1. BOOK NEWS
Well, the launch phase of my book—local TV and radio and the excerpt in Chicago mag—is pretty much complete, but now it’s podcasts and appearances to talk about the book, and there are several of each planned (a number of the podcasts are already recorded). When there are public events for which people might want to get tickets, I’ll let you know here. In the meantime, here’s one interview to get you started, at a newsletter called SAVOR by a guy named Andrew Davis. I like the headline: “Food writer Michael Gebert talks about ‘The Chicago Way,’ Charlie Trotter and raccoon meat.” We had a fun chat, go read it here.
2. GINGIE’S FIRE
This is just heartbreaking: Gingie, the new Boka Group restaurant from chef Brian Lockwood (Midosuji), opened last week—and had a fire on its fourth day of operation, and who knows when it will be able to reopen. It’s hard not to think of Balena, Boka Group’s very popular Italian restaurant, which had a fire and spent a couple of years in insurance hell before closing for good. Here’s hoping for a happier (and faster) ending to the unexpectedly short opening chapter of this new restaurant.
3. SHORT BEARD
I have a theory about tasting menus, that with almost nobody having the budget to review them any more, every year we might get three or four new concepts—but only one each year will actually break through to attention. It was Cariño a couple of years ago, it was Feld last year—and right now the next one looks likely to be Atsumeru. Well, the news from the James Beard Awards looks good for Atsumeru’s Devin Denzer next year, because both Cariño’s Norman Fenton and Feld’s Jake Potashnick got nominations for Best Chef Great Lakes. The only other nomination for Chicago this year went to Bailey Sullivan of Monteverde, for Emerging Chef. Maybe other tasting menus should look at moving to Ohio, which claimed three chef noms, compared to our two.
4. NEW FROM ZUBAIR AND OTHERS
There’s a ton of new places opening—the piece at WTTW I listed two weeks ago listed 31 (!)—and Anthony Todd talks about several, including the three (!) c0ncepts coming from Zubair Mohajir and Rishi Kumar (Mirra):
Mariela
Opening: Spring
The team behind Mirra, including chefs Rishi Kumar and Zubair Mohajir, is opening a new spot in the Loop. Mariela will be heavy on seafood and will combine their Southeast Asian heritage and Midwestern culinary training. Part of the reason I’m excited for this spot is that it’s replacing the old Atwood Café in the Reliance Building, one of the best spaces downtown. It’s not the only restaurant from Mohajir to come — he is also opening a spot called Muhajir on Clark Street focused on live fire cooking, with a Filipino-inspired speakeasy, Bobo, in the same space. 1 W. Washington St., Loop
5. MASA MAN
Speaking of both openings and Norman Fenton of Cariño, the Trib has a piece on his upcoming tortilleria/taco stand, next door to Cariño:
Chef Norman Fenton will open a tortillería with “masa-driven treats” next door to his Michelin-starred restaurant Cariño in Chicago. Molino Los Hermanos hopes to start grinding in Uptown this summer. Fenton’s new dual-concept business will feature a double volcanic stone mill on one side and a 24-seat chef’s counter on the other, though both will focus on house-made tortillas.
“We plan to sell wholesale and retail tortillas,” said Fenton, the chef and owner. Masienda and Tamoa will supply single-origin, heirloom, non-GMO grains of corn from farmers in Mexico.
6. ICED OUT
The Reader has a piece on how Mexican street vendors are doing, now that ICE activity in Chicago has quieted down, but many still are not reassured:
“They were coming in and just picking people up off the street,” says Bertin’s younger son, Chuy*. “It happened a couple times around here. We got very paranoid, so we tried to open up inside. We had our phone number on a poster with the address of the old place. We started telling people we were gonna be selling from home. But then we would get a lot of anonymous text messages saying, ‘Are you guys open? Can we come in?’ And we’d be like, ‘Wait, we don’t know who these people are.’” They took the poster down.
The family business shut down in November and only reopened in secret in February.
7. JAMES AND EDITH
Michael Nagrant starts with a caustic look at the new Beard nominees, but it turns into a review of Petite Edith, inluding perhaps the most Nagranty of Nagrant sentences:
What you need to know about Edith is that in the middle of my meal knuckle deep in a cassoulet featuring duck confit with a potato chip-level crackling crust rubbed in orange marmalade followed by bites of silky corn agnolotti flanked by juicy escargot followed by bites of mica-like flakes of puff pastry from a lobster pot pie glazed in a hug of gravy, I went into a kind of flow state.
8. THE NAME OF THE SUDS
I accidentally missed Nick Kindelsperger’s post last week, which was unfortunate, because he went to a place I knew well in my working-in-the-Loop days: Monk’s Pub, which sounds a little upscale compared to my day:
Like all great bars, Monk’s has customs and rituals. You can’t sit anywhere you want. This is an after-work bar, which means large groups and lots of collared shirts. Those tables in the back are saved for them, not for you, the lonely wanderer. But even the people sitting at the bar talk shop. I hear there might be a recession, or housing might save the economy. AI models are a bit confusing right now, you know?
Monk’s also isn’t a dive bar, though it used to be. In the 1980s, it might have been in the “ass end of the Loop“ with only one draft line dedicated to Schlitz, but those days are gone. Now Monk’s draft list isn’t just deep, it’s splendid, with one of the best selections of Belgian beers anywhere in downtown Chicago.
This week, he goes to a sandwich place that’s a cut above, Hannah’s Bretzel.
9. FISKIN’ CHIPS
Kevin Pang tries ten fish and chips to find his favorites:
I am not saying these are the best in the city. No restaurant was “voted number one.” I selected 10 restaurants based on geographic diversity, places that have gained notoriety for their fried fish, and recommendations from those who live nearby.
What I realized was this: There’s many ways to fry a fish. A simple flour dredge that produces a lightly crisp surface. A coarser flour and harder fry will produce something crunchier. You can go the batter route — a wet, carbonated batter will produce an airy, crackly crisp outside. In my tastings around town, I experience all of the above.
10. LAMB TO THE SLAUGHTER
Titus Ruscitti does a roundup on s subject I haven’t seen anyone tackle: where to go for lamb in Chicago. It’s not surprising where he starts:
We’ll start in Greektown as the Greeks are serious about lamb. Though the area is a shell of its former self with only a handful of Greek restaurants left. 9 Muses Bar & Grill blends into Halsted where it looks more like a bar than a restaurant. It doesn’t look all that Greek compared to the other spots but if you’re familiar with Greek mythology the Nine Muses are goddesses of inspiration for the arts, literature, sciences. 9 Muses on Halsted is a Greek owned bar and grill with a Greek forward menu. I stopped in here with the alderman and his team one day and decided to try the lamb steak which sounded great and it was. Nothing fancy but it’s far from standard. It comes with extra starch in the form of rice and potatoes and has that wonderful taste of char grilled lamb that I’ve come to love.
11. 20,000 LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA
The one and only time I went to a Mr. Submarine, I lived near Depaul, and I think I had just been to a movie at Facets and I stopped in for a late night treat. I ordered a shake, and it turned out the way they made shakes was to take a pre-made fully frozen shake and microwave it slightly to loosen it up. The result, though, was a block of shake ice floating in warm chocolate milk, and about as appealing as drinking from a baby’s formula bottle.
Dennis Lee has his own views on Chicago’s hometown mediocre sub shop:
Regional chain restaurants always fascinate me, because they always seem to capture an area’s eating preferences in an unspoken way. In this case, this particular sub sandwich chain (which I’m sure you’ve sussed out from the photo above) definitely screams Chicago. But it’s one that’s been around for just over 50 years now, and while I don’t hear people talking about it too often, it’s definitely a shop that feels like home. I grew up watching commercials advertising the place, and one of my favorite parts about this chain is that it’s never once claimed that its sandwiches were ever the best — and honestly, they don’t need to be.
12. IN THE BEGINNING
At WTTW, Maggie Hennessy talks about the subject of her new book, The Burger Bible, and picks her Chicago top five:
As one person doing her best to document our great, beefy metropolis, my contribution is far from the final word. There’s the matter of personal preferences. I’d rather eat a meatier patty than one smashed to the brink of becoming seared meat leather. I like balanced ratios and simple, piquant toppings — a good pickle, a shot of mustard, a sticky, plebian cheese.
There’s also the bread, an important aspect, if not more so than the rest. I profess an inordinate love of raw and griddled onions, the latter of which factor heavily in flavoring the likes of, say, the excellent Big Baby burger at Nicky’s The Real McCoy in Alsip, though nowhere more exemplary than Ragadan in Uptown.
13. HERE’S A TIP
Eddie Lakin of Edzo’s says about tipping exactly what I think—just tell me the damn rules:
We’re now presented with the option to tip on nearly every transaction we make. The problem — the reason it’s stress-inducing — is that we don’t know what the rules are, so we’re faced with having to make a decision in the moment about it. Every damn time. Does THIS transaction qualify? And if so, how much do I need to tip? That’s a lot of mental work to do, day in, day out, every time, every coffee, meal, haircut, or dry clean pickup.
It’s annoying. It can feel socially awkward. It can evoke feelings of shame, guilt, anger, or resentment. And it’s a just a lot to process considering how many transactions we all make every week, every month. That’s a lot of extra decision-making. It takes a cumulative toll on our minds. A lot of heavy lifting of mental baggage.
14. LISTEN UP
The Dining Table talks to Robert Cervantes (Apero Tavern) about what goes into a wine bar menu.
Joiners talks to Doug Phillips of Hogsalt’s Trivoli Tavern about life running a bar.
Dish from Chicago mag talks about Amy Cavanaugh’s neighborhood, Uptown.
The Chef’s Cut has the final part of their three-part series on hospitality.