1. THE TRIBUNE BIENNIAL
The opening sentence of the Tribune’s Critic’s Choice Food Awards acknowledge that it’s been over two years since they last gave them out—a tacit acknowledgement that the Trib only intermittently does the things you expect the largest paper in town to do any more, like review new restaurants every week. So here they are with nine awards covering restaurants that opened in most of 2023 and 2024. We get a black-owned barbecue spot (with a white pitmaster), Sanders BBQ Supply, a Mexican restaurant led by a French family (Mariscos San Pedro), an Asian duo with a mid-range artisanal restaurant (Erling Wu-Bower and Chris Jung of Maxwells Trading), and even a couple of white guys with a restaurant (Adam McFarland and Tom Rogers of Johns Food and Wine—apparently not using an apostrophe in your name is a requirement for winning).
Co-author Louisa Chu toots her own horn a little, in telling the story of how one Chicago classic (Calumet Fisheries) survived long enough to win their “Outstanding Chicago Classic” award, and given the story, I can’t blame her a bit:
I did not know that the business was in danger of closing, due to a lack of demand for the traditional smoked fish, when I spoke with then-manager Carlos Rosas in 2008.
Full disclosure: I brought Anthony Bourdain to Calumet Fisheries that summer, to see the last wood-burning seafood smokehouse on the Calumet River for an episode of “Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations.” Tony and I shared silky smoked salmon, which we ate with bare hands, and snappy smoked shrimp, which we peeled with our fingers. The Chicago episode of the show premiered in 2009. The next day a nonstop stream of customers came, said Kotlick, and the shack sold out of food.
2. OMATACO
Grimod at Understanding Hospitality goes for a Taco Omakase—not the one at Cariño, but the new one at Mariscos San Pedro. He’d already had one from the same chefs at Taqueria Chingon:
Mariscos San Pedro’s “Taco Omakase” is not just a relocation of what Chingón did before, but an expansion and evolution of the same idea: a crown jewel offering within a bustling restaurant that, indeed, may be looking to win Bibendum’s favor once more. Rather quietly, it represents one of the most exciting debuts of the year—a destination tasting menu, tailored to its neighborhood (at a time when S.K.Y. is now departing) yet also (as this collective of chefs has always sought) transcending the suffocating effects of convention or “authenticity.”
3. IN A PICCOLO
Piccolo Sogno has been around for 17 years, and I wonder how many of those years it’s been since it last had major media coverage; it just chugs along at Grand and Milwaukee. Steve Dolinsky (re) visits it for his Chicago classics series:
“Our goal was, and still is, to just be a local, neighborhood Italian restaurant featuring local ingredients and imported Italian ingredients,” said Tony Priolo, the Chef and Co-Owner of Piccolo Sogno.
For Priolo and wine expert Ciro Longobardo, their “little dream” – known as Piccolo Sogno – launched in 2008 and continues drawing fans to the corner of Halsted and Grand.
“Since Day 1, everything we sell, we try to make. Bread sticks, bread, you name it,” he said.
4. THAT BOTTLE OF GALLIANO
I have no idea what you used Galliano for, but the tall, skinny bottle of a yellow liqueur seemed to be a fixture of adult homes when I was a kid. So there’s a new place called Gus’s Sip and Dip in River North, and Michael Nagrant went to it, and one of the things he had there was a 70s-style Harvey Wallbanger— which it turns out, is where a lot of that Galliano went:
The slim tall peak-shape of a Galliano bottle means it doesn’t fit in a liquor cabinet and no one needs a one hit wonder anyway. Once the ad campaign fell off, disco died, and cocaine ascended, very few people were making Wallbangers post 1980.
That’s probably why it took me about forty years to try one last week at Chicago’s new home of the Harvey Wallbanger, Gus’ Sip & Dip.
Meanwhile, he also has food, dropping a significant factoid along the way about who owns the place:
It’s never in doubt that Lettuce Entertain You knows what it’s doing, but lately I’ve found a lack of consistency from dish to dish at many of their newer spots. There is no such concern at Gus’, where executive chef Bob Broskey runs an incredibly tight galley.
The ceviche is a killer sundae of seafood featuring briny, limey fish nuggets and crackling slivers of radish.
Artichoke fritters have a puffy donut quality and speak to my love of the historic defunct game-changing Gordon restaurant which once used artichoke fritters as its appetizer calling card.
Don’t tell me the Gus’ “smoked ham” is JUST a ham sandwich. It’s not. It’s gossamer sheets of pork whispered with brown sugar piled between a crackling crust inspired by Spain’s pan de cristal that has an integrity which holds up to multiple dips in the side of tangy mustard jus.
5. KENTUCKY KERNELS
Titus Ruscitti satisfies your roadfood itch with a drive through Kentucky, starting with the semi-legendary breakfast sausage at the 150 Quick Stop in Bardstown, and tell me this doesn’t make you want to start driving:
This gas station / convenience store is home to some of the best breakfast sausage in the world. You’ll find it in Bardstown which is in the heart of the states bourbon producing territory (about an hour southeast of Louisville). I was turned onto to this top sausage by Chef Newman Miller, a friend of mine who lives in the area. Actually he and the sausage at 150 Quick Stop made an appearance in an article at Food & Wine Magazine which you can see HERE. The recipe to this sausage might’ve been won in a local poker game, or lost depending on how you look at it. So the story goes the owners of the truck stop beat a local butcher in a poker game and won his breakfast sausage recipe in doing so. It’s a spicy sage forward blend with plenty of red pepper flakes found throughout. If you show up early enough you can try it in a biscuit – they make up to 600 a day. I arrived around 11a on my visit and it was already too late to score a sausage biscuit but they also sell it raw in two sizes and since we were on our way to Carolina for a week of outdoor stuff I made sure to grab some for the AirBNB. It really is the best damn sausage I’ve ever had as far as the breakfast variety goes.
6. QUIT BALKIN’
Balkan food, not hard to find around town but seldom celebrated, already has representation at Rose Mary, but it’s about to get more with the arrival of a restaurant from the D.C. area, Ambar. Daniel Hautzinger has the story at WTTW:
The menu is broken up into categories such as spreads – featuring the ubiquitous dairy-based kajmak and roasted pepper ajvar – grilled kebabs and sausages like ćevapi; vegetables reflecting the bounty of the Mediterranean climate like eggplant moussaka and the chopped salad of pepper, onion, tomato, cucumber, and feta called shopska; and baked goods such as the traditional coiled, stuffed pastry known as burek. Part of the reason the Serbian [owner Ivan] Iričanin decided to open a Balkan rather than just Serbian restaurant was so that he could include seafood; Serbia is landlocked.
7. BUG OUT
The first time I met Rebecca Fyffe, I was wearing a fly mask with antennae on my head. That’s because we were co-presenters of an award at the Jean Banchet Awards for 2023; she’s a professional pest controller (and I’m a ham any time someone tells me to be on stage). Anyway, we’ve since become friends, as she has two connections to the restaurant world—eating its food and killing its pests. Friend of Fooditor Cynthia Clampitt tells the story of her and her company, Landmark Pest Control, at NewCity:
While Landmark now has a huge number of clients, Fyffe’s personal affinity for food and cooking affects how she feels about her culinary clients. “The restaurants we service make up only five percent of my company’s annual revenue, but caring for them is a labor of love for me and I choose to spend a lot of my time there. I review every post-service report for every visit that we make to our restaurant clients’ locations, and I reach out to them when there’s something they need to know.”
8. SNACK OUT ON 101
More roadfood inspiration from Sandwich Tribunal—a California road trip that includes what he ranks a find for Santa Maria Tri-Tip sandwiches:
Pappy’s had a vibe that seemed very, to put it in my friend Chris’ words from our post on Chicago’s Francheezie, “old person restaurant.” It felt like a Denny’s with a very slight edge. But the food looked great and when I asked our waitress what made the BBQ “Santa Maria Style” she didn’t hesitate when answering “it’s cooked over red oak.” We ordered the sandwich with salsa and a side of pinquito beans and split it.
…Pappy’s salsa was mild but made in-house and featured fresh tomatoes studded with bits of minced green onion and mild chilies. I did not notice celery in Pappy’s salsa but that appears to be a hallmark of the style. Pappy’s was the find of the trip, and if we ever do make it back to Santa Maria to visit the Garey Store, we’ll be sure to stop by this diner again.
9. LISTEN UP
The Dining Table talks to a name you’re about to hear a lot of: Cliff Rome, who is the point man for food service at the soon-to-open Obama Presidential Center.
Joiners talks to industry vet and martial arts afficionado Jason Chan (Gavroche).
Supper With Sylvia talks to Mike Satinover (Akahoshi Ramen).
WHAT MIKE ATE
Went to hot-hot-hot Hawaiian/Filipino spot Kanin for a quick bite—well, not that quick as even on Wednesday at 11:45 the line still went out the door. But I pretty much loved everything I had, and would have rated it in my top meals in Hawaii last fall, not something I would have said about any previous Hawaiian place in Chicago. I had both of the skewers they offered—pork with chimmichurri and chicken with a sweetish marinade– as well as musubi with tempura shrimp; my son’s girlfriend (who partly grew up on Hawaii so it’s nostalgia food for her) had the spam musubi and the musubi with longaniza and egg and pronounced both excellent. I also had a couple of bites of her UBP (Universal Basic… no, wait, Ube Banana Pudding) which was pretty delicious. For barely being open a week they seemed to have their act together and to move the crowds through efficiently.
They’re next to Side Practice Coffee, and I see that another Filipino place I sampled in a pop-up there—Del Sur Bakery—also opened, a few blocks south, on Saturday. (WTTW has a piece about it here.) Who knew the north end of Damen would become a dining destination?