08/01/07
5 Questions for Elizabeth Dahl, the new pastry chef at Boka (1729 N. Halsted St.; 312-337-6070) D: You've been the pastry chef at Naha for a while now. Why did you leave?
ED: I heard that Giuseppe [Tentori] was hiring. I had dinner with my husband one Sunday night at Boka and we loved his food and I thought: Why not? All of us always keep our eyes and ears open for new opportunities for growth. D: You worked with your husband at Naha, didn't you?
ED: I had come on as my husband's assistant. We planned our wedding while working there. It was definitely very hard to leave. But for the first time, I can work with my own style. [Editors' note: Elizabeth's husband, Tim...
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07/26/07
Bye-Bye Body Sushi
Set to open in three weeks, Ai Sushi Lounge (358 W. Ontario St.; 312-335-9888) is the third brain child of Agnes Yoshikawa and Eugene Chua, the brother-and-sister team who own Tsuki (1441 W. Fullerton Ave.; 773-883-8722) and Ringo (2507 N. Lincoln Ave.; 773-248-5788). Since Toyoji Hemmi, Tsuki's sushi whiz, will now split his time between Tsuki and Ai, we asked Rai Calma, Ai Sushi's general manager, whether we should expect a Tsuki knockoff. "Tsuki is more tapas style. The nigiri and sushi will be there, but this kitchen will focus on entrées, so people can course out a more traditional meal," said Calma. Here's hoping the place does better than the...
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07/19/07
Q & A with Jose Garces
Chef Jose Garces is coming to Chicago. Who’s that? A James Beard–nominee you probably never heard of. After all, we don’t pay a bunch of attention to the Mid-Atlantic category. Maybe we should. Garces is a 35-year-old Chicago-born Kendall grad who owns two highly acclaimed restaurants in Philadelphia: Amada, an Andalusian tapas bar, and Tinto, a Basque-inspired wine bar. And he’s about to launch Chilango, a high-energy Mexican spot in Philly. That’s nice. But, even nicer, Garces plans to open Mercat early next year in the renovated Blackstone Hotel at 600 South Michigan Avenue. We had a few questions for the prodigal son...
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07/18/07
The Early Returns Edition
With a spate of openings all around town, Dish couldn't resist taking the pulse of the newcomers. We tried everything from Turkish pizza to Mexican parillada-with decidedly mixed results. (In general, we give a place a bit of time to get up and running before visiting for the purpose of a review, so regard these comments accordingly.) Here are our first impressions of lots that's new: At the tiny three-week-old aqua-splashed hole-in-the-wall Nazarlik (1650 W. Belmont Ave., 773-327-5800), we gobbled down our made-to-order lahmacun, a.k.a. Turkish pizza. It's a big, thin, irregularly shaped oval crust paved with spicy ground lamb. It's fun to tear off strips and roll them up like cigars,...
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07/12/07
Park Place
"Tavern at the Park (130 E. Randolph St.; 312-552-0070) is not a gastropub," says chef John Hogan; "it's a mainstream American tavern." The 300-seater overlooking Millennium Park, scheduled to open in early August, is the brainchild of Hogan and his partners at Keefer's (20 W. Kinzie St.; 312-467-9525), Glenn and Richard Keefer and Pete deCastro. Expect crowd pleasers such as rotisserie chicken, fresh fish, and pastas, not to mention everybody's new favorites-mini burgers and flatbread pizza. And remember, it's not a gastropub. Fine. We'll take two trends out of three. But Who's Keeping Score?
The restaurant gods must have held a convention and declared July 12th as kickoff...
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07/06/07
We can't speak for the rest of you, but when Del Toro closed suddenly on March 18th of this year, Dish started to fret about where our next Andrew Zimmerman meal would come from. Good news: The talented Bucktown chef has turned up as chef de cuisine at NoMI (Park Hyatt Chicago, 800 N. Michigan Ave.; 312-239-4030). Here's the skinny on his new gig:
D: Are you as surprised as we are that you landed at NoMI?
AZ: This is a job that I had never even thought about. It came from left field. I saw myself running another independent of some kind or another.
D: We know Christophe David is the executive chef at NoMI. What's your position and when did you start?
AZ: Two and a half weeks ago....
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06/27/07
Follow Suit?
Rebecca Charles, the owner of Pearl Oyster Bar, a popular seafood joint in New York's West Village, has sued her former sous-chef Ed McFarland over intellectual property rights, and the juicy story made the front page of The New York Times Wednesday. Charles accuses McFarland of copying "each and every element" of Pearl in his Ed's Lobster Bar (in SoHo). Her grievances include design elements, but the heart of the case swirls around McFarland's caesar salad, which Charles insists came from her own recipe. At the same time, Charles admits that Pearl was inspired by a...
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06/20/07
Water Works
Blue Water Grill (520 N. Dearborn St.; 312-777-1400) expects to take a step up when its new exec chef, Joel Dennis (Tru), begins on June 25th. A grad of the Culinary Institute of America, Dennis worked as Alain Ducasse's sous-chef for four years in New York, and he realizes he's being tapped as the savior of a restaurant that has fallen off the radar. "I'm hoping to breathe some new life into it," he says. "My background is very suitable for that type of environment. I am firmly rooted in four-star dining." He plans to add some intricate dishes to the menu, such as roasted dayboat cod with a chickpea purée, pipérade-style with peppers, onion, chorizo, and a little bit of...
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06/13/07
The Next Chapter
We knew the acclaimed chef Laurent Gras (Fifth Floor in San Francisco) was hooking up with Rich Melman and his Lettuce cronies, but we weren't sure how or where. Now it's clear: Gras is taking over the Ambria space (2300 N. Lincoln Park West; 773-472-5959). "Our goal all along has been to build the best seafood restaurant in all of Chicago," says Melman, who also tried to make a deal (ultimately unsuccessful) in the new Trump building. Ambria's last meal is June 30th, then renovations should begin in July. Melman says his guys are pushing for a November opening for the unnamed restaurant (the name Agnes has been bandied about), but don't hold your...
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06/12/07
Aaron Whitcomb, the highly touted executive chef of Room 21 (2110 S. Wabash Ave.; 312-328-1198), has left. "Aaron is a great chef, but he's a young kid," says owner Jerry Kleiner. [Note: he's 30.] "He was overwhelmed by the volume and the pressure. He just couldn't take it anymore and kept saying it would be best for him to be replaced." Whitcomb says the split was amicable, and would like to work with Kleiner on a smaller restaurant. "I'm not meant to do big restaurants," Whitcomb says. "I'm not used to the owners having as much input on the menu, like Room 21 did. We both knew I wasn't being the chef that he needs at Room 21." Stepping in for Whitcomb is Fred Ramos, a veteran chef currently running the show at...
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