1. HABEMUS PIZZA
Not much to say here about the selection of the 267th Pontiff, but even though Chicago jokes get old and predictable fast (“Da Pope.”), there was something charming about the instant appearance of all the obvious food-related jokes—Malort as Communion wine, dipping an Italian beef in a baptismal font, ketchup on hot dogs being declared a mortal sin, etc. As people quickly established Cardinal Prevost’s Chicago history, I tweeted his supposed Chicago favorite foods, including fish sandwiches from Hagen’s during Lent and, His Holiness being a Sou’sider, a preference for Aurelio’s pizza. (Also, the sweet potato at Maxwells Trading, just to throw a curve tater.) The aim was to be first-glance-plausible while also being ridiculous, but little did I know how right I was—WGN’s Ben Bradley soon tweeted an actual photo of a plainclothes Cardinal Prevost at, yes, Aurelio’s in 2024:
Cardinal Robert Prevost (center, blue shirt) visited the flagship @AureliosPizza location in Homewood in August with friends and family. Who could’ve imagined what would happen less than a year later!
Remember to ask for the old oven—it’s infallible.
2. LOUISA VS. GRANT—VS. NAGRANT
With the Tribune rarely seeming to want to pay for dining reviews, they sent Louisa Chu to roast Alinea? Weird:
Chef Grant Achatz is far from resting on his laurels in Lincoln Park. He and his team are industrious. They’ve retained three Michelin stars since the guide debuted here in 2011.
Yet after two dinners at nearly $500 each, I was left wondering why so many dishes were so salty or so sweet or left the aftertaste of so much black truffle.
…What they do best is constant culinary world-building, but that’s not what they’re doing. Alinea needs to let go of the Balloon — and Paint and Hot Potato Cold Potato and even the Explosion — and we need to let them. Also, when I say dishes are so salty or so sweet, that’s not my preference, but according to their own sensory language and culture.
Chu’s visits were occasioned not only by the restaurant’s 20th anniversary this month, but by the current tour Alinea is taking to other cities, dishing up its greatest hits. I think Louisa makes some good points—though that’s kind of assuming that a chef who’s reinvented the culinary world once, can do it again on demand. Not sure that’s ever been true for anyone.
Meanwhile, Michael Nagrant read it and, being something of an Achatz stan (he wrote a few essays for the Alinea cookbook), he rips into Louisa for ripping into Grant in a piece called The Chicago Tribune Restaurant Review System is Broken:
Since December 25th of 2024, Chu, the chief dining critic of the Chicago Tribune, has reviewed eight restaurants. Six of those places received three stars, one received 3.5, and one received two.
…The place which received two stars from Chu is the only restaurant of the eight she reviewed this year (and one of two in Chicago and 145 in the world) that also holds three Michelin stars.
The restaurant drawing Chu’s ire is Alinea. I have certainly been critical of Michelin and do not consider it unimpeachable. Chu could be seeing something they don’t. But also, when you get into the two and three-star firmament, which is incredibly rare, Michelin is usually pretty accurate. They’re also not afraid to take away a star when they think you’ve given up the ghost.
If, as Chu has said of Alinea in her most recent review, they are worthy of one of her worst personal ratings (two stars) and it is now just a mid-level restaurant with a few good ideas, surely Michelin too would have noticed and made Smyth the only local three-star holder. I had some real criticisms of Smyth on my own recent visit, but it was still four-star by a local standard and no less than two Michelin stars by a global one.
Nagrant has some smart observations about reviewing in 2025, but here’s my problem. Yeah, Michelin loves Alinea and has been sending a steady stream of international travelers into the place, though as Nick Kokonas once told me, the real driver of global tourist traffic has been Chef’s Table on Netflix.
But Michelin loving Alinea means, not quite diddly to me, but not a whole lot more. Michelin, with its Paris 1926 approach to dining, is no measure of much of anything to me, and thus appealing to its authority is not a very effective argument against Chu’s review.
Here’s the opinion that matters to me, which is my own: after dining at both Alinea and French Laundry (where Achatz found his main mentor in Thomas Keller) some years past their initial moment of fame and discovery, I came to the conclusion that you should try to eat at such places when they’re new and maybe not entirely surefooted yet. The alternative is going somewhere and already knowing all the tricks, from articles, cookbooks and, frankly, other people ripping them off. The best experience is when all you know is that you’re excited to be the first on your block discovering the place (which was my first Achatz experience, at Trio in 2002). If, as happened with me at French Laundry, you wind up telling your wife “Oh look, it’s Oysters and Pearls” over and over, knowledge is sapping the pleasure of discovery.
So go early and give yourself over to surprise, is my advice. But that’s tough with any place that’s been making headlines for two decades.
One last note. By the end Nagrant says this about the local reviewing scene:
I swear to you my main motivation here, as the number of local restaurant reviewers is now down to four (if you include me), is for the remaining critical market to stay sane and measured.
So if he sees four, that would be himself, Chu, John Kessler at Chicago mag, and—who’s the fourth?
3. JOT IT DOWN
Jinsei Motto, the (quite good) sushi restaurant hidden inside CH Distillery, is changing things around and becoming Joto. Anthony Todd explains at Chicago mag:
Fast forward five years, and the original sushi chefs have moved onto their own ventures, but the restaurant, which has rebranded as “Joto,” is going strong. The focus of the program is dry-aged fish; CH has three dry-aging machines going full time. They transform the texture of tuna, salmon, mackerel, and allow for flavors that diners aren’t familiar with. “All the moisture comes out of the fish, and it becomes more delicate in texture,” explains [general manager Tony] Frausto. “The main hitters are the ora king salmon and kinmedai — once you dry age kinmedai, it melts in your mouth like butter.”
4. YES SIAM
Siam Thai Eatery is a new Thai place in the South Loop. Steve Dolinsky went there:
A pair of cooks meticulously hand-forms pork dumplings, each tied up with a slender chive like a purse. You notice the kitchen’s attention to detail and the fact they’ve weighed out ingredients, like the lump crab that’s used in the fantastic salad with bright pomelo – a sort of Thai version of grapefruit, only sweeter.
These are signs of a professional kitchen, keeping an eye on portions and consistency. Siam Thai Eatery already has locations in Flushing, Queens and Staten Island, and the restaurant group from Chicago thought it might do well here, in the South Loop.
5. DHENTOURAGE
I’ve noted before that I’m kind of a terrible citizen of my own neighborhood, more likely to race to Pilsen to eat than to try new places in my own Roscoe Village. So Titus Ruscitti beats me to Dhanteraz Indian Fusion, an Indian restaurant on Roscoe:
Although the name implies that it’s Indian fusion food there’s really only a few dishes that I would place into that category including a couple of pasta options made with tiki and butter masala. The rest of the menu is pretty straight forward Northern Indian classics sprinkled with a few Indo-Chinese options and vindaloo too.
6. THAT’S A GIANT PRETZEL
Dennis Lee went looking online to see if there was anywhere serving a giant pretzel. Well, I can think of one: Laschet’s Inn. He didn’t find that one, but a similar one at Prost! on Lincoln Avenue:
Before I say anything else, do yourself a favor and get the jumbo pretzel ($22).
It’s worth the visit alone. Do not get the half pretzel, get the whole-ass pretzel.Because look at the absolute size of this thing. This mahogany beast is painted with butter and dusted with a fine sprinkling of salt, and oh my lord, is this thing glorious.
7. GUS, NOT IVAN
The Infatuation sums up what’s to like about Gus’ Sip and Dip:
It’s tough to find a bar in River North with a really good craft cocktail for less than $13. And when you do, it’s usually only that price for an hour. Gus’ Sip & Dip is an exciting standout, offering excellent cocktails that are all strictly $12, all the time. It’s a fun, throwback spot that’s stuck in happy hour in the best way.
8. HOT DOG!
Daniel Hautzinger at WTTW pays tribute to one of the surviving old school dog houses on the north side, Byron’s:
Of course, the prices aren’t the only thing that have changed over the decades – even as many other things haven’t, like [owner Mike] Payne’s involvement, the Vienna Beef hot dogs, and the addition of lettuce, cucumber, and bell pepper to the classic toppings of a Chicago dog. But the menu has expanded to include various sandwiches such as grilled chicken, Italian beef, fish, and gyros. Payne is planning to add a covered dining room where there’s currently some picnic tables next to the stand. There’s now tap-to-pay and online ordering; Byron’s has been unafraid to adopt new technology, as a 1990 Chicago Tribune story about its acceptance of dining orders via fax machine notes, although owner Byron Kouris’ joke in that article that “one day we may be able to beam your hot dog straight to you” has yet to come true.
9. KAWAYAN EYE
I vaguely know that Kawayan is a Filipino restaurant in Portage Park. Block Club tells more:
Raynell Parreno’s dream is to share his food and his culture with the world. For now, he’s focused on Chicago.
Parreno, who grew up in Iloilo, a province in the Philippines, took over Jefferson Park’s popular Kawayan restaurant a year ago. Since then, he has been adding to the restaurant’s menu, incorporating more family recipes and traditional Iloilo dishes such as La Paz batchoy, a noodle soup that originated in Iloilo City.
10. HAILEE’S COMMIS
Hailee Catalano worked in Chicago at places like Cellar Door Provisions, but when COVID hit, she started doing TikTok cooking videos from her new home in New Jersey. The Reader interviews her about a book spin-off of the TikTok series, By Heart: Recipes to Hold Near and Dear:
What role does Chicago and the city’s food scene play in your life and cooking? Can you talk about some recipes in the book that have Chicagoland roots?
A lot of stuff! Even just rural midwestern vibes. There’s a bunch of dips—I love dips so much, and I feel like that’s from growing up going to any sort of potluck that’s in the midwest, just so many different dips. And I really love ’em.
11. THINLY BEARDED
More Chicago news out of the Vatican this week than out of the James Beard Awards—Galit, which won Restaurant of the Year at the Banchet awards a couple of years ago, got an Outstanding Restaurant nomination, Kumiko got a Best Bar nomination, and in the Best Chef Great Lakes category, Noah Sandoval (Oriole), Thai Dang (Hai-Sous), and Erling Wu-Bower and Chris Jung (Maxwells Trading) each got a nomination. In the media awards, you never know who might be a book author from here, but the only one I spotted was Emma Janzen, who’s won twice for books with Julia Momose (Kumiko) and Toby Maloney (The Violet Hour), getting a nomination for The Bartender’s Pantry, with Jim Meehan (Pegu Club in New York) and Bart Sasso. On the journalism side, congrats to Ashok Selvam of Eater, who got a Jonathan Gold Local Voice Nomination. (Selvam is reportedly Chicago’s representative on the Beard restaurant nominating panel.)
12. LISTEN UP
Joiners: talks to Ivan Valdez of Taquizas Valdez.
The Dining Table: David Manilow picks his quintessential neighborhood restaurants.
Supper With Sylvia: talks to Mushroom Guys Sam DiGioia and Joe Weber.
And we have a new podcast! The Dish From Chicago Magazine (use the whole name when you search for it, as there’s a ton of “Dish” podcasts) debuts with dining editor Amy Cavanaugh and reviewer John Kessler going through their recent Best New Restaurants issue.
IN MEMORIAM
You might recognize Leonard Toia’s last name more from his son, Sam, president of the Illinois Restauyrant Asssociation. But you definitely know his pizza:
He liked the pizza at a neighborhood spot called Leona’s at 928 W. Belmont Ave. Even more than the pizza, he liked Sue, the owner’s daughter.
He became a regular. And, after a few months, she warmed to Mr. Toia, who by then owned a neighborhood tavern in Ukrainian Village.
After the couple got married, Mr. Toia’s mother-in-law convinced him to get out of the bar business and come work at the pizzeria.
That’s the Sun-Times. Leonard Toia ran Leona’s, eventually with his sons, for more than two decades before retiring in the 1990s; he passed away at 94 in April.
WHAT MIKE ATE
Breakfast (or brunch—I don’t do brunch, but there’s plenty of overlap, so I can talk about it) at Kasama is one of the great things in Chicago, and everybody knows it, which is why there’s a long enough line there each morning that you’d think they were issuing RealIDs along with lumpia. But I’d never been there for dinner, so I got a reservation and finally tried it. And now I’m in the awkward position of having found something at Kasama that I didn’t love.
Owners Genie Kwon and Tim Flores came from Oriole, and there are resemblances—everything is a tiny little jewel of a course, and there are luxe touches (at some point the truffle grater comes out, as you knew it would). There’s also a big difference—it’s built on Filipino dishes and flavors. All those ethnic-cuisine tasting menus that have been one of the main fine dining trends of the past decade? I’m not going to say Kasama started that (obviously Japanese omakase far predates it; Jeong’s Korean-inflected tasting menu also beat it by a year) but their success, and that line, surely encouraged people to think, hey, I could do that with my food, too.
The first bite, indeed, could hardly have been more Filipino—a lumpia wrapped in a shiso leaf set the promise for the meal. Scarfable fried food with a sophisticated note from the shiso, like a slug of brandy added to a familiar dessert. There were others that were appealing—scallops in a tomatillo-based sauce, squab in a classic French sauce similar to Bordelaise, etc. But nothing really equaled that first high note. As we went through Filipino cuisine’s greatest hits—adobo! kare-kare!—I waited to be wowed but too often felt like I was on a nostalgia tour—for someone else. Kare-kare is a peanut-based sauce, and it has no childhood memories for me—instead, peanut is an instant killer of any upscale-ness to a dish for me. If not automatically suggestive of PB&J to me, at least the dipping sauce that came with chicken satay, and which I slathered on everything Thai when I first had Thai food, until I gained some sophistication and stopped using it like a kid putting ketchup on everything.
Okay, so I’m an uncultured baboon, but I wanted the flavors to take me somewhere new and I can’t really say they did. As the ube Basque cake at Kasama, or the black truffle croissant, or other things at breakfast can, and do.
Yooyee is a Sichuan restaurant on Broadway a block or so south of Argyle, that’s gotten a certain amount of attention lately. It was certainly busy at noon on Saturday, with a fully Asian crowd to my eye (except at my table). And it seems quite authentic, in the sense that means that the popcorn chicken had so much Sichuan peppercorn that my mouth tasted like I’d sprayed it with Rust-Oleum after a few bites. (It’s probably the most recommended dish on online reviews, so someone likes it that way.) Potstickers had way too thick wrappers—my wife tore them open to extract the meat and not eat all the carbs. The one thing that was pretty good was housemade noodles, used in dan dan mian. So not my new favorite Chinese restaurant, but it seems to be somebody’s, to judge by the buzz.
I’ve said before that I think there must be outstanding Mexican food out there we don’t know about yet. Titus Ruscitti suggested that actually it is a time when less is happening with Mexican food in Chicago. But there’s so many places in so many parts of town that even a weak era for it seems like it has to produce a few new places of note, and that’s what I found when I went to Little Village last week with son #1 and tried a place called La Patrona, on Cermak.
The first thing we tasted was chips, with a red and a green salsa—and the latter was one of the best salsas I’ve tasted in Chicago for quite a while, garlicky and bright. Salsas turned out to be the key element here—unlike most south side taco joints, La Patrona’s not about griddled meat piled on a storebought tortilla but about a small number of meats tossed in a salsa and piled on a handmade, freshly griddled blue corn masa tortilla. So something a little different, and both my son and I liked what we had (asada, pastor, barbacoa) a lot. One thing I will say is that it’s unusually expensive, especially for that part of town where tacos seem to go for about $2; an order of tacos is two for $9. But what we had was good and different enough, made with such obvious loving care (they asked us how everything was at least three times), that I have no problem saying to patronize La Patrona.