Gibsons Bar & Steakhouse

There are restaurants you visit and restaurants you return to. Gibsons Bar & Steakhouse is, after one quiet Sunday in Chicago, very much the second kind.

The room is exactly what you want it to be: Rush Street power-lunch energy from open to close. We were seated near the back, given menus we hardly needed, and brought a small bowl of olives without being asked.

We started with bone marrow with a small salad of capers and parsley, which set the tone — generous, unfussy, and confident enough not to crowd what was coming. With it we ordered an Argentine malbec the waiter chose for me, and were glad of both.

Then the main event: chicago cut bone-in ribeye, the dish that puts Gibsons Bar & Steakhouse on every short list. There was a thumb of butter melting into the cross-hatch, and a single sprig of thyme on top, and not one thing more. The signature touch — the Gibsons cut, eight inches tall — is not a gimmick; it is the reason to come.

For sides we asked for skin-on fries, twice-fried and grilled radicchio with anchovy butter. Both arrived hot, both arrived early, both were exactly large enough to overdo it. We overdid it.

Dessert was crème brûlée with a proper glass crust, mostly because the waiter raised an eyebrow when we hesitated. He was right to.

I paid the bill, walked out into the Chicago evening, and put the address back into the notebook with a star next to it.