Margaret Wappler

Sparse and crisply decorated, Spruce is a good place to go when you want a fancy meal but don't want to navigate the trenches of nouveau cuisine. Though the menu reads like Beat-penned erotic food-poetry, when the dinner comes, it's simple and staggeringly good in most cases. Like all the nouveau kids these days, Spruce changes their menu daily, but if they offer any of the following things, get them: a watercress salad with a slab of aged goat cheese, spiked with almonds, fruit and a soft, fluid vinaigrette dressing; a warm bowl of delicate sweet corn soup pooled around a spoonful of crab salad; and, finally, a desert that blew my mind--an almond crepe wrapped around a luscious slice of warmed marscapone cheese cake and fresh raspberries. Hmm, would I rather have daily massages or the almond dessert? A toss-up. An Arctic char dish, my first introduction to this fish in the trout family, was impressive enough, but I think my companion lucked out with his lamb tenderloin, spiced gently spiced with a rosemary-huckleberry blend.

238 East Ontario, (312)642-3757. Mon-Thu 5:30-10pm, Fri-Sat 5:30-11pm, Sun 5-9pm. $$$/All major CCs. (2000-09-07)

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