Ima Izakaya

We ended up here on a whim, which turned out to be the whole charm of it. We’d spent a Monday afternoon drinking at Two James a few blocks up Michigan Ave, our friends peeled off, and we needed food. Ima had been on Andrea’s list since her hairdresser mentioned it, and it lives on more than one local happy-hour roundup – which we missed by exactly one minute, sitting down at 6:01 PM. We ordered off the main menu and got over it.

Do not judge this one from the sidewalk. From the corner of Michigan and Wabash it’s an unassuming old building with a vintage loan-office sign still hanging beside it, and then you step through a floor-to-ceiling wall of colored glass into a room with a reclaimed-wood chevron ceiling, a disco ball dead center, globe lights, and plants along every ledge and the back bar. There was a 30-minute wait at 6 PM on a Monday – staff told us happy hour keeps the place full – but two bar stools opened before we’d finished giving our name. Take the bar. Our bartender was endlessly patient while we fumbled through the menu and then made the whole thing easy.

We ate small plates as dinner: ahi tuna tartare, salmon-avocado and spicy tuna hand rolls, cumin lamb dumplings, and robata skewers – kalbi, chili garlic shrimp, and a smoked pork belly that walked away with the night. Andrea called it the perfect spontaneous date night, which we hadn’t realized we were having. Pair it with a walk to Michigan Central Station, a few minutes down the block.