There’s no restaurant opening in 2023 more desperately anticipated than Carmen “Carmy” Berzatto’s transformation of his brother’s venerable but grotty River North beef joint into a fine dining destina—uhhh, wait. No. I’m thinking of season two of The Bear, the fictionalized heart-attack-on-a-plate that might be the most harrowing depiction of life on the line ever […]
Category: Food & Drink
Posted inMonday Night Foodball
Shaker Barbeque smokes out the next Monday Night Foodball
Mike Shaker’s sausages snap like firecrackers. His brisket melts away like smoked milk chocolate on your tongue. His mac and cheese is a warm, creamy security blanket in the cold, terrifying night. Put them together on one plate and you’ve assembled the formidable, low and slow powers of Shaker Barbeque, headlining the next Monday Night […]
Posted inFood & Drink
Say yes to Bendición Dry Bar
Cristina Torres, the owner of Bendición Dry Bar, is forging a new path among the sober and sober curious.
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Turn up the heat on National Hot Sauce Day with free chicken from Nando’s
Trade in an empty bottle of Nando’s PERi-PERi sauce on January 22, and receive a free 1/4 chicken at Nando’s Nando’s believes that hot sauce and chicken go together like . . . well, like hot sauce and chicken. Just try to name a more iconic duo. We’ll wait. In fact, Nando’s loves this perfect […]
Posted inMonday Night Foodball
Are you ready for some Foodball?
Back in days of yore, when Ludlow Liquors first swung its doors open in Avondale, the work of its kitchen and first chef was described as a “permanent food installation.” In the years since, there’s been nothing permanent about it, as it has been home to an ever-shifting but always interesting cast of weird and […]
Posted inMonday Night Foodball
Nemanja and Marko Milunovic return to Monday Night Foodball
Have you eaten at Aba in the last year? If you’ve taken a table at Lettuce Entertain You’s Israeli-ish Fulton Market concept, there’s a good chance the production and plating of your house-made stracciatella with sherry vinaigrette, truffle-baked orzo, or black garlic shrimp scampi was supervised by Nemanja Milunovic, one of the restaurant’s chefs de […]
Posted inFood & Drink
The chef underground ain’t dead yet
Much like last year (and the year before) I continued to look to the underground and gray market food economy as the place to spot the most interesting, creative, and groundbreaking chefs and foodlums in the city.
Posted inMonday Night Foodball
Witness a miracle of oil with Zeitlin’s Delicatessen and Schneider Provisions at the next Monday Night Foodball
164 BCE: The Maccabees have taken Jerusalem from the Seleucids and begun cleaning up the mess the occupiers left in the Second Temple. They’ve lit up the menorah, but there’s only enough sacred oil to last one day. Yet, on day two it keeps burning. And so it goes on days three, four, five, six, […]
Posted inMonday Night Foodball
Preview a brave new Kimski at the next Monday Night Foodball
Won Kim does not care that your grandma hates his food. One month into a five-month sabbatical from Bridgeport’s Korean-Polish Kimski, and the chef is feeling fine. “I think I did a pretty good job trying to respect each culture,” he says. “I was downright fucking paranoid and scared to honor the babcias and the […]
Posted inFilm
Love, Charlie: The Rise and Fall of Chef Charlie Trotter
One doesn’t have to be a restaurant industry insider to enjoy director Rebecca Halpern’s documentary Love, Charlie.
Posted inMonday Night Foodball
Laos to Your House goes live at the next Monday Night Foodball
Each week “Lucky” and “Pam” Seuamsothabandith walked the floor of the Seaford Clothing factory in Rock Island, Illinois, taking egg roll orders. The plant, which once famously made suits for Barack Obama, was where the couple (Phiengvilay and Phengphanh, respectively) found work after fleeing Laos in the late 70s. When she was a kid, Stacy […]
Posted inFood & Drink
Alt Economy offers mutually aided instruction for hospitality workers
Taylor Hanna taught herself to cook on the job. “I don’t have formal training,” says the 17-year veteran of nine restaurant kitchen lines, and one half of the pickling power duo Vargo Brother Ferments. “Chefs would give me tasks to do and I wouldn’t know what they were talking about. I’d go into the walk-in […]
Posted inMonday Night Foodball
It’s a barbecue Umamicue Friendsgiving at the next Monday Night Foodball
The Pilgrims were not invited to the first Friendsgiving in 1622. The year before all that Puritan-flavored canned cranberry sauce, chalky white meat, and bland so-dry-you-choke-on-it stuffing taught the Wampanoag a lesson. So a few days ahead of November 24, they secretly gathered on the shady side of Plymouth Rock and pregamed their dreary holiday […]
Posted inFilm
How Alinea’s tabletop desserts helped craft The Menu
Will Tracy and Seth Reiss[‘s] time in Chicago helped inspire their view of fine dining, and several experiences they had in and around Chicago are actually reflected in The Menu.
Posted inCity Life
The Chicagoans
The People Issue’s class of 2022 showcases folks from many walks of life. As subjects, their common thread is an incessant need to create welcoming spaces for other individuals like them, enact change, further their craft, do good, and in one instance, amplify the representation of stoner lesbians in graphic novels. Read profiles of 21 people by and as told to 15 Chicago Reader writers.