1. LIGHTLY BEARDED

The James Beard nominations came out and again, we got about as few as you could expect. Besides the already-announced America’s Heritage award to Lem’s Bar-B-Q, Galit (which won Restaurant of the Year for 2023 at the Jean Banchet awards) got an Outstanding Restaurant nomination, and Kumiko got a Bar of the Year nom—both of them led by past Beard winners (chef Zach Engel won Rising Chef of the Year at Shaya in New Orleans, and mixologist Julia Momose won in 2022 for her cocktail book The Way of the Cocktail). Otherwise it was just three nominations in the Best Chef Great Lakes category, Thai Dang for Hai Sous, Chris Jung (who won the Banchet for Rising Chef in the 2024 awards) and Erling Wu-Bower for Maxwells Trading, and Noah Sandoval for Oriole (which won Restaurant of the Year at the Banchets in 2022).

2. PROXI FIGHT

Anthony Todd describes dining at Proxi a few years ago:

Memorably, Proxi is one of only a handful of restaurants where I have ever ordered the same dish twice in one sitting: a tuna collar that was so good I just had to have more.

Actually I think I was the one who suggested we get a second order of it, since it had been gobbled up quickly by the three or four of us. Anyway, Proxi’s sort of pan-Asian approach (from India to Vietnam) apparently confused people, so under new chef Jennifer Kim (Passerotto; Andrew Zimmerman remains the big boss of both Proxi and Sepia), they’re calling themselves “Coastal Asian”:

“I really wanted to make sure that Jennifer had a big stage,” Zimmerman says. “They are so talented, and working with them is incredibly inspiring.” Kim’s presence doesn’t mean that the menu is suddenly Korean, but you’ll see an abundance of Korean flavors, along with Thai, Japanese, and other Asian influences. Some of this was already on the menu and will stay — for example, wagyu beef cheeks served with panang curry and a pan-roasted striped bass with green curry.

3. KANIN ABLE

Some headline puns have to be gotten out of the way as soon as possible. Anyway, I’ll have something to say about big lines further down, but in the meantime, Louisa Chu at the Trib goes inside the big lines at Filipino-Hawaiian joint Kanin:

Social media manager and business partner Noah Rabaya found about 30 people in line, with 30 minutes until their 11 a.m. opening time.

“And Noah was like, ‘Are you guys here for us?’” [chef and co-owner Julius] Tacadena said. “And then a half-hour later, Francis [Almeda, co-owner] ran in, he’s like, ‘Hey, you need to come outside.’”

The line stretched south on Damen Avenue, and eventually crossed Winnemac Avenue two blocks away.

“We had prepped what I thought was enough food for Saturday and Sunday,” Tacadena said. “At 11:30 I ran in the back, and was like, ‘We gotta cook it all.’”

Because they have a motto that’s emblazoned in the shop.

“‘Everybody eats,’” said the chef. “And the last thing I wanted to do on grand opening was turn away a line of people.”

4. MAGILLA ZARELLA

Most of The Infatuation this week is from a pho listicle, but they also were the first to go to the Boka Group’s pizza spot, Zarella:

The menu: uncomplicated. The neighborhood: busy. The booths: big. But we’re delighted to report that this spot is, indeed, good. There are dueling pizza styles, tavern and “artisan” (thin but with a puffy edge), and both have tangy crusts with admirable structural integrity.

5. BATTLE OF THE SUBSTACK STARS

Well, only one is on Substack, but both are independent food critics publishing themselves. Michael Nagrant went after Grimod of Understanding Hospitality because, he says, Grimod committed an ethical violation. The story begins with Grimod having a Boka Black Card, something I’d never heard of, but it’s basically special treatment for frequent customers. The hitch is, as Nagrant tells it, Grimod had a personal connection to the group he now disparages:

As I dug in to the black card details, I uncovered the fact that Grimod is married to a former Boka-affiliated Girl & the Goat wine professional who was let go from the group during the Covid-19 era.

From what I can tell on Instagram, Grimod was only dating the wine director during this Covid-19 period.

The timeline could just be a coincidence, but Grimod’s attacks on the groups seem to coincide with his partner’s separation from Boka.

Still, maybe he really didn’t like what Boka did, and it had nothing to do with his partner. One thing’s certain, he should have disclosed this connection to the restaurant group he was covering, so readers could at least determine whether he was being punitive or genuine.

Well, maybe. I believe in always admitting things up front, because it only looks worse when it inevitably comes out (and in fact advised that to Grimod, early on). If you have a level of credibility to begin with, people can handle that you are pals with a chef or whatever. In any case, keeping personal romantic details out of your writing is nowhere near the sin of Nagrant’s last expose, of the influencer who was hustling some middle eastern restaurant.

More interesting to me is the followup, which was Grimod responding to Nagrant’s allegations with a detailed and (to me, at least) highly interesting discussion of his method:

I don’t think I’m masochistic enough to spend thousands of dollars at Boka (or any of my subjects I visit a minimum of three times) and recount its history over many thousands of words out of sheer hatred. Rather, my writing tries to take every point into consideration, present them all, deduce some kind of logic or pattern, and make a conclusion. The reader has access to my full train of thought and can decide (along with experiencing each restaurant on their own terms) where I’ve gone wrong. If there are things about my life I do not reveal, and they influence my perception of a subject, the reader will sense that my palate is not reliable. However, the point of the process (a minimum of three visits, a notable investment of time and money, a very thorough steeping of myself in the topic) is to “show my work” (as excruciatingly as possible). Talking about wine selection and markups, tracing the development of recipes over time, describing the intended balance of ingredients in each dish, as well as the execution (insofar as one is clear and detailed) comes as close to the “objective” side of food criticism as possible. Everything else (emotion, “experience”) is bound to be subjectively perceived in ways, no matter how hard we try, we are unaware of.

Admittedly the insideriest of inside baseball, but interesting to me and maybe to you, too, if you care about how food is talked about in what seems to be the post-mainstream media era.

6. INDONESIA FOR THE INDONESIANS

There’s often the question, does Chicago have any Indonesian restaurants? The answer is usually none or one, and a new Wrigleyville restaurant called Rendang Republic moves us into the “one” category. Daniel Hautzinger at WTTW:

[Chef John] Avila and his business partner Syatrizal Hamdallah are hoping to draw in some of the neighborhood’s foot traffic with Indonesian twists on the sort of Chicago classics many baseball fans enjoy on game day. The restaurant’s focus is rendang, an aromatic protein dish with a flavorful, almost dry sauce that is one of Indonesia’s most popular meals. While Avila will offer his take on a classic rendang featuring beef, chicken, or vegetarian jackfruit over rice with sides and toppings, he also serves it on bread as a sort of Italian beef sandwich, topped with giardiniera, fried shallot, cilantro, green onion, and spicy sambal aioli. (Sambal is a chili paste similar to Sriracha.)

Rendang Republic also has a hot dog – in this case, a chicken sausage from crosstown’s The Duck Inn, where Avila used to work. Fried shallot replaces a Chicago dog’s raw onion, a carrot-cucumber-shallot pickle mix known as acar acar serves as relish, the salad dabu dabu offers tomato, and cilantro, green onion, and sambal aioli round out the dragged-through-the-garden toppings, all on a poppy seed bun.

7. BOB-O’S LINKED

Italian beef is one of those things that all seem the same, yet the subtle differences make it interesting to explore, in a way hot dogs are not. Dennis Lee has some things to say based on visits to two northwest side places—one of which I know well, Bob-O’s on west Irving Park. Often when I was deep in my book, and needed a break, I would drive to a small group of blue collar eats joints on the edge of twon, as much for the drive as what I would have. Like the Italian beef combo at Bob-O’s:

The idea of an already large Italian sausage on a French roll that treats a mound of beef as a condiment has always been absolutely hilarious to me. But Bob-O’s is excellent. It’s all that aggressive seasoning in the charred sausage, like fennel and garlic, along with the fat, salt, and volume of meat, that really brings this thing together. Now that I’m getting older I’m sort of finding it harder to justify ordering Italian beef combos, but I have to admit they’re good when you get them at the right spots, and Bob-O’s counts as one of them.

The other one is Jay’s, in Harwood Heights:

What I noticed immediately, aside from the peppers, was the jus. The gravy here is remarkably concentrated, with a deeply meaty flavor and salty backbone. It’s rare that a detail like that sticks out so much for me, especially in something as utilitarian as an Italian beef sandwich, but here it’s a tremendous highlight.

Now, here’s the thing—I would go to Bob-O’s for the atmosphere and to get out of the house, more than f0r any one item I thought stood out there (other than the excellent, but way too numerous, fresh-cut fries). In fact the beef is kind of bland, at least without the sausage in the combo. I can’t remember if I’ve ever been to Jay’s (there used to be other locations, I think I went to one of those) but I think I need to try this concentrated gravy.

8. TALLOW TALE

As Eddie Lakin (Edzo’s) keeps reposting blog posts from years ago, here’s one about Top Notch Beefburgers in Beverly, which, given the nature of that establishment, is I’m sure every bit as accurate as it was in 2009:

I want to state for the record, right here, that Top Notch delivered exactly what I have been seeking from a burger. The raves are on the mark. It’s just too bad this place is roughly 167 blocks south of where I spend most of my time.

Oh, and the fries! I didn’t mention the fries yet, but they are fabulous. They may not be the best fries in the city, but they’re damn close. A place with a burger this good doesn’t need to turn out a perfectly-done version of the fresh-cut, double-cooked fry. Their burger is the draw, right? So they definitely don’t need to cook their fries in beef tallow, do they?

But they do, and they’re perfectly seasoned, crisp, and nicely browned without even approaching dark. While I was sitting at the counter, during a fairly busy lunch, I saw the fry cook make batch after small batch of fries which went straight onto plates with their burgers almost every time. The guy could’ve made two or three really large batches, considering the rate at which they were serving them up, and just worked from the heat-lamped dump zone pan, but he didn’t. Instead, almost every customer got fries that had just emerged from their sizzling hot fry bath of beef fat.

9. LORD BUSINESS

At Open Table, Lisa Shames talks to “Ramen Lord” Mike Satinover (Akahoshi Ramen) to find out what he likes… that isn’t ramen. He’s also on the Suppers With Sylvia podcast this week.

10. FOOD ON PAPER

Check out this illustration at Reddit of the artist’s favorite Chicago foods.

11. LISTEN UP

Joiners: I thought they hit a high point for 2025 with Omar Cadena (Omarcito’s) talking growing up in Latino Chicago as their first guest of the year, but this week… Ina Pinkney!

The Dining Table: David Manilow talks “authentic” Mexican restaurants in Chicago, including La Catedral in Little Village, which has 16 (!) kinds of chilaquiles on the menu, Santa Masa Tamaleria, Manchamanteles, and El Xangarrito, which is one of my fallbacks when I can’t think of some new place I need to try—especially in good weather (it’s a very pleasant place to sit outside).

Chewing: Talks to the owner of Rickshaw Pakistani & Indian Street Eats, which I have to note advertises “Open for Dine-In, Takeout & Delivery Only”… which means they don’t do what? Catering corporate events?

WHAT MIKE ATE

Went to visit Son #2 in Appleton, Wisconsin last weekend and the morning we came back we stopped by a local bakery chain in the Appleton area called Manderfield’s. Asking the young lady behind the counter what was good among the pastries for breakfast, her eyes lit up and she was not just telling us about, but advocating for her favorite pastries, including one which I had never heard of called a Persian, which is kind of a spiral thing and apparently comes from Thunder Bay, Ontario—and may actually have nothing to do with Persia and to have been originally named for General Pershing (!).

Anyway, Manderfield’s was such a charmer, in an old school/Dinkel’s kind of way, that it’s my new standard for a breakfast pastry joint. One day I had to take my wife’s car for emissions testing in Skokie, and since I was already going to be driving up north, it seemed like a good time to go to that LGBT-owned, fall-and-pumpkin spice-themed coffee place up way up at the northwest end of town, that somehow won a Readers’ Choice Award from the Tribune a few weeks back. That’s still a mystery to me, not because October Cafe isn’t deserving but because it took some finding in its location on a street that parallels Northwest Highway, up around Devon. And I think there were all of two other people there, the whole time I was there. Meanwhile Loba Pastry + Coffee near me is packed every day it’s open, and Del Sur Bakery has been wowing people with pics of the three-block line outside… but somehow this is what the “readers” chose.

Setting that aside, I was kind of charmed by the place. The autumnal decoration is kind of crazy but fun (it’s themed to the month the two women who own it met); the menu is heavy on flavored drinks, normally not my thing, but I ordered one with maple and cardamom in it and enjoyed it fine (I also tasted cardamom all day). The menu kind of leans, but is not exclusively, vegetarian/vegan—my maple drink was the first time I’ve been asked what kind of milk I wanted (“Uh… milk milk?”), and a bagel came with a thin schmear of cream cheese that seemed like it might not be a dairy product. (Didn’t mind the thinness, since I usually scrape half the cream cheese off anyway.) An orange cranberry muffin was fine (I’ve never had a bad one). But really, what I liked about the place wasn’t that the food or drink, but that it was such a small-town feeling place—the kind of place that rambles over a bumpy floor like two buildings were joined together, and has posters up for when the Easter Bunny will be there. It’s technically just inside the city limits (Norwood Park is just a few blocks away), but you feel like you could be in Plainfield or Wauconda… or Appleton, Wisconsin.

Back in the city I also went for breakfast to Cafe Yaya, the new place from the guys at Galit. I’m sort of baffled by the sudden prevalence of all-day cafes—seems like you’re locking in the lowest-traffic parts of the day—but their model (close at 2, reopen for dinner at 5) seems to solve that. I had two pastries—an apple galette and an apricot-pistachio scone—and they reminded me of what Leigh Omilinsky is doing at Daisies, high quality pastry in a European style. But I had some problems with the way this three-week-old place works. You pick the pastries from a case (like at Daisies), but then there are more sitting on the counter next to it—if you want to know what all there is, you pretty much have to break the line, go look, and come back to the line. I sat down (without anything yet) and they brought me a glass of water, which is nice, but then I heard something that could have been “Mike” from the far end of the bar, but when I looked up I saw nothing waiting on the bar.

A few minutes later I was called for my pastries (at Daisies they pluck them from the case as soon as you order)… but where was my coffee? They pointed to another station further down the line. I stood there for a moment as they made complicated espresso drinks, and then looked down to realize my coffee was sitting there, getting cold for the last five minutes. Considering the number of people working there, someone could have run it out… or at least noticed that I had not heard their call. I’m not trying to be a demanding customer, but there’s just no system here that makes any sense to the diner, waiting for the food he’s ordered (and paid a 20% service fee for). Hopefully in a month or so, they’ll work this out; in the meantime, as a definite admirer of Galit I’m curious to check out dinner, which I hear works like Johns Food and Wine (the no-service service model seems to be here to stay), but really, I hope I don’t have to walk my own hot food out down the single-file passageway from the kitchen.

One last visit, also a place where you order dinner at the counter at the start, but otherwise a place that makes up for the lack of standard amenities by being personal and welcoming: Wilson Bauer’s Flour Power. I’d never been, although I backed his Kickstarter in the pre-COVID days and got some pasta from him as a result. One reason I’d never been… I couldn’t quite figure out how. You can pre-order takeout on Tock, but to dine in, do you just… show up? Like a savage? Well, yes, basically—he advised me that coming earlyish (before 6:30) was the best bet. So there I was! The menu, written on a big sheet of roll paper tacked to the wall, included housemade lumache (shell pasta) with roasted pork and a tomatoey broth, and… Cincinatti chili? Apparently they do that once a month… but then randomness seems to be part of the charm.

Anyway, I had a very nice, slightly random meal: the lumache, which was rustic and porky in the best ways, the housemade bread (it’s sort of shaped like focaccia, but has a sourdough tang and crumb, though Bauer doesn’t use a starter—instead he takes some of the day-old bread and grinds it into today’s batch, he says), served with a ball of burrata and a chunk of honeycomb, and finally—this was a freebie—a tiramisu cream puff for dessert. Anyway, a deeply satisfying meal and one that was a pure expression of the chef-owner’s interests, which is to say, what he felt like making (I just saw fresh lamb in a social media post, so I guess that’s what was on the menu next). Now that I know how to go there, I’ll certainly be back, because it’s one of those places that represents, to me, what’s best about our scene, when it’s all about one person’s vision (and hard work), and yes randomness, shared with us.