Riding home on the back of The Creative Director’s motorcycle last night, I passed bar after bar, and with nothing else to do but hold on and occasionally admire the Super Harvest Moon, I peered in all of those bars’ windows and played my favorite game: Been There. John’s Place (been…
Chicago’s hottest restaurants this month
As the Stomach Turns
After a lot of big words and fewer than three weeks of work, Christian Fantoni is already out at Pensiero Ristorante (1566 Oak Ave., Evanston; 847-475-7779), and the owner, Michael Pure, sounds steamed…
PEER REVIEW: Anthony Bourdain is wrong: The food critic is not dead
The underground lair Watershed officially opened last week in the basement of Pops for Champagne. What was once a groovy jazz room is now an artisanal cocktail and craft beer den that our nightlife scout likens to her grandparents’ rural rec room—in a good way. With a drink list of 40-something…
Aren’t you simply exhausted by the endless efforts to be so unchicly chic? Grannies have taken over the runways; nerds are everywhere; and all the new bars are loosely modeled after barns. One more bite of down-home pork and I’ll explode…
TRENDSPOTTING: Table technology
KINDER, GENTLER: Two popular new spots draw crowds the traditional way: with good old-fashioned warmth
It’s not as though Billy Lawless invented noisy restaurants, but when he opened The Gage across from Millennium Park, visions of earplugs danced in our heads. Now Lawless is about to unveil Henri next door, so we had to ask. “Henri will be elegant, very intimate,” he said, throwing around words like “chandeliers” and “settees.” … Read more
Just Like Mama Used to Make
After Aldino’s fizzled within four months, the owner, Scott Harris, flirted with the idea of a college bar, The CooKoo Room. Now, he’s determined to bring tradition back to Little Italy, teaming up with Mary Jo Gennaro…
