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Amy Cavanaugh: Welcome to Dish From Chicago Magazine. I’m Amy Cavanaugh, Chicago magazine’s dining editor. 

John Kessler: I’m John Kessler, Chicago magazine’s dining critic.

Amy: Today we’re talking about John’s two latest reviews. One is on Creepies, the new restaurant from the Elske team, and the other one is on reviews of two big, new tavern pizza spots. Plus we’ll share the best things we’ve eaten lately, which includes a tasty lamb dish.

Amy: John, let’s start with Creepies. Creepies is the new restaurant from David and Anna Posey, who have Elske next door in the West Loop. It is a French Midwestern bistro, and it’s currently the most talked about restaurant in town. I’ve been once. You’ve been a few times. What’s your initial take on it?

John: I mean, it is great at its mash up, I think, in terms of the menu, the design and the vibe. It does this magical thing where it feels like it’s 100% a French bistro and 100% a basement rec room in Kenosha, Wisconsin. It is a weird thing they do, and they do it very well.

Amy: Yeah, I would agree. I was in Paris last year, and when I was dining at Creepies, it really did remind me of some of the places I ate there. But at the same time, yes, if it was in, you know, rural Wisconsin, it would also have felt right at home. So they completely nailed the ambience of that space. Let’s talk about the food menu. I mean, I think that there are some dishes that have rightly been getting a lot of buzz. The brie-stuffed gougères are phenomenal. I loved the raspberry meringue dessert. And then I know that you had some real standouts as well.

John: Yeah, I felt like they have taken some recipes and just really worked on them and figured out how to make them their best selves. I love the roast chicken. It has liver in the sauce. It is that great mix of being kind of firm and juicy, but also very crisp-skinned. And I should rewind a second and say the liver in the sauce is really nice. It isn’t livery. It isn’t like, you know, molten liverwurst. It is just, it’s rich, it’s unctuous. It just has this great kind of sneaky bite to it. I thought that was a super successful dish. I also love their French fries, which are cooked in a mixture of clarified butter and rice bran oil, which has a very high smoke point, so they’re super crisp, but also, like very buttery tasting. They kind of snap, like really good, you know, crunchy french fries, but then they taste sort of like a baked potato that you’ve put a half a stick of butter on top of. So I thought they were great.

Amy: I saw those fries on every table when I was there. And the other dish that I felt like I saw going out the most was the mussels, which, even before I went, everyone’s like, we have to try the mussels. And they’re really totally like, there’s something different. They’re very cool. I thought they were very tasty. What were your thoughts on those?

Amy: Yeah, that was a really cool one. So I know that you know, Anna and David aren’t necessarily there day to day. Who’s handling the kitchen here?

John: Super tasty. They are very fresh Bangs Island mussels, very plump and big, so they can cook them, serve them on the half shell. And then they’re in this fennel giardiniera sauce that is kind of tangy and buttery. But they also are under this kind of cumulus of foam. So they come to the table, then they just look like, Ooh, what is this? This, you know, big, white, puffy dish of, you’re not quite sure what, and then there are these mussels underneath. And then just the mixture of the kind of crunchy, tangy giardiniera, the warm, really like, briny mussels, and the foam is great. I thought that was a very fun dish.

John: So the chef de cuisine is a woman named Tayler Ploshehanski, and she has been, you know, a low-key strength in a lot of great kitchens around Chicago for years. She cooked a long time with the Poseys at Elske, and she was also the chef de cuisine at Wherewithall, the restaurant, yeah, the Avondale restaurant owned by, you know, Johnny Clark and Beverly Kim from Parachute, and she just has a great, I don’t know — you can just tell that she’s a Francophile by the way she cooks. She really gets bistro food. She loves sauces, and I love her sauces. One thing I tell people is just get a basket of bread, because I really do think you’re going to want to mop bread through all these great sauces she has. There’s a really nice pepper seafood sauce on the halibut. There’s a great sort of demi-glace sauce that goes on her lamb. And just over and over again, she really puts a lot of thought into that. And it feels very French. Yeah.

Amy: And then the beverage program, I think, is also really interesting. I really enjoyed my Vesper. I know that Monica, the beverage director, Monica Casillas-Rios, who handles the drinks at Elske as well, has just added a freezer Sazerac, which is one of my favorite drinks. So I’m eager to go back for that. But tell me about the wine program, too, because I know that we both tried some really interesting stuff there.

John: Yeah, so the wine director is Emily Sher, and I first got to know her a little bit when she was in charge of the beverage program at Cellar Door Provision back in the day. And in fact, she was there when some friends of mine who loved that restaurant decided to have a very low-key wedding there, which I officiated sitting at the table, and she witnessed that, which is very funny. But she is a natural wine enthusiast, and I know for some people that’ll be like, Okay, I’m done. I don’t want that. But go with the, go with the flow there. She has some great, really fun bottles. She has great wines by the glass. She will listen to you. You tell her what you’re looking for, and she’ll find a wine, taste you on it, and the next thing you know, you’re like, Oh, that’s great. Can we all get another bottle of that wine? That was perfect. I tried a really super juicy Grenache that she had recommended, and she has some really offbeat ideas too. Like, you know, with that chicken dish, you might think you want, like a, you know, a Côtes du Rhône or something like you might typically think of medium to hearty red wine with roast chicken. But she goes, “No, no, try this oxidized Chardonnay. It’s really going to work with it.” So, very fun wine program.

Amy: Yeah, that’s awesome. Yeah. It just kind of feels like everyone at this restaurant is having fun. And it’s like really coming through in all elements of it.

John: It is. The desserts, as you said, I think are super fun. That raspberry meringue dessert is great. I also really went pretty gaga for this kind of butterscotch custard they do with lemon and a really bitter chocolate cookie on top of it. That was great. But, yeah, everyone’s having fun. I mean, it’s a little, I will say that my one major note is I don’t get the impression that it’s 100% consistent. Yet. I’ve loved some dishes and then talked to people who’ve said, “Oh, really? Mine came out lukewarm.” Or, “You know, that just didn’t work for me at all, but this one was great.” And so I think they, you know, they need a little more time to figure out how to execute the food and get it to the table so that it’s showing its best. Like they do a really fun sausage and homemade puff pastry to start off with, which I really loved. But, you know, I think they got to figure out how to serve it so that the pastry isn’t kind of soft and flabby right out of the fridge. But maybe yours was crisp and delicious. I don’t know, that’s that’s my impression. But, you know, new restaurant, they all go through growing pains.

Amy: Totally, and it feels like everyone kind of needs a little bit more time these days to be, you know, really fire on all cylinders. We also can’t talk about Creepies without talking about the name, which is weird, but you got the story. You got the story behind it. What does this name mean? 

John: So they were looking for a cool space they could reuse, like a kind of a dive bar that had seen better days. And they just kept joking about looking for the creepy bar. And then when the space next door opened up and they saw how they could make it work, it just stuck. So it was sort of an inside joke, but, you know, it takes a moment, but I really like it, and I love the fact that they have these, you know, little contoured drawings of creepy-looking people like all over their plates and the menu and everything. It’s a really fun concept.

Amy: It is. Those plates are really cute. I posted a photo on Instagram, and I got a lot of comments from friends being like, I want to go based on those plates. 

John: That’s amazing. 

Amy: So your previous review covered two new pizza places, Zarella in River North, which is a Boka spot, and then Pizz’amici, which is in West Town, and which is from Billy and Cecily Federighi, who had Kim’s Uncle in Westmont, and Pizza Fried Chicken Ice Cream before that, and Eat Free Pizza before that. And both of them are getting so much attention. They’re both doing great tavern style, but they’re totally different restaurants, and I’ve been to both. I really love both, and I know that you have a lot of thoughts about these too. So can you tell us about, let’s start with Pizz’amici and then, and then talk about Zarrella.

John: Right, Billy and Cecily Federighi started making pizza out of their apartment that they made with their roommate Brad Shorten and Eat Free Pizza was kind of a pandemic-era Instagram account when people could start getting together again. And, you know, it was basically a thing, like you could reach out to them online and just go to their place and eat pizza as they develop the recipes. Pretty soon, they were doing a pop-up down in that whole Maria’s Tavern-Kimski complex down in Bridgeport, and they were doing a couple different kinds of pizza. They were doing both a Sicilian with a thick crust and a tavern style. I did go down there for the tavern style, and liked it a lot. By the time they went out to Kim’s Uncle Pizza, it was such an incredible scene. I tried a few times to see if I could go out there. It’s in Westmont. You couldn’t really order ahead of time. You had to go. And so I did not do my due diligence. I never tried the pizza out there, did you?

Amy: No, I attempted to go once, and I didn’t call ahead, I didn’t order ahead or anything. And I got there, they’re like, it’ll be like, four hours. It’s like, oh, there’s nowhere to wait for four hours. So it’s like, I’ll come back another time. And then I never did. So I yeah, I also Yeah.

John: So here we are the two major food writers in Chicago who couldn’t do this, but yet, Kenji López-Alt from The New York Times manages, yeah, yes, and wrote this glowing story about the new age of tavern-style pizza, featuring their recipe, which I’ve had friends all over the country say, oh my god, I made that recipe, and I just I saw what, you know, human existence was all about. It was the best thing I’ve ever eaten. But it really did herald this new age of Chicago tavern-style pizza. And so lo and behold, here they are in town making the pizza. It’s a little different now. You know, the recipe they had out at Kim’s Uncle Pizza was made in a rotating Faulds oven, and it was not started with a sourdough crust. This one is and it’s made in more of a deck oven, so it comes out a little different. I can’t compare the two. I will say it is like a delicious mouthful. It is not the thinnest you will ever have, but has a great like texture that, it manages to be kind of pliant and chewy and crispy and brittle all at once in a magical way. They put a lot of very flavorful cheese and really well seasoned tomato sauce on top of it. They have sausage made to their specs that is quite well seasoned. It’s kind of pizza that, like, you will— it’ll be like a box of Krispy Kreme doughnuts. You will have eaten, like, four pieces of it, going, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god. And then suddenly, like, oh geez. What did I just do to my stomach? 

Amy: Yeah.

John: Was that? That was my impression. How did you feel about it? 

John: Oh yeah, the caponata is great, right? 

Amy: The caponata with the focaccia was really delicious. And then what else was there? The Caesar?

John: They do, yeah, they do a lovely Caesar salad that’s quite well dressed and quite punchy. That focaccia, I think, is the stealth MVP. They, it is the kind of focaccia that is so puffed and so crisp and so glossy with oil and pebbly with salt, and it is just like one of the most exemplary pieces of bread in town. So I would say, don’t miss that.

Amy: Yeah, you know, I’ve only been one time so far, although I’m going back soon. And, yeah, we didn’t really wind up eating a ton of it when we were there. Like, I brought some home, and which I normally don’t with the tavern style, because I, you know, they’re it’s so thin that you can usually, like, just take down that whole pizza. So yes, definitely rich. But we also enjoyed, like, some other small plates there as well. 

John: And then Zarella is also doing exceptional tavern style, but they’re also doing two styles of pizza, super, super well, which you really do not see very often, right?

John: So they do what they call their artisan pizza, which is pretty much the same kind of pizza, which is pretty much the recipe that Lee Wolin, the executive chef for the Boka Group developed for Alla Vita in the West Loop. And it’s just a really great, I don’t want to say basic, but it’s, it’s just a pizza person’s pizza. It is crisp on the bottom. It’s like good New York style, but with just a nice puffy crust a little like nice tang to the dough. It’s well seasoned, and it just stays crisp underneath. And I thought it was phenomenal. That was my preferred of the two, although I like them both a lot. How about you? 

Amy: Yeah, I’ve been to Zarella twice and gotten one thin and — or one tavern and one artisan each time. And I really like both quite a bit. I think the flavor of that artisan crust is absolutely delicious. And I forget what topping I got. I got very simple toppings, which I think is the right call on the pizzas here. 

John: It’s the key there. I they have all these, like, I don’t know, sopressata and mortadella with hot peppers. And they had this one with, like, you know, mushrooms and truffle and, you know, it had this, like, unannounced balsamic drizzle, which, you know, I made a crude joke about it in my original review, 

Amy: We removed that. 

John: But yeah, go for the simple toppings. And I should also point out that the tavern-style crust really is great. It’s very thin. It has that nice, dry pebbly undercarriage, so that you just can eat square after square. And you really enjoy that contrast between dryness underneath and all the kind of yummy goo on top. So I think that’s great. And then also, it’s a good restaurant, right? They have some really lovely dip, they have a nice wine list, good cocktails, some of the best fried calamari this side of Club.Lucky. You know?

Amy: Yes, the calamari is terrific. The kale Caesar is fabulous, really. So that’s a must for me, like I will not go there again and not get that kale Caesar. It’s so good.

John: I feel the same way, which is so weird, because I feel like every fiber of my being should hate kale Caesar, because it’s just been so overplayed. And, you know, you just are eating packing peanuts at most places. But this is great.

Amy: It’s so good. So I really think, you know, we’re in this tavern-style moment. And you know, even five years ago, you would say, what are the big tavern places? And you know, it’s Vito and Nick’s, it’s Pat’s. And now we have this whole new crop of places. We have both Pizz’amici and Zarella. We have Novel Pizza, we have Dicey’s, we have Kim’s Uncle. I’m super excited by this, like it really feels like a very fun pizza moment in the city right now. 

John: It does, yeah. I mean, it feels like there’s a mixture of it being a fun pizza moment with some really nice, really interesting recipes happening, and there’s also just this, like, tsunami of a trend I think about to happen where you’re going to start getting tavern-style pizza at Sbarro or something.

Amy: Yeah. Oh, and I should mention, yeah, I went to Dimmi Dimmi a couple weeks ago, and they have a tavern style that I love, too.

John: How the hell did you get in? I’ve been trying, but they’re like, booked out the wazoo.

John: That sounds great. 

Amy: Yeah, I want to go back and have that again. 

John: That sounds like, it’s kind of like, you know, creamy but spicy at the same time. I love that combination.

Amy: I know. I got a reservation for 8:45, on a Sunday night, which is very late for me, but I got there an hour early, just like, oh God, will they please take me early before my bedtime? And they had two bar seats that were open, so we grabbed those. And so people were able to get walk-in bar seats, like, on the later side. So if you wanted to try and go in, like, a little bit later, but the vodka pizza — vodka sauce, ‘nduja, onions — absolutely delicious. Like, I keep thinking about that combination. It’s 

Amy: Yes, yeah, it hit those notes. And it was, you know, in front of everybody at the bar.

John: I mean, if you want me to, you know, write another pizza review — I’m your man. I’m happy to go back and eat some more. That was really fun.

Amy: John, what’s the best thing you ate lately?

John: So after promising I would do so, I did make it to Mirra to try their lamb barbacoa biryani, and it was really good. What a fun dish.

Amy: That’s a really good dish. Yeah.

John: And beautiful, the way it comes out under this, like, golden tortilla dome, that is, you know, just super mahogany and glossy from the oven with, you know, sesame seeds on top of it. It’s just, it’s delicious. It’s a, it’s fun to break into, fun to eat, fun to take home, fun to microwave the leftovers with an egg on top. It’s, you know, yeah, props. How about you?

Amy: Well, I finally went to Buttermilk Fry, the pop-up at Little Victories, which is a fried chicken pop-up. But they are famous for their chicken Caesar wrap. And I know chicken Caesar wraps are super trendy right now, and people are packing in for this one, but it’s super good. It’s really good fried chicken. It’s huge, like you could easily split it with someone and get some of their really tasty loaded fries on the side. We went on a Monday night, and it was pretty chill. But people have been lining up for this, this Caesar wrap. So totally tasty, especially, you know, if you can grab a bar seat and, you know, have it with a High Life or something.

John: You know, I really want to try that, and I’m going to have to harken back to my career as a cook 30 years ago, when I was at a restaurant, and for the special, I put a chicken Caesar burrito on, and the owner yelled at me and said it was the stupidest thing she’d ever seen in her life. So now I feel vindicated. 

Amy: You should, yes.