1. THE GREAT STATE OF STUFFED
There’s a bunch of where-to-eat-for-the-DNC pieces, making sure visitors hit the Billy Goat, but Maggie Hennessy aims a little higher at WBEZ:
New-to-Chicago visitors (and probable fans of “The Bear,”) will invariably flock to Al’s Beef, Portillo’s or Luke’s for a classic Italian beef sandwich soused in jus and oily peppers. But I’d urge them to also consider grabbing an exceptional Italian sub at J.P. Graziano in the West Loop, or taking Western Avenue up to Lawrence Ave. in Lincoln Square for a crackly edged, ham, head cheese and pate pork roll banh mi at Nhu Lan Bakery.
And then they’ll go to Giordano’s anyway.
2. BUT SERRE-IOUSLY FOLKS
A bit surprised that John Kessler liked La Serre that much—for me, all those giant new restaurants in the West Loop are the same—but there’s Chicago zeitgeist in the air for him:
The menu reads as luxurious but isn’t killer expensive: Two can get out for well under $200. The cooking is French, if by “French” you meant tuna crudo with yuzu or a variation on mu shu duck. Unlike other popular new French restaurants that lean into the bistro canon, the cooking here really belongs to a culinary genre I’d call Westloopian. You’ll see all the trendy offerings: shellfish towers and tartare, hearty pastas and one-bite foie gras profiteroles, and shareable entrées and prime steaks (because every big Chicago restaurant is at heart a steakhouse).
3. OYSTERS ROCK IT, FELLA
John Kessler would also like to have a word about oysters. They’re everywhere, but are they being handled properly?
Yet the new popularity of oysters brings a fair amount of confusion. As I’ve dined around the city I’ve been surprised by how little the service staff and the kitchen know about the oysters they’re serving. I’m amazed by how often restaurants misidentify the two most popular varieties, which in American restaurant shorthand are called Atlantic and Pacific oysters.
4. TRY DEES-A
Steve Dolinsky goes inside the restaurants in the St. Regis Hotel, in the first of a two-part piece. He starts at Tre Dita, the Italian restaurant with the “pasta lab”:
“This is my fourth laboratorio in the U.S. It’s part of the daily rituals to make pasta in this way, so humidity and temperature-controlled,” [chef Evan Funke] said.
Nearly a dozen pastas emerge from it, including a chestnut flour lasagna with wide sheets, presented simply, nestled into verdant green pesto featuring Sicilian pine nuts. Beef tartare is showered with fried artichoke leaves, served with toast points for scooping. But you know steaks are the focus when you see a backlit trophy case of the raw product just outside the dining room.
5. MIDDLE EARTH PIZZA
It’s just coincidence that this week’s photo matches Michael Nagrant’s subject this week; I hit Bungalow by Middle Brow for breakfast once every couple of weeks, they do nice pastries (not unlike the ones at Daisies) and as you can see, it’s usually pretty quiet and empty. Nagrant goes for what you know Middlebrow for—pizza, specifically their once-a-week take on tavern cut:
But, back to that pizza, especially the tavern-style one. I use the word “best” all the time to attract eyeballs on social media, but I try to reserve its deployment here on the newsletter where I can be more nuanced with an engaged audience. I am quite certain that the party-cut pie here is the best, at least commercially available (Crust Fund and Billy Z pop-up pies are in the running if we include non-restaurant offerings) in Chicago. It’s partly because Bungalow’s pizza is iconoclastic, the cracklinist of all, thinner than coked-up Kate Moss.
6. FOOD GLORIOUS FOOD
I don’t know much about Oliver’s, a new South Loop spot, but it sounds interesting; anyway the Infatuation has good things to say (but no points rating?):
Despite serving only three entrees (and the focus on cocktails), you can still have a full, coursed-out dinner at Oliver’s—but we like it best sitting at the smooth cement bar, which usually has space for walk-ins, making a meal out of standout starters and sides. Don’t forget a slice of pie for dessert.
I went to Han 202, a Chinese tasting menu place in Bridgeport, more than a decade ago, and honestly wasn’t sure if it still existed—it never comes up when Filipino or Persian tasting menus get talked about. But The Infatuation went and liked it:
The four-course Chinese dinner is a steal, with standouts like crunchy sesame seed-crusted shrimp toast with chili sauce or crispy salt and pepper calamari. Even if you upgrade to the Szechuan duck breast for $10 extra or get chewy housemade dan dan noodles a la carte, you won’t feel compelled to check in on your bank account.
This one does get a numerical rating: a right-side-of-the-bell-curve 8.0.
7. COLD FISH
One of the first things I discovered via Chowhound and LTHForum was good sushi and Japanese food out of my usual geographic dining range—there was Katsu, of course, up on Peterson in the city, and further west there was Renga-Tei, on Touhy but by then it was Niles. It wasn’t quite Katsu quality, but it was old school homey, good enough for lunch; one time I wound up chatting with an older Asian gentleman who turned out to be the owner of the infamous Purple Hotel. Anyway, Dennis Lee has a guest poster this week, Whitney Moeller, who talks about Tenjin—the replacement for Renga-Tei:
The restaurant has a Japanese homestyle restaurant-meets-American diner vibe; I found the cherry blossom-patterned glass lamps hanging above our vinyl-cushioned booth particularly enchanting. It was already bustling when we came through the door before 6 p.m. and yet we landed arguably the best table in the house: Within earshot of the sushi counter and with a direct view into the kitchen.
Sounds like I’ll feel at home.
8. LULA PATCHOULI
At Fine Dining Lovers, an interview with Jason Hammel of Lula Cafe. The intro is a bit delirious (“How does a restaurant maintain its magic for a quarter of a century? How does it feel so current, so relevant, and exude such an easygoing grace after all this time?”) but Hammel is always interesting to hear from as he talks about his new project, Loulou:
“My wife and I are artists first and cooks second or even third,” said Hammel, referring to his musician partner and Lula co-founder, Amalea Tshilds. “Lula used to be full of these events and we’d have music regularly and charity events, but the restaurant is too busy to do that stuff. And we really miss it. [Loulou] will be an opportunity to deepen your experience between food, life, and culture. And that’s what I want to do with my time now—investigate what it means to live a life through food and hospitality.”
9. AWARDS (OUT-OF-)SEASON
We don’t normally get awards in late August, but here are some. Les Dames d’Escoffier, the organization for women in food, gave four academic scholarships to women in the greater Chicagoland area pursuing education in the food, beverage and hospitality industries. The winners are Grace Porteus, attending College of Lake County, and Adrienne Gordon attending Kennedy-King College, both with Pastry Scholarships supported by Plugrà butter; and Molly McNulty, attending DePaul University, and Wilna Francois, attending Elgin College.
More expected awards at this time of year come from the Iowa State Fair. The taste of the fair award, given by Pepsi and representing the best things to eat at the fair, gave third prize to The Bakerman’s Blueberry Cheesecake Stuffed Elephant Ear; second prize to Colp’s Concession’s Sweet Tea Slushy; and first prize to Nitro Hog BBQ’s Fried Sugar Biscuit n’BBQ with Apple Butter Sauce. Fried sugar; that’s what state fairs are all about!
10. NACIONAL QUESABIRRIA DAY
I’m always amused to get an announcement of something like National Cheeseburger Day—yes, Americans clearly need encouragement to eat more cheeseburgers—and honestly, I feel not too far off with the announcemnt that Latin Restaurant Weeks is Augsut 16 through 30. Most weeks are Latin restaurant week for me. But hey, maybe someone needs the encouragement.
And WTTW visits a participating restaurant, Caribella, in Logan Square.
11. WE ALL EAT A SANDWICH SUBMARINE
“Deli” so often means Jewish deli, but in Chicago we have many kinds of delis. At Food & Wine John Kessler finds a couple of Jewish, an Italian and a Polish one.
12. MY DEAR OLD FISH, GO AND BOIL YOUR HEAD
One touristy thing I will absolutely stand up for is the Door County fish boil. Yeah, it’s a show, lots of fire and steam, but in the end it comes down to simple, impeccably made American food and it’s well worth doing any time you’re in that part of the world. Anyway, fish boils are among the rustic Wisconsin bites David Witter looks at, at NewCity:
Like sorcerers, two men stand over steaming cauldrons of water that are heated by flame fueled by chunks of oak and pine. First, red potatoes and onions are dropped inside. Then pieces of boneless fresh cod, some the size of a brick, are placed inside a steel cage. As the cage is lowered carefully, a blast of steam erupts from the fiery kettle. Flash-cooked, the cod is then drenched in clarified butter. If you hadn’t seen them make it and were told it was lobster, you might agree, but it isn’t. The taste of the buttery cod, red potatoes and onions, combined with the smell of the firewood and sight of the steaming cauldrons are all part of a long-held Wisconsin tradition: the fish boil.
A nice description of it—but cod? Surely it’s whitefish, which my friend Michael Morowitz noted to me: “The whole point of the DC fish boil is that it’s lake Whitefish. Also, boneless? Another part of it is the ladies who come around and offer to debone the whitefish for you.”
13. BIG NEWS
The big news is… my oral history of Chicago restaurants is done! Well, in the sense that I’ve written the whole thing. I don’t know what life will be like not thinking of more people to interview for it. But now comes reading it line by line to find all the little typos and repeated words (a real hazard of working from automated transcripts of recorded interviews, because talkiing humans have a, have a tendency to repeat, repeat words). Anyway, because I’m going to be going through it line by line, and my wife will also be proofing it, I am going to take the last two weekends of August off from Buzz List, so I can focus on it utterly. See you back on September 9.
14. CORRECTIONS
I called Minyoli Korean. It is of course Taiwanese. Sorry!
David Hammond called them fried ravioli. My son’s St. Louis-raised girlfriend says a St. Louisian calls them toasted ravioli.
LISTEN UP
David Manilow asks three younger Chicago chefs to name their favorite spots at The Dining Table,
As noted above, Buzz List will be off for two weeks, back on September 9.