AFTER A COUPLE OF YEARS OF NOT HAVING MUCH new to say about the Chicago dining scene, the ever-inscrutable Michelin Guide announced yesterday that it was gaga for omakase dining in Chicago. It gave four new one star awards to omakase-style restaurants—Mako, Omakase Yume, Kikko, the basement dining experience within Kumiko, and Yügen—plus one to a non-omakase restaurant long ignored by Michelin, Next. And if you feel there’s something’s missing from that list, you’re right—Kyōten, whose chef moved to Chicago expressly to be eligible for Michelin, and who has been vocal about aiming for it, got the high hat from the tire guys.
Not that Fooditor is getting back into the podcasting biz, but when I saw the list, I knew that Anthony Todd, whose article went up at Chicago magazine as soon as the embargo expired, and I needed to have a chinwag and dish the dirt on it. So here’s our 27-minute chat:
0:00: Introduction/What’s a one star?
5:35: “Are they saying Chicago is the best Japanese city in the world?”
9:21: “The collective wisdom of the entire Chicago dining scene is wrong, and Michelin is right”
12:00: Next, now with consistency!
15:23: Who Michelin ignored—Fat Rice, S.K.Y., Jeong and others
23:09: Who Michelin always ignores
25:08: Michelin: what is it good for
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Michael Gebert is sparks of Fooditor.
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