Story highlights from the May 2011 issue of Chicago magazine, including a list of 22 best new restaurants, an interview with Grant Achatz’s money guy, Nick Kokonas, and summer’s must-have trends.
Cover Story Best New Restaurants by Jeff Ruby and Penny Pollack The past year saw more great chefs and bartenders dialing back, steak houses digging deeper than ever, an unlikely sushi standout launched in Ukrainian Village, and a future kitchen stud unleashed on Taylor Street. We cover it all and plenty more in our … Read more
If you want to snag a seat in the Andersonville bar Hopleaf, you might want to aim for, say, 3 p.m. As The Creative Director and I stood on Clark Street around quitting time last night, we sweated every agonizing second it took for our parking slip to print, worrying that each passing moment meant one fewer bar stool…
PAIR OF ACES: Grant Achatz has assumed the mantle of Chicago’s hottest celebrity chef. But Nick Kokonas—the money guy behind the scenes—may be his equal in innovative thinking
At precisely 3:30 yesterday afternoon, I found myself at Public House, the River North bar with the do-it-yourself beer taps that I’d last visited in December, when the 10,000-square-foot behemoth was still under construction…
Coming Attraction
Two brothers are the great-grandsons of Papa Milano, who at one time owned 13 Chicago-area restaurants…
The NCAA men’s basketball semifinals were the purported main event Saturday at the new Noble Square spot Frontier, but all eyes were on the spit-roasted whole pig trotted out from the kitchen and carved up for a party of diners by gastropub staff…
It’s always smart to transition any cultural experience into postculture drinking as seamlessly as possible. Still, I thought The Creative Director was pulling my leg when, after we saw the National Theatre of Scotland’s heart-in-your-throat production of Black Watch at the Broadway Armory on Wednesday night, he said, “Let’s go get a beer at a place called St. Andrew’s…”
Finally! Instead of saddling another major intersection with a blank-faced bank, someone’s taking a stand and opening a bar. Well, a bar inside an old bank.
The brother/sister development team of Eric and Anne Nordness and their partner, Matthew Mering, all of Salita Development, took me on a tour yesterday of their new Wicker Park venture-in-progress, The Bedford…
Noble Prize
The team behind Amelia’s Mestizo Grill in Canaryville, cousins Leo García and Eusevio García, are opening a second spot, and they’re going to a neighborhood that’s as sceney as Canaryville isn’t—Noble Square…
