1. TIME’S UP CHICAGO

Sad to report that Friend of Fooditor Maggie Hennessy announced that her recent review of Fire for Time Out Chicago will be her, and it seems anybody’s, last:

I’m sad to say that this is the last restaurant or bar review I’ll write for @timeoutchicago—a casualty of another shrinking editorial budget. I am planning to keep up with reviews somewhere super fun so watch this space.

But man, I will miss this gig. Thank you @morgancolsen for taking a chance on me in 2017 and @jmai11 for asking me back after my New Mexico sojourn. You appreciated me for who I am. That’s rare and I’m grateful.

The shadow of once-vibrant Time Out Chicago that still ran occasional reviews alongside a lot of listicles is now even shadowier—honestly, not sure how much I will need to check it for anything in the future, since listicle-based publications are written for search engines, not human beings. And I don’t really need listicles on “The most romantic restaurants in Chicago,” let alone “The new spring cocktails at Time Out Market Chicago you need to try this season,” to name two on their home page right now.

As for the “somewhere super fun” that Maggie hints at, I can’t imagine what it would be, but I wish her the best. The ranks of professional reviewers in Chicago about on par with the black rhinoceros—”critically endangered.”

2. ET CETERA MEANS MOORE

Lamar Moore has done interesting things at a bunch of places—seems like time he stayed somewhere for a while. Etc. sounds like it could be it, says Amy Cavanaugh at Chicago mag:

The menu at Etc., the new Loop place from Lamar Moore, serves as an archive of the celebrated chef’s culinary life experiences. Seasoned fried chicken skins, served with steak tartare, nod to the Southern gas station snacks he used to eat while traveling as a chef for the Bears. A whole fish, dressed with a sauce that includes soy sauce, ginger, and Thai chiles, reflects the time he spent cooking at the Peruvian restaurant Tanta and the seafood giant McCormick & Schmick’s. His deviled eggs are based on the relish-loaded versions his mother and grandmother made when he was a kid, but with twists: cornichons, truffle oil, and caviar, which, he says, “flex on my steakhouse background.”

3. DEAR JOHNS

“I might be the only person in Chicagoland who had a disappointing meal at John’s Food and Wine in Lincoln Park last year,” begins Michael Nagrant, and I think he’s not far wrong. At least one thing, usually pasta, wowed me on all of my visits to date, so I don’t know what Nagrant’s problem was. But in any case, he finally liked it when he went for its prix fixe menu—starting with pasta:

Wrinkly agnolotti, more of a pierogi stuffed with velvety sunchoke puree floated in a pond of refined smoky ham broth spiked like country gravy with a tiny jolt of espresso. After the dumplings disappeared into my gullet, I started finger swiping the remaining dribbles of sunchoke from the bowl.

If you’re only serving five courses on a $100+ tasting menu, it’s a bold choice to serve chicken instead of say beef. John’s “golden chicken”, though, as Blago might say is an effin’ golden opportunity.

A pave of tender breast meat capped by a brick of blonde cracklin’ sidles up to a trio of morels big enough to house a whole colony of Smurfs. Adjacent to the morels is a roulade stuffed with boudin blanc. The whole thing sits in a pool of sauce piquante, a thickened refined gumbo-like broth.

4. LOOKS JUST LIKE HE’S SLEEPING

Tons of interesting openings and the Tribune… covers for the second time a COVID-era popup now resident in a bar (Moonflower), Funeral Potatoes:

Funeral Potatoes, a magical modern Midwestern comfort food restaurant, has found an idyllic home at Moonflower, an exemplary neighborhood cocktail bar in Portage Park, nestled among the bungalows on the Northwest Side of Chicago.

Thoughtful monthly and weekly food specials, and even a whimsical mystery grilled cheese sandwich, heighten the experience. Especially at Nightshade, a fantastical experimental speakeasy-style basement lounge.

Previously covered here, in 2022.

5. KAWAYAN EYE

The Infatuation has a listicle on Filipino food, and one interesting-sounding place they check out is called Kawayan, on, the northwest side:

Kawayan is a small Jefferson Park spot with a colorful plant mural, a few tables, and many great Filipino staples. The kare kare is tender, the crispy pata is fried to perfection, and the sisig with plenty of sizzling meat gets a burst of calamansi. But our favorite dish is the La Paz batchoy, which comes from the owners’ hometown of Iloilo City.

6. MI AMICI PIZZA

Titus Ruscitti mostly feels like I do about Pizz’Amici: very good thin crust/tavern cut, but the style is strong everywhere, so it’s wild to be frantic about getting a reservation:

The pizza didn’t crack so to say despite being cold cured ala Pat’s Pizza on Lincoln. I also thought the sausage was missing something but in fairness I always feel that way at the newer spots that insist on making it on-site despite the availability of a quality product from multiple Chicagoland vendors. My other problem was the sauce which tasted like it had too much going on. Maybe I prefer a milder sauce or maybe I’m just not used to such a heavily seasoned pizza sauce but it dominated the flavor. It might sound like I didn’t like this place at all but I still thought the pizza was very good just not the best in town like some others are saying. Actually I enjoyed the veggie supreme pizza more than the sausage which was a first. The quality of the mushrooms and the freshness of the onion and peppers really worked in sync with the well spiced sauce. Overall this is a great opening for the area as there isn’t anything else like it along Grand avenue there. The people behind Pizz’Amici have pushed pizza forward in Chicago and I’m almost positive the pizza is always improving as that’s what perfectionists like them set out to achieve. I recently saw the backshot (the crust side) of a slice and could tell they’re already making it a bit different then when I was there as the picture showed a bunch of dots and the pizza I got had a bunch of diagonal lines going thru the dough. I’ll happily go back but I wont be making reservations weeks ahead as that’s just not my style when it comes to getting a pizza.

7. DANNIS SMASH

Dennis Lee goes for smashburgers at Small Bar:

This is one crisp smashburger. I mean, look at those edges. The burger is so well-caramelized that it audibly crunches when you bite into its perimeter, almost like a cracker. Now this is the kind of patty smashburger places really try and aim for when it comes to the style, but from my experience it can be hit or miss. Patty Please has absolutely nailed it here, and that combination of condiments gives you that all-American burger vibe.

Or was it small burgers at Smashbar? You’ll have it read it to be sure.

8. AMWAY

Anthony Todd talks about Ambar, the new Balkan restaurant in River North:

What exactly is Balkan food? Well, as [owner Ivan] Iricanin explains, the Balkans run from Slovenia all the way through Macedonia, and if you know anything about world history, you know that a lot of various invaders have tramped through the empires in that part of the world. That mélange of influences has created a cuisine with elements of Turkish, Greek, Mediterranean, and other flavors, and rich, slow-cooked flavors are the unifying element. “We have these deep-flavored dishes,” Iricanin says. “If you drive from Serbia to Croatia, you see a lot of restaurants with a whole lamb or whole pig slowly turning and roasting next to the road.”

9. JUNG, GIFTED AND BROCK

Sean Brock (Husk in Charleston, etc.) will be doing a dinner with Maxwells Trading on May 13. So Chris Jung, chef at Maxwells, talks about Brock’s influence on him:

11. LISTEN UP

Joiners talks to Kevin Brown, one of the most important people in Chicago food you may well never have heard of—he started fresh out of school at R.J Grunts, and went on to become CEO of Lettuce Entertain You. (Yes, he’s interviewed in my book.)

Suppers With Sylvia talks with Jason Chan, whose latest restaurant (of many over the decades) is Gavroche. (Yes, he’s interviewed in my book too.)

The Dining Table (which has a new logo) talks to a favorite independent restaurateur, Ethan Lim, who does Cambodian fast food by day and fancy Cambodian dinners at night. (No, he’s not interviewed in my book, but he did appear during COVID on my Fooditor Radio Is All Dressed Up and Has No Place To Go podcast.)

12. WE’VE GOT EVENTS

Indian food will be the subject of a panel discussion called “Masala Memories,” a panel on “the evolution and future of Chicago’s regionally diverse South Asian food scene,” put on by the South Asia Institute on May 24 from 3-5 pm. Besides the panel, which includes Steve Dolinsky, Colleen Taylor Sen and Mike Sula, as well as the chefs of Basant and Bombay Eats, there will be a food tasting put on by the two restaurants. Go here for tickets.

WHAT MIKE ATE

The first time I went to Maxwells Trading, a year ago, I thought, I won’t really know what this Asian-meets-Chicago-food place is about until I go again in a season or two and see where the menu goes next. More data points will tell me what it’s really about—it’s hard to judge a place when you just try three or four things and they’re all pretty wildly different.

So I had that second visit, and—nice theory, not sure it held up in practice. Partly because we had things we’d had a year ago—the excellent Japanese sweet potato with the creme brulee crust, which has spawned a couple of comments online that sweet potatoes are suddenly A Thing—but also, I think the intention has been intellectualized, but I don’t know that it really amounts to anything more than “things we like.” Asian influences remain the strongest—we had a piece of black sea bass in a sweet-tinged soy sauce, made with Erling’s mother’s homemade soy sauce, which also came to the table for the claypot rice with mushrooms,  and a thick hunk of pork katsu with an apple and celery root slaw (and a dollop of wasabi), but we also had some papperdelle with crawfish in a Nantua (creamy seafood) sauce, and roasted Brussels sprout leaves piled on crusty bread (from Loaf Lounge) with stracciatella, not Asian at all—just comfy and soul-satisfying.

So I don’t know that I can still articulate what precisely they’re up to here, but we went with my older son and his girlfriend for her birthday, and they were in no way bugged by my analytical questions—they just kept saying how much they liked the flavors, and how they’d have to keep it in mind for a place to go in the future. I suggest you go there like them, not like me thinking too hard about it. Like avec, where owner Erling Wu-Bower worked for many years, it’s very good at making simple dishes pop to the best of their potential.