Game Plan
Beige leather booths, glossy wood floors, and three-story silk draperies dress up the former Bravo Tapas and Lounge space, but the food and drinks are decidedly unfussy.
Ad Categories: Dining & Drinking
Wine, cheese, and seat belts
Mass Marketing
“About a year ago I made the decision that we had outgrown what we were doing,” says Eric Larson, the owner of Marion Street Cheese Market (100 S. Marion St., Oak Park; 708-848-2088). So Larson moved the market across the street into a 4,200-square-foot space, which houses a retail gourmet shop, a “cheese-centric” 60-seat Euro-style deli and…
My Big, Fat Beer Weekend
New Belgium Brewing‘s past is inextricably linked with biking: Then-homebrewer Jeff Lebesch found his beer muse while cycling through the Belgian countryside nearly 20 years ago, and that trip is forever memorialized by the brewery’s signature amber ale, Fat Tire, named in honor of Lebesch’s trusty, big-treaded mountain bike. Today, the Fort Collins, Colorado, brewery’s lean, green, eco-friendly mandate inspires such events as the 11-city Tour de Fat, a traveling-road-show slash bike-gospel-tent-revival slash suds-fest that rolls into Palmer Square this Saturday, the 21st (9 a.m. to 4 p.m.; free; intersection of Palmer Street and Kedzie Avenue; proceeds benefit West Town Bikes). The event centers on one person…
Front Burner: Graham Elliot Bowles
July 2008: Halibut BLT
Nightspotted: Izard About Town
Celebrity Beat
Chicago’s Stephanie Izard, whose win on the hit Bravo series Top Chef aired last night, spent Tuesday pre-celebrating at Relax Lounge. She arrived at the West Town spot around 10:30 p.m. and stayed until close, sipping Grey Goose and tonics, and hanging out with friends including Dale Levitski, a runner-up from Top Chef’s previous season and a regular Tuesday-night bartender at Relax…
Italian Kicks, Cheap Tricks
Goodbye Milk, Hello Prosciutto
Carol Watson recently shuttered her Milk & Honey Bake Shop (1543 N. Damen Ave.; 773-227-1167) with plans to spin it into Cipollina, an Italian deli. “Business was fine, but I screwed up, quite frankly,” says Watson. “We don’t have a kitchen on site, so we were dragging everything over from Milk & Honey Café [1920 W. Division St.; 773-395-9434], and it was driving me nuts.” Watson is now working with John Manion (Mas) on a menu of…
Rock Star Bar King
Plenty of bars claim to be rock-‘n’-roll inspired (Rockwell Lounge, we hardly knew ye), but come this summer, Chicago finally gets a spot with an actual rock star leading the charge.
Earlier this year at an Obama fundraiser hosted by Fall Out Boy’s Pete Wentz, Lakeview Broadcasting Company’s Stephen Westman gave me the heads-up about Angels & Kings, a nightlife venture he’s launching with pals Wentz and Matt Eisler (Elm Street Liquors, Empire Liquors, Victory Liquors). An opening date of sorts has finally been announced for the bar’s Chicago outpost…
Burned: The Story of Grant Achatz's Cancer Recovery
FROM JUNE 2008: Thirty-three-year-old top chef. Stage-four cancer of the tongue. Grant Achatz has been to hell—and back
Just Say Oui
If, on a map of Wisconsin, you drew one line north from Madison and another west from Green Bay, those lines would intersect, allowing for a degree of artistic license, in Amherst, Wisconsin, home to Central Waters Brewing Company.
Until Memorial Day weekend—the bulk of which I spent shivering at a lakeside campsite in chilly Wisconsin—I’d never heard of Central Waters. For me, the ulterior motive behind any Wisconsin trip is restocking my inventory of New Glarus, the beer that first piqued my curiosity in Midwestern microbrews…
More (More, More) SATC
No surprise here: Thanks to females showing up en masse (see Estrogen Fest 2008), Carrie’s Manolos crushed Indy’s itty bitty crystal skull this weekend at the box office.
At AMC 600 North Michigan Avenue, former Illinois Film Office director Brenda Sexton, and her business partner, Suzie Glickman, hosted a private screening of Sex and the City on Friday night…with about 250 or so of their gal pals. (Take that, Dr. Jones.)…