon agenda, but John insists that porkless black beans is simply “counterintuitive” and he was ashamed that he’d gone so far off course as to forget that.

So that’s what you get at the Mermaid Shack these days: proper black beans. And Feijoda Black Beans & Rice is one of the best dishes on the menu, though “only” a side dish.  And our solemn promise to you (from that fateful collaborative dinner and beyond): you’ll never see a porkless black bean dish on our menu again.

Manifesto, Sort Of

Back when La Sirena Clandestina was just slightly more than a twinkle in our eye, we did a pop up at what was then Dodo and soon to be this mermaid shack. Our patron saint Frank Orrall (a.k.a. "the dandy bitch"), whom we’ve certainly mentioned before, composed the following ode as an announcement of our pop up plans.

That weekend has come and gone, but the lines remain as close to a manifesto as we’ll ever have, because it speaks to what we strive to provide for each and every customer that walks through our doors. And we hope it encapsulates why you all just keep coming back for more. Read on for entertainment, inspiration and sublime phrasing:

Expect to be in the company of

Dames / Proper Broads with good taste,

& reasonably honorable Gentleman Scoundrels...

All in the trusted hands of our beloved and noble sea captain,

who's true helm is the kitchen...

plotting a culinary course for Brazil, Argentina and uncharted waters beyond...

There will be sit down dinner, music, drinks and loud conversation.

The night will most likely be filled with rough

and tumble restaurant folks...

So you know it will be lusty / gutsy and good.

There will be bold flavors and

peoples teeth will be wine stained.

It will be delicious but it may not end pretty for those

with a weak constitution and a flabby liver :):)

if things go right... some unlucky guests

will go home missing a shoe... or a belt loop or two...

but their dreams will be rich and adventuresome.

        - Frank Orrall (AKA Dandy Jack Quimby)

Sharing Is Caring

We’re big on sharing around here. We ask that you share our cozy and intimate space with other diners, tell you that sharing one (or two) bottles of wine is the perfect way to dive into our wine program, and offer a Whole Fish that’s — you guessed it — made to share.

All of the above is a nice way of saying that “sharing is caring,” which we stand so proudly behind that we’re ready to go public with even more items meant to be shared with your nearest and dearest. In the interest of ‘You Heard It Here First’ may we present two items that have made their way past the arduous test kitchen of Chef John Manion:

Moqueca "Super Deluxe"  

Christening this dish the “Super Deluxe” is an homage to our patron saint Frank Orrall (a.k.a. "the dandy bitch"), because it’s a phrase he uses to describe something truly outstanding. What you’re really ordering here is a smorgasbord of awesome (attention nitpickers: this is not a classic Scandinavian smorgasbord, we’re simply using an expression): mussels, head on prawns, fish and lobster. This is served up family style via a large Le Cruset dutch oven with cilantro risotto and all the accoutrements.  Once the lid comes off, the Super Deluxe gets gussied up with lime juice, cachaca, cashews, dende oil, cilantro and green onions.  

Parillada

We’ll also deliver this dish to your table if you request the "plate-o’-meat" or "shit just got meat-y.”  The detailed preparation changes from day to day, but the Parillada will always be grilled meats — think beef short ribs, hangar, sweetbreads — served family style with chimichurri, serrano salsa, salsa criolla, malagueta hot sauce, house giardiniera, black beans, rice and french fried potatoes.

These special dishes are not on our menu just yet, but they are available upon request. So, next time you’re in, go ahead and order off the menu (like the big shot that you are).

20,000 Empanadas Above the Sea

The empanada making machine that is John Manion and his venerable kitchen crew are about to dough’l out their 20,000th incarnation of this savory pastry. To celebrate this momentous occasion, we put together a list of empanadas-past. Is it just us or is it getting hungry in here?

Chili Cheese Dog

Pork Bolognese

Bean Burrito

Blue Cheese & Leek

Eggplant Parmesan

Chicken Xim Xim

Picadillo

Mushroom Stroganoff

Corn, Chanterelles & Sweet Pepper

Romesco (Goat cheese, peppers, and almonds)

We’ve mentioned how we’re incapable of predicting upcoming filling varieties because of John’s tendency to make it up as he goes along buy whatever looks great at the morning market. But just look at that list and tell us you wouldn’t be stoked to have any of those varieties appear on your plate.

Arrangements by Alice

We’re into fresh, local ingredients for our menu items. But you knew that already. We believe that fresh ingredients make better food and drink and the last thing we’d place on your table is a stale flower arrangement. Dining at La Sirena Clandestina should be a transportative experience, and we know that every element within the space contributes to that feeling.   

So, it serves to reason that our flowers are fresh and local, too. Alice Hanson, our arrangement specialist, sources her materials from Steve’s Flower Market, just a few blocks away from La Sirena Clandestina, on a weekly basis. Just like John’s Green City Market forays, Alice goes into her weekly arrangements with an open mind and picks her direction based upon what’s available.

When Alice joined La Sirena Clandestina’s opening team, she quickly found that most of us wear more than one hat. So in addition to serving up our finest dishes a few night a week, Alice stepped up to handle the flower arrangements and now holds herself responsible for the unique and beautiful botanic vignettes around the restaurant. It’s a responsibility that comes naturally to her: The first inclination of Alice’s green thumb came when she got her very first job—which, of course, was at a greenhouse. Her first day of work found her cutting peonies in a field; a powerful memory that informs her arrangements today. (In fact, if you ever find yourself at La Sirena during peony season, you’re sure to find one of the papery blossoms sharing your table.)

Things can get pretty hairy around the mermaid shack, but Alice’s arrangements strive to strike a balance between masculine and feminine. Though she’s usually drawn to traditional styles of floral arrangement (or, in her words: “Grandma Flowers”), every now and then she’ll stray from the classical to something a little weirder—because, as she says, “I don’t think nature has created an ugly flower. Give them the right backdrop and anything can be pretty.”

Alice’s reputation quickly outgrew her weekly arrangements for us, and she now offers floral catering for any occasion. Does your table need sprucing? Go ask Alice: alice@roserosedesigns.com.

Lunch Menu: El Che

El Che - roasted pork loin, ham, swiss, malagueta mayo, yellow mustard, pickles.

It seems like there’s always some controversy surrounding the origin of a particular cocktail or dish. And if there isn’t an argument about origin, then someone’s nose is out of joint about the correct preparation. What can we say? There’s a lot of passionate feelings about food and drink swirling around outside the mermaid shack—and inside, too—but we’d rather spend our time perfecting a drink or dish than grilling each other about it.

Famed sandwich historian, The Internet, spends a lot of time raising inflammatory questions: Was the Cuban Sandwich born in Cuba or did it evolve into its current state within the Cuban immigrant culture of 1880's Tampa? Is the addition of salami required (Tampa) or a sacrilege (Miami)?

Well, we don’t get into territorial disputes and we don’t get too involved with ‘historically accurate’ preparation. None of our offerings come with a detailed provenance. We’re interested in taste and authentic experiences. Which is why our take on the Cuban Sandwich, featured on our lunch and brunch menus, isn’t even called a Cuban Sandwich on our menu. It’s the El Che, named after you know who—whose Argentine birth didn’t stop him from being a real player in the Cuban Revolution.

Sally Sells...

Most of our customers never take the time to really case the joint when they decide to dine at La Sirena Clandestina, but we hope you take a thorough look at our Morgan Street exterior during your next visit, because one of our favorite pieces of art (that one up above) lives on a garage door at the side of our building. 

We were really into the the graffiti/street art we found on the garage when we moved in. “Sally sells crack cocaine by the sea shore” was scrawled in black spray paint across the battered metal door. It was a sentence that we felt really encapsulates what La Sirena Clandestina is about—minus, you know, the crack cocaine. The unexpected, the slightly weird, and (we hope) a touch of genius; that graffiti says it all. Instead of trying to paint over it, like another tenant might have done, we tried to get the building’s owner to let us bring it into the restaurant. 

Unfortunately, that wasn’t going to happen, but we still took pride in our defaced door. Until the inevitable happened: we got tagged and the new graffiti covered up what Sally was really up to. As far as we know, Sally is no longer selling crack cocaine by the sea shore. 

Michelle Marrocco, a talented artist and one of our servers, was inspired to paint over the tag in a way that once more spoke to what we’re about. Next time you visit us, take a detour around the corner for a dose of the unexpected.

A Daiquiri in GIFs

 

Now you can watch Justin serve you a million daiquiris and still drive home (not nearly as fun as actually drinking them, though). This GIF reminds us that making a daiquiri is easy, just not as easy as ordering one at the bar. If you’re not into easy, here’s the recipe for all you homebodies.

Lunch Is Served!

You already know we look good by candlelight, but now we’re giving you a chance to see us in full daylight. Our lunch service is in full swing and we’re ready for our closeups.

Now available only on our lunch menu, served Monday through Friday (11am-3pm): 

 Three Cheese Panini

 Grilled Chicken Thigh

 Grilled Shrimp Salad

Late lunch-er? Our bar menu is fully stocked with snacks and heartier items to tide you over from 3pm-5pm when our full dinner menu is available. Does your day start at 5pm? No judgement; We’ve got you. Our bar menu continues to please until 12:30am most nights.

Know nada 'bout empanadas?

The how-to-eat-an-empanada debate might not be as heated as say, the mayo versus Miracle Whip debate, or the splitting-the-Oreo-in-half versus eat-it-whole debate—but it’s certainly more hotly debated than whether it’s cool or not to eat your Snickers bar with a knife and fork. (It’s not cool, even if you’re in the UK.)

So how do you eat an empanada? Pick it up in your hands and go for it, or knife-and-fork it? The light, flaky pastry may feel fancy, but it’s classic street food. (Spanish or Portuguese street food, though? That is a heated debate. We stay out of it by making ours in the Buenos Aires style: baked, never fried.) That the fact it’s all tucked up in a handy pastry means it’s a food that’s meant to be eaten on-the-go. Cutlery enthusiasts: it’s true our menu gets its vibe from beachside vendors, but you just feel free to go ahead and use that silverware if that’s what makes you happy.

We don’t have a set empanada filling on our menu, because our chef/leader, John Manion, is more likely to buy whatever catches his fancy at the market that morning. (No joke—he once created a pop-up dinner menu that listed ‘Things That I Bought At The Market Today Empanadas’.) So, because John likes how food tastes (direct quote: "The older I get, the more simple I like things, the more direct I like flavors"), and we all know fresh food tastes best, we wrap those fresh ingredients in a flaky pastry and serve it up just for you. And really, at that point, do you even need to ask what our daily empanada filling is if you know that what’s inside the package is going to be the very best the market had to offer?

Need to see it to believe it? Just feel like watching John handle some dough? Check out this video that describes John’s empanada process:

Attention, Pitchfork-ers!

When you’re nearing death-level dehydration, your ears are craving conversation-level audio relief, and you’ve walked through your last hacky sack circle, you should make the quick trip over to La Sirena Clandestina for a restorative snack + daiquiri.

On foot? It’s less than a mile (only 2,000 steps) if haven’t danced your legs off while Solange was onstage. Here’s a handy graphic from our very advanced mapping program that’ll point you in the right direction: 

(Head East on Lake Street to Morgan and turn left)

Biking? Even better. I bet you didn’t know that we were located kitty-corner from the city’s finest bike parking lot. 

Cabbing it? Boy, you’re lazy. The good news is that all you have to do is tell your driver to take you straight to Fulton and Morgan.