Farmer’s cheese biscuits at Hot Chocolate

I’m such a sucker for a great bread basket. I seriously think it’s what sets apart solid, memorable restaurants from drecky places that offer a stale hunk of crust you could crack your teeth on, and then kick you while you’re down with a soul-less little bowl of golden topped plastic butter pads. I’m talking real bread baskets..the pretzel rolls at Rockit, the bread with butter and three tasting salts at Duchamp, dark pumpernickel slices at Twin Anchors, sour dough with butter and honey at Coerper’s Five O’Clock Club. I could go on, but what’s even better for bread and butter fanatics like me is the bread course, a not-so-new but delicious trend I’ve seen lately. Eat at Alinea or Avenues and you’ll get a different house-baked bread with every course. Or just go to the Bristol and and get hooked on the monkey bread with dill butter like I did long ago. (An obsession I’ve gushed about on this blog again and again). But the latest crust crush happened last weekend at Hot Chocolate. I love everything at the Bucktown hotspot, from the milkshakes to the desserts and entrées, but truly found a special place in my heart for the house-baked Farmer’s cheese biscuits. Served in a staub pot, they come out golden brown and hot from the oven, creamy enough (from the farmer’s cheese; a cross between feta and cottage cheese) to stand on their own without the honey butter on the side. But slather it on anyway, it’ll melt right into the moist and light bread and hold up to the chewy, buttery outside. Rather than just fill you up before dinner, the sweet-savory combination of a cheese biscuit with sweet honey butter prepares your palate for what’s to come. The way a real bread course should. Hot Chocolate, 1747 N. Damen, 773.489.1747