Food & Drink

Best Bosnian Restaurant

Taft Street Restaurant and Bar

It's Friday night, a few hours past most Midwesterners' suppertime, and Sadik Kukic's cozy Taft Street Restaurant is just beginning to fill with people. Read the posted hours and the diners' presence seems rude—this place is set to close in twenty minutes. But here the posted hours don't mean anything. Kukic grabs a bottle of wine and joins the late-arriving guests, all of whom are Bosnian. Cigarettes are lit, toasts made. Laughter comes easy. And then, of course, there's the food—amazingly affordable, completely delicious fare that takes cues not just from Bosnia, but from Adriatic and Mediterranean cooking as well. Start with the fried cheese, which tastes nothing like up-from-frozen "cheez stix" and everything like the best saganaki you've ever had. Move on to a bright, tart salad of fat tomato slices, crisp red onion and tangy feta. Heck, have a cup of begova corba (chicken-and-vegetable soup), too. Then on to the entres—pan-seared trout, perhaps, or an ethereally light rosemary-chicken crepe. Full? Too bad: You really need to try the baklava. Pair it with strong black coffee—that's what the latecomers are having. You should trust them. They know that the best times are had after the rest of the city goes to bed, that the finest food is found in the most unassuming of places.

Tags: Food & Drink, Taft Street Restaurant and Bar