Old Irving Park’s Finom Coffee aces Hungarian food

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In Old Irving Park, Finom Coffee kicks it up a notch with its delightful Hungarian-inspired menu and eclectic space where you can buy or browse used books.

“I don’t like to label us as a coffee shop or as a cafe. I feel like we’re this new variety of a spot that does numerous things,” said Daniel Speer, who’s been cooking for over 25 years, most recently as a corporate chef for Nordstrom. “I’d like to start a new category and hopefully inspire [others].”

For the last six months, Speer has been running Finom along with chef/co-owner Rafael Esparza in a historic 130-year-old building at 4200 W. Irving Park.

In addition to the food, which is inspired by Speer’s wife’s Hungarian roots, Finom carries coffee from Counter Culture and tea service from local Rare Tea Cellar. Make sure to try the “Turkish Delight,” which is made with rose water, cardamom and espresso, and garnished with dried rose petals. On my last visit, I tried the “Hawaiian Fog” — a tart cherry and hibiscus tea with steamed almond milk garnished with cherry powder and turmeric.

But again, don’t leave without sampling the food.

“We wanted to have a space where you walk into the place and you expect one thing but you’re given something else,” said Esparza, who helped open both Momotaro and Kimski.

That “something else” includes the visual showstopper “marrow toast” — a mousse of veal brains and chicken liver, smoked pork belly, watermelon radish, pickled tomato, micro greens and flowers, topped off with shaved cured egg yolk on toasted ciabatta bread from Edgewater’s pHlour Bakery & Cafe.

Other favorites include a Hungarian “lecsó” — stewed tomato, gypsy pepper, onion, garlic, paprika, kolbasz sausage and free range egg — either served in an individual ramekin or as a croissant sandwich with butterkase cheese.

A mushroom paprikás has Shimeji mushrooms, paprikás sauce puree, sour cream, parsley oil, porcini mushroom dust, cured egg yolk and black truffle pearls.

“We usually start with the traditional item and then branch off from there and see how we can reinterpret it,” said Speer. “Rafa is extremely creative … at innovating and pushing that dish to its limits and putting our stamp on it.”

While Esparza doesn’t mind elevating coffee shop food — which he manages without a full kitchen or a range — he doesn’t want to define it as fine dining.

“Refined isn’t a bad word [but] fine dining is a bad word,” said Esparza. “Fine dining implies elitist and snobbery, it doesn’t imply cozy and comfortable. You can make something refined and technique-heavy but still have it be cozy and chill.”

Esparza had to break free of some formal training, learning to cook many of the Hungarian recipes “grandma style” without measuring ingredients.

“It blew my mind and it took me back to asking my grandma how to make tamales,” said Esparza. who is of Mexican heritage. “These are [flavor profiles] that people are familiar with — cumin, paprika, onion, peppers, garlic, cured meats. These are [universal] that most people have eaten most of their lives and most cultures have had it. A lot of it reminds me of Mexican food, but just the opposite ratios of cumin and paprika.”

While Speer and Esparza enjoy the low-key vibe of Old Irving Park, they are finding Finom Coffee — close to the Blue Line and Metra — is getting more and more traffic thanks to rave reviews from critics and word-of-mouth praise spread by regulars.

“Conventional wisdom says it shouldn’t work,” said Esparza. “We have no parking, no big money backers. We straight DIY’ed this whole place together. It’s two dudes who have never owned anything with an inexperienced staff. … It’s like ‘wow.’ … People like it. They seek it out and it’s incredibly humbling and special [to us].”

For more information call (312) 620-5010 or visit www.finomcoffee.com