1. AU REVOIR, EDZO

There have been many closings lately, and when they’ve gotten a lot of publicity elsewhere (say, Taqueria Chingon or Sticky Rice), I haven’t covered them, having nothing particularly to add and figuring you saw the news. This one, though, I gotta. Eddie Lakin was a friend from LTHForum—I still use his chili recipe, which wasn’t really a recipe but a set of guidelines (though what I added to it was using Rick Bayless’s ancho paste rather than chili powder)—when he launched Edzo’s in Evanston in 2009. The idea, like Hot Doug’s with hot dogs, was to do the classics as textbook-well as you possibly could (plus some quirky variations, though Edzo never went as far as rattlesnake burgers). So beautifully double-fried fries, correctly-made smash burgers before smash burgers were a thing, excellent milkshakes. When my kids went to school in Rogers Park, Edzo’s was a regular stop for us, or even a ritual—on the last day of school each year, we’d hit Edzo’s for lunch, then go to a movie at the Century in Evanston.

Eddie hung his burger hat up as of Saturday, before seeing what’s next for him. (His previous life included working for Charlie Trotter’s to-go business.) Eater has some details:

During the pandemic, fast-casual restaurants like Edzo’s were better equipped to handle lockdown mandates than sit-down restaurants as burgers lend themselves to carryout and delivery. Lakin says that still wasn’t good enough. Even before 2020, Lakin felt a decline, saying a road construction project in 2017 hurt his business. The restaurant used to be dependent on the weekday lunch crowd that came from nearby office workers. Working from home has since been normalized, another blow.

I could point to lots of past writing by me about Edzo’s, but actually my favorite writing about it was Eddie’s own story of a woman (now we’d call her a Karen) who came in and bypassed the line to snag a table, and was told by Eddie that she couldn’t do that, resulting in her harassing him all day and him logically driving her nuts in return:

A few minutes later, the phone rings. The caller ID tells me its a cell phone. I answer, and a very familar-sounding woman’s voice asks for a manager. I respond that I’m the manager, and how can I help her.

“No, she says, you’re the guy who took my order. I want to speak to an owner or a manager.”

I chuckle, because now I know just exactly what this call is.

“Yes, I’m the guy who took your order. I’m also the owner. AND the manager. How can I help you?”

She keeps it up. “So, wait…you’re the owner?”

“Yup,” I said.

“Is there a manager?”

“Just me,” I said. “How can I help you? I have a huge line of people waiting to order right now, so I can’t talk on the phone with you for very long”.

“……so you’re the only manager, then?”

[click]

What amused me most about this story was that my kids and I witnessed the first part of that in person. I also made a couple of videos about Edzo’s, but the one most worth seeing now has to be the “trailer” John Lenart and I made for a supposed documentary about Edzo’s, inspired by a certain sushi documentary, called Edzo Dreams of Cheeseburgers, including a cameo by myself parodying then-Michelin US head Jean-Luc Naret.

Anyway, for 15 years Edzo’s has served up damn good burgers and fries with humor and intelligence, and a willingness to let me waste his morning to get some laughs; and now he’s calling it a day. What more could we ask of a Charlie Trotter vet?

2. SHALL WE GATHER AT THE RIVER

Another closing that someone wrote about warmly is Gather, in Lincoln Square, which Ari Bendersky remembers:

Gather was a place you could, well, gather. The restaurant was always intended to casually and warmly bring people together, whether for an easy Tuesday night dinner, a weekend brunch, or Sunday evening shared family meal. The menu highlighted a variety of seasonal share plates, hearty pastas, beautifully prepared seafood dishes, and a wonderful wine list. Their crispy Brussels sprouts were fairly legendary. Local chef Cecilio Rodriguez, who runs private dining popup FatCap, wrote me after seeing the news that he wished he could have gotten a few more orders of those sprouts. “As a chef, I could probably make them, he said. “It still would never be the same.”

Ari does a smart thing at the end of his remembrance: a listicle of 30 favorite places that have been around forever—until one day they’re not—that you should visit now, while you can.

3. OLIVER!

Last week John Kessler wrote about half chicken being a trendy thing, and this week we find out why it was on his mind—it’s one of the standout dishes at Oliver’s, which he likes a lot of but still finds overall a mixed bag:

At Oliver’s, Alex Carnovale makes some of the best roast chicken I’ve ever eaten. Yes, it’s juicy, crisp-skinned, and from an Indiana natural farming cooperative. All great, but there’s a flavor level to its sauce that I, as a home cook, need to unlock.

…When the kitchen hits its mark, I can give the prices a pass. I don’t want to remember that the five fat slices of dry-aged strip loin cost $79. That’s because they made me swoon, particularly when swiped through a sauce that’s like an A.1. bordelaise. Nor do I care to dwell on the $46 price tag for that plump half chicken with a scattering of herbs and a cold green sauce that … Hello! What’s going on here? Dill, cultured cream, and a high note of onion without any sharpness? Carnovale’s trick: He soaks raw shallots in cold water to remove their sulfuric compounds, then blends them in.

If only the kitchen were more consistent.

4. REGRESSION TO THE BEAN

The first year’s best lists have started coming out—Michael Nagrant published his best openings of 2024 at his Substack, and Monica Eng published a five best bites at Axios. Based on this broad and comprehensive sample, I have a conclusion to draw: it’s about the middle-priced places these days. A couple of decades ago, Nagrant was mostly about the high end, the strivers and achievers like Trotter and Kahan, while Eng, doing her column The Dumpling Zone, was all about the low end ethnic joints. But the lists from both take the mid-priced ground—Monica even did a three-figure tasting menu! Has she ever, before? (Probably, but I can’t think of it.) While Nagrant ‘s high end choices are pretty mid-priced—places like Gavroche, Parachute Hi-Fi, Maxwells Trading. More to the point, at most he has one that could qualify as cheap eats—Santa Masa Tamaleria. (Okay, Bayan Ko Diner might count, too, but it’s pretty snazzy for a diner.)

You might observe that this says more about the two individuals involved than the actual state of our scene—but I’ve been working on my ten best, and frankly, it comes out very much the same in terms of price range. Not much at the high high end, but also not much in the way of joint food; the excitement for me was mostly in chefs who’ve tended to work in fancy places, but when it came to opening their own, kept it relatively modest, unpretentious, even as the price of even modest has gotten kind of immodest. (My list will go up close to New Year’s at Skyfullofbacon.com, and I’ll link when I come back from break on January 6.)

5. LATKE STAR

With Hannukah and Christmas falling on the same day this year, Steve Dolinsky focuses on one of the food symbols of the former at Once Upon a Bagel:

The kitchen staff is flipping out this time of year, because while latkes – or potato pancakes – are a staple on the menu at all five Once Upon a Bagels on the North Shore – including this one in Highland Park – they get especially slammed if Hannukah falls during winter break.

“Hannukah is a little bit different from the other holidays here, only because all of the families getting together so it gets a little nuts here,” said Ira Fenton, Owner of Once Upon a Bagel. “As you can see now here today, all the families are in, all the kids are home from school.”

6. NOODLECON

If there’s not much in the way of joint food—nobody’s opening new Mr. D’s Shish Kabobs—one thing we never run out of is new Thai joints. Titus Ruscitti talks about one in Lakeview:

Mahanakhon Noodle Bar caught my attention as soon as I learned of its opening this past summer. It’s pretty easy to tell what type of customer base a Thai restaurant is aiming for by looking at the menu and the menu at Mahanakhon was clearly geared towards the local Thai community. As the name suggests there’s an entire section of Thai style noodle soups including two of my absolute favorites – Boat Noodles and Khao Soi as well as lesser known offerings. There’s also a “Chefs Special” section which lists some interesting items including grilled giant river prawns in a seafood sauce – they were out when I tried to order them. The first time I came here was a hot day so the soups weren’t calling my name the same way as an order of cold noodles. I tried the Yum Woon Sen (glass noodles salad) and was captivated by the fresh and funky flavors. Perfect paired with an ice cold beer on a 90+ degree day. It’s made up of a delicious medley of shrimp, minced pork, snow mushrooms, tomato, shallot, celery, carrot, scallion, chili, sugar, pickle garlic, fish sauce, lime juice.

7. SOTTO VOCE

I ran into Maggie Hennessy in the basement restaurant of Italian Village once, so who better to cover the transformation from La Cantina (1955 to COVID) to the new Sotto? At WTTW she talks about her sister Madeleine and her roaming the very downtown, big city place as kids:

We’d descend the marble stairs in our best fluffy dresses and bunched-up stockings to the narrow, dimly lit corridor flanked with cafe tables and high-gloss exposed brick walls beneath a low, curved ceiling – like an alleyway in some make-believe Italian town. Past the tiny coat check with the windowed door, a small foyer featured a faux balcony looking out over a frescoed Florentine scene, complete with real lights in the tiny windows. This connected a low-lit bar (the future Bar Sotto) on the left and skinny dining corridor with cozy leather booths to the right. It took just one visit for us to determine that the latter offered the choicest seats in the whole place, because aquariums full of technicolor fish were built right into the wall. Under the guise of (far too many) bathroom trips, we’d set off to explore, rerouting with glee whenever we spotted the roving serving cart laden with platters of veal saltimbocca and creamy fettuccine.

8. IT’S A MIRABELLA

As a connoisseur of Chicago’s fading German restaurant scene, I used to go to Mirabell, the old German place opposite Chicago’s only Olive Garden. As a realist, I was not surprised that it bit the dust a decade ago, like many Germans in my area before it, and reopened under an Ecuadoran former Gene & Georgetti’s chef as Mirabella, a quasi-Italian steakhouse. The main thing I noticed going there post-Covid was that it did a fairly sparse business in the dining room—but was moving styrofoam containers like crazy from the bar area. That’s my part of town! Anyway, Dennis Lee went there and sings the old school praises of the place. Here’s a Chicago classic I’m not positive I’ve ever had:

Shrimp de Jonghe is a fascinating dish too, as it was invented here in Chicago.It’s a loose casserole made of shrimp bathed in a butter sauce, seasoned with lots of garlic, and scattered full of breadcrumbs flavored with sherry. Shrimp de Jonghe is often overlooked in favor of dishes like Italian beef (and even brownies, which were invented at the Palmer House hotel). But we don’t talk about it often, maybe because we associate with it expensive old-school steakhouses.

Mirabella’s is one you absolutely can’t miss. It’s salty, heavy on the butter and garlic, and the meaty shrimp is a hearty vehicle for the breadcrumbs, which both thicken the sauce and add crunch. Once the shrimp is gone, you’ll likely find yourself scooping the rest of the breadcrumbs up with your fork to keep chasing that buttery garlic flavor. I’m pretty sure Davida and I could have crushed two appetizer portions.

9. CHICAGO HISTORY MUSINGS

Someday my book will exit the editing (or possibly shrediting) process and head toward being put on dead trees, and you’ll be able to read the recollections of many notable Chicago chefs—among them Dean Zanella, now teaching Italian cookery at Tutore. But in the meantime, a Chicago chef told that story for himself at Culinary Historians of Chicago—specifically, Dean Zanella. He gave a Zoom talk for the group called “Chicago’s Astounding Food Evolution: 1990 ’til Now”; you can watch or listen to it here.

10. LISTEN UP

At his Pizza City podcast, Steve Dolinsky talks to Chicago’s Adam Weisell, who first did a Roman style of pizza called pinsa at a place called L’Aventino (see this Fooditor story). These days he’s in charge at Munno Pizzeria & Bistro in Uptown (another Fooditor story, back in the day), still making pinsa and other Italian dishes.

Joiners talks to the other guy at Maxwells Trading—not chef Chris Jung, but manager Josh Tilden (his partner Erling Wu-Bower has already been on it). Again, go to your podcast app and look for Joiners.