Sustainable Sustenance

By Naperville Magazine
May 2024 View more Table for Two

By Phil Vettel

Hardware has built a delicious balance

Hardware Gastro Pub & Brewery isn’t a new addition to the western suburbs; the restaurant turns 8 years old this month. But I was unfamiliar with the North Aurora eatery before now, and, after a couple of visits, I’m a fan.

The property sits on a 10-plus-acre site that is a model of sustainability. A large plot of land grows the various hops (six varieties) that go into the craft beers. The spent grain from that brewing is used in Hardware’s rolls and cookies. The facility gets its water from its own well, augmented by a system that captures rainwater for crop irrigation. Various plantings supply the restaurant with fruit, nuts, berries, and vegetables.

All the wood and steel used in the decor came from someplace else, whether from old whiskey barrels, defunct Chicago brownstones, railroad scrap metal, or local quarries.

Sit in the high-top tables near the bar (built from repurposed wood, of course) and you’ll have a view of Hardware’s greenhouse, where all the restaurant’s lettuces and microgreens are grown.

Farm to Table? This is Farm Next to MY Table.

The beneficiary of all this careful nurturing (besides the customers, of course) is executive chef AlyseMarie Warren, whose impressive résumé includes stints at Frontera Grill and Custom House (the latter under renowned chef Shawn McClain). She joined the restaurant team in 2008 (at sister property The Turf Room) and sounds positively giddy when talking about her work at Hardware. “They really wooed me,” she says of Hardware’s owner and managers. “I fell in love with the amount of freedom and growth that was possible.”

The feeling, said managing partner Kristopher Gillis, is mutual. “Our chef is phenomenal,” he says. “That’s the benefit of a chef that’s not stuck on one thing. She really branches out.”

There’s certainly no shortage of interesting dishes. Sous vide octopus pieces sit on a bed of sweet-potato, shiitake mushrooms, and green beans, dressed with a miso-egg-yolk vinaigrette. Salmon, gently smoked in-house, is the main ingredient in a salad that includes bacon jam, microgreens and housemade cream cheese, served with housemade sesame crackers.

“I like to do things that are unexpected,” Warren says. “I take these flavors, and think about what I can do to make them more interesting.”

Parker’s spicy sticky chicken (named after owner Parker Grabowski) coats chicken thighs in a honey-mango-Sriracha sauce over an Asian slaw whose tartness cuts through the sweet-and-spicy glaze. Even the simple-sounding grilled bacon salad offers a wealth of flavors and textures, the house-smoked bacon matched to greens, crumbled feta cheese, butternut squash, Granny Smith apple, and sweet-spicy chickpeas.

Other solid dishes are the beef brisket (smoked for 14 hours and served with mashed potatoes), corn relish, and a coffee-stout barbecue sauce and the linguine, tossed with a rag of ground duck, carrots, shiitake mushrooms, and mascarpone cheese.

Hardware has a strong charcuterie program; choose among five house-cured meats, six imports, and five cheeses, in various mix-and-match (and à la carte) combinations. Platters include pickled vegetables, olives, mixed nuts, spreads, and in-house crackers. Highly recommended.

Much of the dinner menu is also available at lunch, but the lunch-only BLT (more of that terrific house-smoked bacon) on thick country bread is a fine choice (it’ll be even better when summer tomatoes arrive). I really like the bison burger (available all day), consisting of two patties of bison and pork-belly meat with greens and mustard-mayo on a brioche bun; the burger comes with a choice of truffled white cheddar or five-year cheddar (I’d go with the aged cheddar).

Dessert options show more of Warren’s creative leanings; there’s actually a pork-belly dessert, the meat braised in whiskey, sauced with a dark sugar syrup, and paired with red-cherry ice cream. It sounds weird, even preposterous, but it’s really good. More down-to-earth are the Ho Hos, a riff on the chef’s grandfather’s favorite sweet, with chocolate-covered cake rolled around a whiskey-infused cream filling.

On one visit, I dragged along two beer-loving friends, the better to appreciate the work of Bob Salzman, the brewmaster here since 2018. Both gave high marks to the Wild Bill double IPA and Uncle Joe’s IPA (I’m not an IPA guy myself, but even I could appreciate how well-balanced they were). The Saison Marilyn, more my speed, was very good as well. There’s also an appealing, reasonably priced wine list, and about a dozen specialty cocktails.

The restaurant itself is enormous, seating a bit more than 200 among its dining rooms, brewery room, bar area, and enclosed all-seasons room. As the warm weather returns, the arbor-flanked outdoor patio will open up and add yet another 100 or so seats, likely in high demand.

Photos: Tara Young Ramos