1. CHICAGO’S 50 BEST

Chicago mag’s issue on the 50 Best restaurants in Chicago—said to be on newsstands the last few weeks, but not in my neighborhood that I could find—is now up online, where it has gained a numerical ranking of the 50. Coming on at number one is Monteverde, which I can’t argue with, since it was #1 in one of my Fooditor 99 books in the late 2010s; but it’s an excellent choice given that it is such a Chicago place—Italian food by a Spiaggia-trained chef from Texas, who works her own tinges of the South into classic Italian food. The next 49 are mostly places you know in town, save a couple of suburban ringers like the Mitsuwa food court or a Korean standout in Northbrook called New Village Gastro Pub—one of only four I’ve never been to (all of them in the second 25).

I tried to think of things I might have picked that are missing. Every time I thought of a place that might have been overlooked (Sepia? Oh, there it is. El Che? Yup.), it was on there. (Table Donkey & Stick? Aha, found one!) The obvious omissions are places so popular they hardly need the publicity boost—so no Alinea, no Frontera/Topolobampo, no Girl & the Goat, all of which transcend mere mortal food media. Anyway, it’s a perfectly solid list; I already linked it in a guide I wrote for a meeting my wife is planning here in the fall.

2. STRIBBED DOWN

One plotline in The Bear’s third season revolves around the impact of a Tribune restaurant review. Louisa Chu, who holds the post of reviewer and was just nominated for a James Beard award for it, writes about what she thinks they got wrong about her paper’s process:

That review never should have been based on a free dish!

If Sydney had offered her plate to me, I would have automatically declined, saying I appreciate the offer, but can’t accept, because I want to support a small business. That’s my standard response on those rare occasions. Ultimately, I would’ve gone back to order the dish on my own before ever mentioning it in a review.

But we know that didn’t happen because the risotto with the “ribbon of brine” never made it to the menu even as a special!

Here’s what I find wrong with the episode: the reality is that the Trib has run very few full, Phil Vettel-style reviews this year, certainly fewer than announcements about openings in Naperville or cooking pieces from something called The Kitchn—or coverage of The Bear. So far as I can see, Louisa’s last review was June 3, for Sweet Rabbit Bakery. Think of any hot recent opening—Maxwells Trading, Johns Food and Wine, Brasero, Cariño—and you will not find a Trib review, though maybe a pre-opening announcement, or something like Johns being included in a corned beef roundup.

What you will find this week is short reviews for three relatively modest-priced places, written by three newish Trib food reporters. Nothing wrong with that, but part of what makes a reviewer someone you trust and pay attention to is getting to know them over the course of many reviews—not that they turn up once every six months:

So as we pass the halfway point of 2024, the Tribune food team offers looks at three notable places that have opened in recent months.

These reviews are unstarred, as we only visited each place once, instead of the usual two visits for full reviews.

I suspect that last sentence offers the vital clue: that there’s no dining budget at the Trib these days, or maybe only enough of Alden Capital’s money for Louisa to review one a month. Anyway, Ahmed Aki Akbar reviews Al-Diar a Yemeni place in River North;

At Al-Diar, I ordered my go-to dishes; they were very much worth returning for. I mistakenly thought I was ordering a half mandi and haneeth — I actually had to choose between the two preparations, which the owners say are similar but vary in seasoning. The Adeni chai ($1.99) was closer to a karak chai in the South Asian style — quite dark and milky.

Food editor Kayla Samoy on Bayan Ko Diner:

…the diner’s most popular dish is another Filipino classic, the sisig. Their version is a sisig shishito hash ($18), featuring chewy chopped pork belly that wasn’t too fatty, tender and crispy breakfast potatoes, a creamy sunny side egg and a soy black vinegar aioli that added just the right hint of acidity to the whole dish. Sometimes sisig can be too rich and greasy, but this one was nicely balanced and came with a fragrant garlic fried rice to add even more flavor.

and Lauryn Azu on Casa Madai in Pilsen:

This spring’s opening of Casa Madai in the Pilsen neighborhood brought what is perhaps Chicago’s first Japanese omakase restaurant owned by a Mexican American chef to the Lower West Side, where he is connecting foodways oceans away from one another in each dish.

Not that I object to covering these places—not long ago I’d have been delighted to see Vettel cover a Filipino diner (the only one of these I’ve been to). But maybe next season they should have a genuine 2020s storyline in which The Bear depends on a good review from a guy who starts his reviews with eight paragraphs on his favorite 80s band.

3. CARIÑO CARIÑO

Meanwhile, John Kessler is, at least part of the time, making his way through the expensive restaurants that, nevertheless, readers may want to know if they’re worth their special occasion bucks. That means considering a lot of tasting menus, which he admits he’s not so much a fan of:

I go to a tasting-menu restaurant and the server spiels each dish over loud music, listing a dozen arcane ingredients bound up in a story. I nod politely, then ask my companion, “Did she say this was salmon?”

With a limited number of review slots each year, he and dining editor Amy Cavanaugh don’t want to just review rarefied, super-expensive things. Some months back I was talking with him about new openings (imagine that) and he was expressing some doubt about the need to review tiny, expensive Cariño, just one of several tasting menus to open of late. How many readers would actually go there, or could even fit there? (It seats maybe 25 or 30, including the chef’s counter.) I urged him to do it anyway, because to me chef Norman Fenton (who I wrote about when he was at Schwa) is important, Mexican flavors are important in Chicago, and, well, if he doesn’t, who will? I am happy to say that he did, and seems glad he did:

A meal at Cariño means cucumber-jalapeño aguachile with Ora King salmon, a churro unlike any other, and many dishes based on masa ground from corn that Fenton nixtamalizes in the kitchen. He is one of the most technically proficient modernist chefs working today — a man who can tweezer, foam, gel, and encapsulate like no one’s business and create visual art with his dishes. He also seems to have a lot of fun doing so, cooking with a level of maturity and insight that sets him apart. His best dishes forge an emotional connection; you feel them.

He says it was the taco omakase that convinced him to cover Cariño, not only because it’s more affordable but because, simply, he liked it even more:

The meal begins with smaller versions of a few dishes from the tasting menu, including that salmon aguachile and a michelada oyster hiding in its Tajín-dusted shell under Clamato spheres and beer foam. The tacos arrive on hot-off-the-griddle tortillas, which are exemplars of form, so nutty and toasty you want to inhale them.

Final verdict was three stars for the tasting menu at Cariño—and three and a half for the $100 taco omakase.

4. FRONTIER TOWN

Speaking of Frontera Grill as being too classic for Chicago mag’s list, that’s exactly why it’s the latest classic for Steve Dolinsky to feature. Here’s a story Rick Bayless did not tell me for my book:

“I was super stressed when we opened up because the first table that came to our restaurant sat down, opened the menus, closed the menus, got up, said ‘This is not Mexican food, you’ll be out of business in six months,’” he said.

5. SANTA MAS IS COMING TO TOWN

Santa Masa Tamaleria isn’t exactly new—it existed before COVID, including the Italian beef tamale that is bound to turn up in any coverage—but it has not only returned, but in a permanent location, near Harlem and Addison. Titus Ruscitti raced right there:

Classic tamales made with corn husk are front and center here as their old pop up helped spawn the restaurant. Both Danny [Espinoza] and his wife Jhoana come from tamale making families, his from Michoacán and hers from Mexico City. The menu lets you choose from five tamales including the classic red and green varieties made with chicken in tomatillo sauce and chicken in Guajillo Chile sauce.

…They also feature a Tamale Del Mes which takes us back to my previous mention of the The Bear. This month’s special is an Italian beef tamale that pre-dates the show but they brought it back to celebrate the release of the third season.

6. IRENE CARA CARA

Michael Nagrant asks, Why Aren’t There More Michelin-Starred Female Chefs? I can think of several reasons, beginning with “Because they’re so French!” But for me the question is, why aren’t there female-owned restaurant groups, which would foster more young female chefs. The answer, to me, lies in an underappreciated aspect of our food scene—the trader to restaurant owner pipeline (Donnie Madia, Rob Katz, etc.) Not that that they don’t support women chefs—Madia’s first head chef after Paul Kahan was Koren Grieveson at Avec, and Katz seems to have done all right with a chef named Stephanie Izard—but a comparable woman-owned group would doubtless have more. Anyway, read his take here.

Meanwhile, he goes to Cara Cara Club, from the Nine Bar people, in what was recently the Big Kids space in Logan Square, which claims a French-Spanish coastal influence:

After a few sips of the Saint Tropez cocktail (dickel rye – cappelletti – amaro nonino – french cantaloupe – citrus) where bitter and melon sock it out on your tongue, you do start to believe the night will end at a villa snorting coke with a prince who decides now is the time to absolve his guilt about the one night he accidentally murdered a random stranger. All in all, the Saint Tropez is a wildly delicious luxe private jet variant on the Paper Plane cocktail.

In the same piece, he also visited Bar Parisette:

What I believe about [owner Matt] Sussman (Table Donkey Stick) is he’s just very good at what he does. He knows wine, vibe, and food, and he cares about people. Whether one of his places ends up resonating to the point of being iconic or not is for the fickle gods of fate, but no matter what, his restaurants are always going to be “warm hugs”, inviting comfortable delicious eateries.

7. CUCKOO FOR CHICKEN WINGS

Dennis Lee finds a Chinese-owned Korean fried chicken place in Anderonville, called Cuckoo:

But here’s the thing about Cuckoo’s wings that I find highly unusual: the crust on the chicken here is not like most Korean fried chicken wings.

Korean chicken wings typically have a very crunchy exterior. That’s due to the fact that they’re dipped in a very thin batter that clings tightly to the chicken, and because they’re double fried.

Cuckoo’s wings are much different. The crust is puffy and somewhat soft, which means they don’t offer much by way of crunch. I wouldn’t have identified them as Korean-style if you hadn’t told me what they were.

8. VAL’S HALLA

The Infatuation seems to be the first one to review the new incarnation of Valhalla in the old Mirai space, and they give it 9.0 out of 10, the highest rating I can remember seeing on their site:

During Valhalla’s $198 tasting menu, you’ll encounter a letter opener and sea salt that looks like a dinosaur egg. None of this is typical dinner table paraphernalia. But they’re essential to the experience—a 13-course dinner at a 14-seat chef’s counter in Wicker Park, and one of the most all-around inventive additions to Chicago’s crowded fine dining scene.

9. PUTT PUTT TO VITO & NICK’S

There have been a couple of stories of late about fast food chains in Chicago, which Fooditor absolutely does not care about—leave it to somebody like The Takeout to tell us all about Jack in the Box coming here or about Pizza Hut doing a (pale Imitation of) Chicago tavern cut thin crust pizza. Nonetheless, some people who actually know something about pizza have felt the need to weigh in on the latter. Steve Dolinsky analzyed it on an Instagram video that plays like a forensic scene on CSI: Italian Food, and  at Block Club, John Carruthers (Crust Fund Pizza) takes a look at it as well:

Credit where credit is due, the crust is extremely thin — if not quite Kim’s Uncle or Pat’s thin, it’s edging up to it. It’s also docked, which many pizza makers do to ensure even curing and/or baking. But there’s no discernible flavor to the crust itself. In a city where “cracker” is a positive pizza descriptor, this is cracker [pejorative].

So that should settle the question of serious food people pondering fast food pizza… wait, what’s that? Did John Kessler just say, Hold my beer? He actually compares Pat’s Pizza to, not Pizza Hut, but Domino’s, the closest thing to Saturday Night Live’s “Almost Pizza.” Apparently, Southerners have an unaccountable love for America’s Baseline Generic Pizza:

The bratty, contrarian spirit lurking inside me has long wanted to set up a taste test between Domino’s Crunchy Thin Crust pizza and a standard bearer for Chicago tavern-style pie. Though this sounds like a stunt, I’ve been honestly curious to see how they would compare; I do really like tavern-style pizzas and, in a previous life, I really liked Domino’s. I like the same thing about both: the cut, the crunch, the corners.

So how does independent Chicago pizza compare against the Corporate Pizza Colossus of Ann Arbor?

I found that Pat’s pizza had milkier cheese and tomato-ier sauce, both of which easily detached themselves from the crust when we tried to pry pieces apart. The crust was spotted black from the oven and crunchy in the way of, say, the corner of a flour tortilla quesadilla or a pita chip. I liked it. The Domino’s pizza on the other hand was blander but better constructed, with a uniformly golden brown crust and a sheer cheese topping that melded into it. It tasted like it had more fat in the dough, so it was both super thin and super flaky, like the bottom of a buttery croissant.

Pat’s is not my favorite Chicago thin crust, because the crust is so thin that it never fed my family and two growing boys; there just wasn’t enough dough to fill them up. I’d pick Armand’s or Bartoli’s for ones near me, or travel far afield to Vito & Nick’s, Chester’s in Summit, or Roseangela in Beverly. But that’s me expecting thin crust to do what Domino’s does quite successfully—fill you up with bread.

10. WIENER HISTORY

At NewCity, Cynthia Clampitt on the story of encased meats in Chicago:

Although Packing Town and the Stock Yards are gone, it would be a mistake to think that the age of processing meat in Chicago was ever left behind. Many butchers, processors and sausage makers still make Chicago home, and while there are recent additions to the area, there are even several that started before the Union Stock Yards closed in 1971. Our city still provides savory options for lovers of charcuterie.

Among the oldest processors is Makowski’s Real Sausage, which was started in 1920 by the great-grandfather of the current owner and sausage maker, Nicole Makowski.

11. LISTEN UP

WBEZ’S Reset looks into the 50-year growth of Patel Brothers into the largest Indian grocery chain in the country.

At The Dining Table, David Manilow and Ally Marriotti have some background stories on The Bear, and then they talk movies about food. I kind of expected the usual suspects, and yes, Tampopo and Big Night are on there, but I was pleased to hear mention of The Taste of Things, a lovely French film from 2023.

Having talked to podcaster Michael Muser last week, this week Joiners talk to podcaster Thomas Oh, of En Process and also owner of Perilla, which just opened a Korean steakhouse in a hotel near Michigan and Wacker. Can’t link it as there isn’t one yet, but it’s the latest episode at any podcast app.