CHICAGO — Nobody’s Darling opened last year as a cocktail bar in a city full of cocktail bars — but also with a mission.
Co-founders Angela Barnes and Renauda Riddle are Black. They’re women. They’re lesbians. They wanted their bar to reflect themselves, their experiences and their social circles.
“We wanted this to be a women-centered, women-forward space and a bar where women feel comfortable — but also where everybody is welcome and everyone feels comfortable, as long as there is that respect that this is our space,” Barnes said shortly after Nobody’s Darling arrived on a quiet, leafy stretch of Balmoral Avenue in May 2021.
That simple, yet bold agenda generated an unusual amount of attention for such a new bar, including profiles by The Washington Post and NBC News. It also caught the attention of the James Beard Foundation, which in February named Nobody’s Darling one of 20 national semifinalists for Outstanding Bar Program in what’s widely considered the Oscars of food. Nobody’s Darling had been open barely eight months.
A month later came an even more unlikely turn: Still short of its first anniversary, Nobody’s Darling became one of five finalists — and the only one from Chicago — alongside bars with years of renown or celebrity names attached. Winners will be announced Monday in Chicago.
Becoming a Beard award finalist in less than a year is a rare achievement, and among this year’s crop in the Outstanding Bar Program category, Nobody’s Darling is easily the newest: Alley Twenty Six in Durham, North Carolina, and barmini by José Andrés in Washington, D.C., opened in 2012; Attaboy in Nashville launched in 2017 and its New York City counterpart also dates to 2012; Julep, in Houston, opened in 2014.
The most recent Chicago finalist in the category, Lost Lake, had been open four years when it made the short list in 2019. The only two other Chicago bars to have ever been finalists — both of which eventually won — were The Aviary and The Violet Hour, two of the nation’s most innovative and esteemed cocktail bars.
How did Nobody’s Darling join such rarefied air so quickly?
Though a foundation spokesperson declined to discuss what led judges to short list the bar, the answer likely sits somewhere at the intersection of the cocktails Nobody’s Darling serves and the culture it has cultivated.
In an interview this week, Barnes said even she was taken aback at becoming a James Beard award finalist so quickly. After receiving the news, she said, she researched the organization and its competition and discovered a recent history the James Beard Foundation itself has acknowledged as troubling.
The issues surfaced in 2020, when the foundation announced it would delay its awards by a few months, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, from its usual spring ceremony to late September. The list of finalists, released that May, included eight Chicago establishments, including Lost Lake for Outstanding Bar Program.
But in late August 2020, the Beard Foundation announced it would not give out awards after all, either in 2020 or in 2021 “as restaurants continue to suffer the grave negative effects of COVID-19, and as substantial and sustained upheaval in the community has created an environment in which the Foundation believes the assignment of Awards will do little to further the industry in its current uphill battle.”
A week later, however, the New York Times reported another reason for the cancellation: a lack of diversity among the would-be winners. Despite several Black finalists, a list of 23 winners did not include any Black people, a fact one critic attributed to “systemic bias.” Critics said the foundation’s judging process also allowed chefs accused of wrongdoing to be nominated.
In September 2021, the Beard Foundation announced it had undergone an audit of its policies and procedures and would be committed to “a more inclusive and transparent awards process.” Among the steps it pledged to undertake was increased turnover and diversity among judges and committee members, plus annual training in diversity, equity and inclusion.
This year’s awards are the first since the audit.
After learning that background, the fact that Nobody’s Darling had become one of five bars in the nation to be on the Outstanding Bar Program shortlist made more sense, Barnes said: “It did explain some things.”
But she’s also perfectly fine with the idea that who Nobody’s Darling is has become as relevant as the cocktails Nobody’s Darling serves. Barnes said she wouldn’t want to be a finalist solely for the community the bar has fostered; cocktails and service need to be paramount, she said. But if the bar’s social and cultural role appealed to Beard judges, so be it, she said.
“What’s really resonating with people about Nobody’s Darling is certainly the quality of the cocktails, but also the culture,” she said. “When people comment on what Nobody’s Darling means to them, they are very clear about how they feel included and feel seen.”
She also applauded the Beard awards’ reckoning.
“If you have a semifinalist list and everyone looks the same, there probably is a problem — something went awry, and you have to go back and say, ‘What was the criteria here?’” Barnes said. “Of course at the end of the day, you’re a bar or a restaurant — if the product you’re delivering isn’t the highest quality, then that should exclude you. We’re certainly trying to give people a product they want and deserve.”
It’s impossible not to compare Nobody’s Darling to the other Chicago bars that have been finalists in the Outstanding Bar Program category, and the differences are stark. The Aviary, whose menu includes a $185 seven-course cocktail and food tasting menu, is opulence defined. The Violet Hour, where house rules include “proper attire required,” is a picture of elegance, with cocktails topping out at $28. Before announcing it would permanently close in January, Lost Lake was a charming tropical-style escape with immaculate attention paid to detail.
Nobody’s Darling is simply a no-frills shoe box of a neighborhood joint where a Progress Pride Flag hangs in the door — the traditional rainbow pride flag with the addition of black and brown stripes to represent queer communities of color, plus pink, light blue and white to represent transgender pride. Cocktails are mostly $13, with handful for $16 under the Lavish Darlings section, which sweetly insists, “You’re worth it!” Not inexpensive, yet fairly reasonable by North Side standards.
But peel back the layers and something unique is indeed happening at Nobody’s Darling: it marries the idea of a queer bar with an ambitious cocktail bar. No glowing, syrupy sweet cocktails or icy buckets of Miller Lite here.
It’s also inclusive in ways its predecessors have fallen short. The rise of cocktail culture during the past 15 years has tended to be the domain of younger white people. Riddle said she doesn’t think queer people and people of color have intentionally been excluded, but they traditionally “haven’t been thought of in a way that’s intentional.” That intention is very much on display at Nobody’s Darling, all the way down to bolding the names of Black-owned beer and wine companies on the menu to inform customers of the businesses they’re supporting.
What they’re doing is clearly resonating — and the bar is planning an expansion, which it hopes to have finished by fall.
On a recent cool and wet Wednesday evening, seats were about two-thirds occupied and stayed that way until the 11 p.m. close. The crowd was mostly women and femme-presenting people, though not entirely, and in a highly racially segregated city, Nobody’s Darling was a welcome counterpoint. There was a comfort and kindness to the energy in the room; as a friend and I stood at the end of the bar ordering, two women offered to move down a seat so we could have two stools together. Outside tables were mostly full, despite the weather.
It’s a casual and unassuming place, where people come as they are, whether in hoodies, beanies or shorts. It didn’t quite feel like a renowned Beard finalist destination kind of place. Yet that’s what it has become, in what is arguably a reflection of a greater cultural moment.
“All this is impactful for people, especially as we struggle through COVID and George Floyd and all these things happening, people really wanted to feel they had a place where they belong,” Barnes said. “And to mix that with these two owners who care about what you’re experience is going to be when you come into our bar is meaningful.”
Barnes, who is a lawyer for a design firm, and Riddle, an auditor for the state, opened Nobody’s Darling in a space previously occupied by Joie de Vine, a lesbian wine bar that closed during the pandemic. They opted for a cocktail focus simply because it’s what they like to drink. Before opening her own place, Riddle said, she was in a cocktail bar four nights a week and has 10 years of event planning experience, often with a focus on cocktails and queer communities.
The original cocktail list at Nobody’s Darling was the product of brainstorming between the partners, but evolved since opening. As an example, Riddle cited the house Old-Fashioned, made with Old Forester bourbon, orange bitters, walnut liqueur, and cherry bark vanilla bitters. The original incarnation didn’t feature the two latter ingredients, but Riddle tasted a version at another bar with similar wrinkles she admired. She had her bar staff tweak the recipe until landing on the current incarnation. It’s a strong and tasty cocktail with wonderful depth.
The bar staff has also pushed the bosses to expand the menu and become more adventurous. Riddle said she was initially unsure, but it was the right move.
“I said, ‘I don’t know if we should have all these cocktails on the menu,’ but they said we have to get outside our comfort zone, because that’s what people are looking for,” she said.
Riddle and Barnes sign off on every cocktail before it makes the menu. One currently there, All About Love, made with Ketel One vodka and Aperol, was twice rejected before a bartender asked for a final try. Riddle and Barnes finally signed off and rigorous process paid off: it’s a lovely cocktail, bursting with mint, citrus and cucumber in the aroma, offering soft, fruity sweetness on the palate tempered with a touch of bright tartness. It’s clean, fleeting and refreshing and goes down wonderfully easy.
Not everything works as well. The margarita was surprisingly soft and smooth, with a deep fruity-vanilla note, most likely due to the inclusion of passion fruit liqueur. It could have used a bit more muscularity. The Eartha Kitty, a blend of two rums with lime, ginger and honey, had a few too many rough edges and lacked the depth and nuance of the Old-Fashioned or All About Love.
Nobody’s Darling is inescapably a better-than-average cocktail bar. But while it’s easy to walk out of The Violet Hour with the feeling you’ve just experienced one of the five best cocktail bars in the nation, it’s a more difficult conclusion to draw here. A neighborhood gem with a refreshing point of view, though? Absolutely.
Sitting on the patio that recent Wednesday, I saw a friend from out of town walk out. I said hello and we chatted a few minutes. As someone within the intersectional community the bar seeks to attract, I was curious what he thought of the place. His take was that the cocktails at Nobody’s Darling were just OK, but the space felt warm, welcoming and safe, which is one of the reasons he made a point to visit while in Chicago. That, he said, is what made it a special place.
Maybe even one of most outstanding bars in the nation.
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