Supper Club Time

By Naperville Magazine
March 2024 View more Table for Two

By Phil Vettel

Geneva’s the Walrus Room specializes in comfort food

“The Walrus and the Carpenter” is a poem subject to multiple interpretations. Part of Lewis Carroll’s 1871 novel, Through the Looking Glass, the piece has been seen as a commentary on class, gender, and/or economic politics, and even religious allegory. Restaurant owner Marshall McCarty sees it in simpler terms. “Basically, it’s two guys trying to find something good to eat,” he says.

And thus was born the Walrus Room, a restaurant as tricky to define as the poem that inspired it, but, ultimately is a great place to find something good to eat. The Geneva restaurant, opened in 2018 by McCarty and his wife, Laura Bentley, calls itself “a supper club of sorts,” demonstrated in such Wisconsin menu influences as cheese curds, walleye, and lake perch (a Friday special).

But the restaurant also has a strong influence from New Orleans (a town that McCarty and Bentley visit often), and reflects McCarty’s French training (there’s some overlap between the two). “New Orleans, to me, is the premiere host town in the country, a town we truly enjoy,” McCarty says. “The food speaks for itself, and just the feeling from the people there is so hospitable. That’s why there are so many comfort-foods on the menu; we want people to feel at home and be comfortable.”

The restaurant certainly succeeds on that front. The dining rooms are low-lit and intimate, decorated with art that recalls Alice in Wonderland in ways subtle (prints of Alice in Wonderland by Salvador Dalí) and unsubtle (“Down The Rabbit Hole” rendered in pink neon lights).

McCarty was the restaurant’s chef for its first four years, but with the opening of Alchemist, a cocktail-focused restaurant on Third Street, the culinary reins at the Walrus Room have been handed to Isaac Padilla. Padilla cooks with considerable range, but his baking work really caught my attention, from the layered puff pastry that forms the base of crab tartines (topped with crab, trout roe, and crème fraîche) to the toasted focaccia that accompanies the Cajun-style barbecue shrimp (the bread helps tame the lively sauce) and the rich Burrata salad.

Among the other memorable appetizers are steamed mussels with chorizo in a white-wine and garlic sauce; the mussels are topped with a good-sized portion of hot fries, and it’s as well-made a moules frites as you’re likely to find for miles. Also make room for the shrimp de Jonghe, a classic dish that originated in Chicago, and Padilla’s beet salad is a large and beautifully balanced mix of beets (braised yellow beets, shaved red beets, and pickled beets) with goat cheese and sliced almonds in a sesame vinaigrette.

The entrée list is a comfort-food paradise, offering such nurturing treats as lobster spaghetti and a maple-mustard-glazed heritage pork chop with housemade apple sauce. You can’t beat the pan-seared walleye, draped over rice pilaf with mushrooms, peas, and a beurre blanc sauce, and plump scallops elevate Padilla’s maque choux (a New Orleans dish of corn, bell pepper, ham, and spices) served over polenta.

Walrus Room also makes a very nice coq au vin, an Amish chicken with parsnips, carrots, and onions in a red-wine sauce. And when you see steak Diane, that staple of continental cuisine, an occasional special, consider splurging.

An additional option is the Supper Club dinner, available Thursdays to Saturdays, which combines the main course (ribs on Thursday, perch fry on Friday, prime rib on Saturday) with house salad, whipped potatoes, and a vegetable. Priced at $29, $32, and $59, respectively, it’s a pretty good deal.

Prime rib also fuels the Walrus Room’s Social Hour menu, which offers discounted food and drinks in the lounge until 6 p.m. on weekdays. Among the food options is the prime-rib sandwich (with onions, cheese, and housemade horseradish sauce on focaccia), available exclusively during Social Hour. Chorizo mussels and fries, a cheeseburger, perch sandwich, and breaded Wisconsin cheese curds also appear on that specially timed menu.

There aren’t many desserts to choose among, but the pot de crème is rich with chocolate, and the cheesecake (built on a goat-cheese base) is excellent. Flavors vary, so the Madeira-and-honey cheesecake I sampled may have been replaced by the time you read this (previous iterations have included limoncello, espresso, and cherries jubilee).

The Walrus Room has a solid wine list and offers some very good signature cocktails (I recommend the bourbon-based Dandy Lions and the rye-based Old Fellow). The program is fond of Wisconsin-style old-fashioned cocktails (made with brandy, which I detest, but to each his/her own), available sweet (with Sprite), sour (with sour mix), or press (both). Can I get a “ya hey” up in here?

Photos: Darkhorse Media