Serious Bloody Mary, Eleven City Diner

People always ask what’s our favorite bloody mary. This doesn’t come as a surprise. After all, we have a bloody mary blog.

Some of our go-to responses include Twisted Spoke, Little Goat and Au Cheval, which are all consistently awesome and delicious. The ones you could drink over and over. The ones that could convert the non-believer.

There’s another one that should be on this list. The Serious Bloody Mary at Eleven City Diner. We’ve had it too many times to count. For one of us, it’s a neighborhood go-to. It’s been there in desperate times of hangover need. Perhaps we’ve never reviewed it because DUH, WE ALREADY KNOW IT’S SUPER GOOD. But dammit, doesn’t deserve its time to shine?

As mentioned, the Serious Bloody Mary is seriously effing good. Tangy, spicy, peppery and generous with the celery salt. It has a heavy, yet not-too-heavy, tomato taste. They’ll try to sell you on premium vodka, but it’s thick enough you don’t need it. Unless you’re fancy. The garnish aims to please with a celery stick, lemon, olives, salami and swiss. Plus, a cute Eleven City flag.

Love it? You can buy the mix for around $7 and DIY at home.

The food at Eleven City aims to please as well. Menu options range from Jewish deli faves like bagels and lox to one of our faves, chilaquiles. We’re suckers for Mexican brunch fare, but these chilaquiles are done particularly well. They get slightly soggy as they should and  perfected when you add salsa, sour cream and a ton of Cholula. Other stand-outs are the matzo ball soup, Coco’s Eggs and the new breakfast sandwich.

We’ve never been to the newer Lincoln Park location, but we can imagine it has the same tasty menu and 50s crooner and big band music.

Serious Bloody Mary, Eleven City Diner: Our rating (scale of 1–5)

Taste: 4.25

Spicy: 4

Treats: 4.25

Creativity: 4

Overall: 4.125

Eleven City Diner is located at 1112 S. Wabash and 2301 N. Clark.