1. HOMER NODS
Two corrections to last week’s newsletter, one of them my mistake, one not. My mistake was, I had the idea from somewhere that Oliver’s was co-owned by Oliver Poilevey, probably because he does co-own Mariscos San Pedro, which is also new and on the near south side. But Oliver’s is no relation. Sorry for the confusion.
Then I also said that Table, Donkey and Stick’s series of firepit parties would feature Michael Carlson of Schwa in November. That’s what PR told me but the reality is that Caleb Trahan, who is now at Schwa and used to be at TDS, will be doing one—by himself, not as anything connected to Schwa.
2. BANCHET AWARDS
The nominees for the Jean Banchet Awards will start appearing Monday morning at places like Eater and, they hope, Chicago TV stations, but they’re embargoed as of the time this newsletter goes out. So I have the list but can’t share it (and I only have it because I asked for it, no, I’m not a TV station, but I am someone who covers food to a few thousand foodies and industry people). So we’re all in suspense until that embargo passes—but meanwhile, the nominees are all over Instagram; there’s the Banchets’ own account, which collects what the nominees have posted on their accounts. So, based solely off what the Banchets and the restaurants have themselves made public since Friday, here are the nominees we know so far. There should be four in each category; if not, that just means some haven’t posted about their nominations.
Restaurant of the Year: Elske, Rose Mary, El Che Steakhouse & Bar
Best New Restaurant: Johns Food and Wine, Brasero, Cariño, Oliver’s
Chef of the Year: Kevin Hickey (Duck Inn)
Rising Chef: Chris Jung, Maxwells Trading; Madalyn Durant, Bar Parisette
Neighborhood Restaurant: Daisy’s Po-Boy and Tavern, Le Bouchon, Bungalow by Middle Brow
Heritage Restaurant: New Village Gastropub & Karaoke, Soul and Smoke
Counter Service: Migos Fine Foods, Santa Masa Tamaleria, Ragadan, J.P. Graziano Grocery
Pastry Chef: T.C. Lumbar, Elske; Antonio Incandela, Mariscos San Pedro; Sarah Mispagel-Lustbader & Ben Lustbader, Loaf Lounge; Bo Durham, Mindy’s Bakery
Sommelier: Patty Robison, Acanto
Bar of the Year: Nine Bar
Best Hospitality: Anelya, Dear Margaret, Jeong
Best Design: Brasero
Best Pizza: Milly’s Pizza in the Pan, Robert’s Pizza and Dough Co., Pistores
Look for the rest of the nominees online Monday morning, or go to your mom’s house in Lombard and catch them on TV, I guess.
3. THE ORIGINAL BEEF
A decade ago, I did a series of Italian beef lists for Thrillist—the first one almost certainly the most-read thing I’ve ever written outside of my advertising days. At that time Italian beef was endlessly popular—the followups were all motivated by people responding to that first article with suggestions of other places they can’t believe I didn’t include. Anyway, Italian beef seemed eternal then, but within a few years it was starting to seem an endangered species—as I wrote in this Fooditor piece in 2018:
It’s not that there won’t be a line at Johnnie’s Beef in Elmwood Park, any time you go there, or that people aren’t still standing in two lines for the classic Taylor Street one-two-punch of the original Al’s and Italian lemonade at Mario’s across the street. And it’s certainly not that Chicagoans won’t eat beef—burgers are bigger than ever, in all senses of the term. But part of the measure of whether a food tradition is alive is whether people are still opening new places, not just visiting classic old ones.
Well, that was then, before a certain TV show made Italian beef hot again (even if the series is about trying to serve things other than Italian beef). Anyway, Italian beef is having a moment, as evidenced by this month’s cover of Chicago magazine. They have a full “package” (as magazine people say) on Italian beef. Amy Cavanaugh has the philosophical piece:
Of the three foods most synonymous with this city — hot dogs and pizza are the other two, of course — Italian beef is the least known outside our borders. Though it has analogues, like a French dip or beef po’ boy, it’s entirely possible visitors here may have never had anything closely resembling this wet-bread sandwich. So through The Bear, folks are being initiated into a secret Chicago club — one that requires a special lingo for ordering.
Titus Ruscitti has the top ten list, which just to shake it up (you know he’s going to include Johnnie’s and Al’s, of course) dives deep into the far south suburbs to come up with some you don’t already know (Frangella in Palos Park, for instance). While we’re at it, I had a beef at Bob-O’s not long ago, after it won first place in a WGN Radio contest, but honestly it seems a little dry compared to some of the great names. But good fries (and an absurd amount of them), so it’s a real Chicago fast food spot.
What’s the future of beef? This piece shows three directions Italian beef could be going—meatless, Asian-flavored, and upscale. And Peter Sagal tells you how to eat a beef without looking like a rube from out of town, and Anthony Todd confesses he’d never had one until he tried it at Al’s, and didn’t love it. (Take it from another rube from out of town—you need to try it several times over a period of months or years to develop a taste for its rugged minimalism, compared to the easy excess of a Philly cheese steak.)
4. PIZZA PIZZA
The Trib has a piece on two new pizzas south of Roosevelt. Lynn’s Pizza is aiming to bring deep dish to pizza-deprived Woodlawn:
Brightening up 61st Street in Woodlawn since August, Lynn’s Chicago Pizza is trying to convert South Side deep-dish skeptics with small batches of pies and the human touch of a two-person partnership. After experimenting with pop-ups, the pizzeria is the first brick-and-mortar from co-owners Brandon Bruner Sr. and Lynn Humphreys.
While Novel Pizza is a new spot in Pilsen blending Mexi an and Filipino flavors with pizza:
Novel’s longanisa and giardiniera pie is its riff on the Chicago classic. Caruso’s Hot Giardiniera is paired with the traditionally red and sweet Filipino breakfast sausage, which gets diced and layered on a yeasty cracker-thin crust, acidic and crunchy in each bite.
5. HOT DOGS! GITCHUR HOT DOGS!
Michael Nagrant on a subject that doesn’t mean much to me, but might to others: why stadium food in Chicago sucks. I’m not convinced that his answer (they’re all getting their butts kissed by influencers) is the answer—at least, I can remember very few invites to anything involving a stadium, and the closest I’ve ever gotten to one was attending an opening event for Mordecai’s, across the street from Wrigley Field—but still, it’s interesting.
6. LET THEM EAT CANDY
The kids, that is, but for grownups, Steve Dolinsky suggests a bakery called Broken Tart in Oak Park. Though their idea of “sweets” is a little unusual:
[Co-owner Katie] Mack is more front-of-the-house and marketing. But it doesn’t take an MBA to promote cakes this compelling. Not just decadent chocolate, housing a seasonal blueberry compote, but also passionfruit chiffon and ricotta chip. Ironically, their best seller is a breakfast item usually taking a back seat to biscuits.
“Our top-selling item – the one people that come here from all over to buy – is our kale salad scone. Aged cheddar, chopped kale and golden raisins; this perfect blend of sweet and savory and crunchy.”
7. SUB STANDARD
The Infatuation has been touting a roundup of Italian subs they did, with pics of the staff tasting a dozen different subs in a conference room (because it’s not like the old school flavor of the sub shops themselves has anything to do with it). Anyway, it’s not a bad list, but I was surprised to see the (much beloved, but about as Italian as Stuttgart) Paulina Market turn up at #1 (over Graziano, Tempesta, and many others). What’s less surprising was Paulina’s reaction to being inundated with twentysomething Infatuation readers:
Due to high demand we have suspended online sandwich ordering. We will have them available to purchase in the store but you will need to grab a number and wait. Sorry for the inconvenience. As a reminder the Sandwich Corner closes at 5pm during the week and 4pm on Saturdays.
Personally, though my favorite is Graziano, when I don’t feel like heading downtown and dealing with parking etc., my go-to is Original Nottoli & Son on west Belmont—not the (unrelated) Nottoli on Harlem they list.
8. NOODLES AT 11
Homemade noodles might be the next thing in Chicago food; I really like the Taiwanese ones at Minyoli in Andersonville, and Titus Ruscitti talks about the ones at Bigsuda, a new dumpling and noodle shop on Milwaukee from the owners of Oiistar:
The noodles were the other item I was interested in trying as Oiistar helped change the city’s ramen game back when it first opened. The “fiery stir champon” is right up my alley as I always enjoy a bowl of Champon Noodles when the chance arises. Champon is a regional dish native to Nagasaki Japan by way of China. Though there’s different versions in Japan and Korea and China the basis of Champon is made by frying pork, seafood, and vegetables with lard and adding a broth made with chicken and or pig. Ramen noodles made especially for champon are added and boiled in the broth with all of the other stuff making for one big pot of deliciousness.
9. ZAPIE-CANDO
How could you resist a headline like “Justyna Haluch is the zapiekanka queen of Schiller Park”? (Zapiekanka are a kind of open-faced sandwich, or maybe they’re more like French bread pizza.) Mike Sula at the Reader:
Haluch, who’s 28, is the founder of I Love Grill & Lemonade, a food truck and catering operation whose most visible day-to-day presence is in a parking lot on Irving Park Road at the entrance to Schiller Woods-East forest preserve. But since 2018, she’s been a reliable fixture at outdoor weddings, parties, and festivals all over the state and beyond, selling an array of Polish and American fest foods. During the holidays, she hits the Christmas markets with traditional Polish cookies. In 2021, she won the “Best Taste of the Fest” trophy for her pierogi at Pierogi Fest in Whiting, Indiana.
10. THERE IS A TAVERN
As I was telling the story for my book of how restaurants revived different neighborhoods, I don’t think any neighborhood I talked about was so utterly derelict as Printer’s Row—Michael Foley who opened the restaurant Printer’s Row in 1981, recalls old printing buildings with trees growing up through their floors. At NewCity, June Sawyer tells the story of another business that opened within a few years of Foley’s restaurant, Casey’s Tavern:
“People thought I was crazy,” says [owner Bill] White when he told friends what he was about to do.“‘Why would you want to be down there?’ they asked,” referring to Printers Row and the broader South Loop. “But it was the only place I could afford to buy,” he admits. One of the first steps he took was to replace the [boarded-up windows] with glass “so people could actually see in.”
11. PORK, THE OTHER INDIAN FOOD
It’s early to be doing best of 2024 lists, but Bon Appetit just did a best-things-we-ate-in-2024 list and there’s a Chicago entry on the list—the pork chop at Thattu:
Chef Margaret Pak and her team at this South Indian pop-up turned restaurant have incorporated the flavors of her husband’s Keralan roots to showcase a herculean bone-in pork chop that has been deftly marinated in a tomato and curry leaf paste before receiving a deep smoky char. It arrives vibrant and fragrant, artfully draped over a deep-fried yucca cake and coconut-braised greens. It’s finished with a fiery, vinegary peralan sauce that tames the chop’s richness without overpowering the quality pork.
12. LISTEN UP
Michael Nagrant talks to the always entertaining and provocative Won Kim (Kimski).
David Manilow seems to be on a steak streak; a couple of weeks ago he talked to the Gibsons people, and now, in the wake of the death of the previous generation who ran Gene & Georgetti, he talks to the current family member in charge, Michelle Durpetti, about the eight-decade-old steakhouse.
Sandwich Tribunal is a name you know if you’ve been reading Buzz List for a while; now founder Jim Behymer’s doing a sandwich podcast with two other sandwich mavens, Sandwich Talk. Only two episodes so far (go here to see them) but the latest is about peanut butter on sandwiches. I’m betting jelly won’t be the only accompaniment discussed…