Overhaul Still Makes Seafood a Catch

The menu at changes daily, but no matter what’s on it, you can count on the dish being good. The restaurant consistently offers quality food and drinks, making it an excellent place for a special meal.

Located in Westfield Old Orchard Mall, the Skokie branch of the restaurant chain has a classic feel, filled with dark wood furniture and stained glass barriers. The booths are framed with green curtains, providing a particularly intimate dining experience. Walls are lined with old-fashioned-looking pictures with fish and fishing themes, and small lamps on the tables provide mellow lighting.

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Our server was extremely exuberant, gushing about her favorites on the menu. If we asked about something she wasn’t familiar with, she just urged us to be adventurous and try it.

My boyfriend and I have been to McCormick & Schmick’s a few times, either as a nice date or taking advantage of the restaurant's great happy hour specials. But we hadn’t been back in more than a year and found the menu to be quite different, with even classics like the calamari getting an overhaul.

Deciding to focus on trying the new offerings, we started with the Georgia Manhattan and Spicy Margatini (both $9.95) from the restaurant’s seasonal cocktail menu. The margatini didn’t live up to its name, despite the slice of floating jalapeno pepper. The kick was overwhelmed by the sweetness of the agave nectar, though the blend still produced a pleasant and novel taste. The Manhattan was the superior drink, taking its name from a bit of peach schnapps that was nicely tempered the whiskey to make for a very smooth sipper.

Our server said her favorite appetizer was the Portobello mushroom bruschetta ($6.95), and we loved it as well. The slices of crisp toasted bread are loaded with a big piece of mushroom, excellent goat cheese, balsamic vinegar and so many diced tomatoes they kept falling off when we took a bite.

Continuing our exploration of the menu, we ordered a bowl of Maine lobster bisque ($10.50) to share and half-dozen raw oysters ($16.95). The bisque is beautifully presented, with the server bringing out a bowl showing the large amount of lobster claw in the soup before pouring over the rich and creamy broth. The seafood was excellent and the croutons in the soup held in the flavor and helped make it more substantive.

The oysters were also artistically presented on a tray of ice with one cup of cocktail sauce topped with horseradish and another with red wine mignonette. We went with two oysters--each from Canada, Virginia and Washington--that were all large, fresh and tasted particularly good with the cocktail sauce.

Our entrees arrived while we were still working on the oysters, so we finished slurping and dug in. My boyfriend had ordered the chef’s recommendation for the day, the wild salmon sauté ($24.95) and I went with another recommendation from our server and tried the rockfish ($21.95). After exchanging a few bites we found that we each preferred our own dish, though acknowledged that both were excellent.

The salmon is served in a creamy but not too rich garlic sauce. It’s given a bit of crunch from the presence of hazelnuts and carrots while the wild mushrooms made the meal more savory. The light and flaky rockfish rests atop a large bed of noodles, broccoli, edamame, yellow squash and zucchini soaked in a flavorful miso broth.

After having plenty of starters, both of us wound up taking much of our meals to go. We left a little room to split a slice of key lime pie ($6.95), one item that has remained part of the restaurant’s menu for as long as I’ve been a customer. It’s as delicious as always, with tart filling, a crisp graham cracker crust and plenty of light whipped cream.

McCormick & Schmick’s isn’t cheap, but if what you’re looking for is to treat yourself or someone special to an excellent meal, it’s sure to be money well spent.